Spokesgoat

These guys had to poop in bags
until the company was shammed
into allowing bathroom breaks.

Nobody likes Jeff Bezos. Ok, fine, I sure some people do, I don't. I work in the book industry and Bezos's whole thing was to drive all the independent bookstores out of business by strong-arming publishers into allowing Amazon to sell books at below the publisher's price--something we're not allowed to do. It doesn't matter, my point is that after trying to destroy bookstores, they went on to ruin every aspect of American retail, and is responsible for a lot of what's wrong today.

Anyway, now Jeff Bezos splits his time between flying rich people to space in a dick rocket and caving to a gameshow host with nuclear first strike capability. 

"What a time to be alive!"

-everyone, but we mean it

as an exclamation of dismay

"If I pulled a tenth of his nonsense I'd be
out faster than you can say Magna Carta."

-an actual king

Which brings us to the half second I actually respected Amazon earlier today. Evidently, there was a report that the company would display the specific dollar amount added by Trump's ill-advised, incomprehensible, and arguably insane tariffs. You know, the ones currently creating chaos on the global economic stage? Anyway, was it even real? Who knows, the important thing is that the guy who thinks that a narrow 1.5% was not only a landslide, but grants him king-like power was mad. So he got on the horn with Bezos--an odd move as he's the former CEO of Amazon--to demand that he change course. 

It's like, a goat you send out to humiliate
themselves so that your company saves face.

And again, he's not the CEO. But some spokesperson for the company did blather out some preposterous, barely coherent, definitely false, and transparently backslidy explanation saying:

"The team that runs our ultra low cost Amazon Haul store considered the idea of listing import charges on certain products. This was never approved and is not going to happen."

-Tim Doyle, Amazon spokesgoat

Oh, so the company was never going to list the tariff costs, and Jeff Bezos didn't use his influence to pressure Amazon to cave to the White House? That's weird, because two White House sources say that Trump called Jeff Bezos, and now he's definitely taking credit for this. Not explicitly, but in the way a mob boss threatens to trash your newsstand if you don't pay him protection money: "Jeff Bezos is very nice. Terrific. He solved the problem every quickly. He did the right thing. Good guy..."

Pictured: the President calling the guy who doesn't run Amazon about
a thing they weren't going to do in the first place. Have I got that right?

"Something, something, Hunter Biden!"

-Press Secretary Leavitt, in

response to literally all criticism

That's a shame, because when you think about it tariffs are going to have a chilling effect on the economy, and really the people who are going to suffer most are stakeholders in businesses that will be directly affected by--huh? Right, I mean the people who are going to suffer most economically. Obviously this entire administration is hellbent on making as many people suffer as possible. Anyway, I guess what I'm saying is why not show the cost? And why wouldn't the White House want them too? I mean, if they're such a great idea.

Unless, huh...you don't suppose that the tariffs are a terrible idea, and everyone knows it, but that the President is so obsessed with looking tough that actually he'd allow the economy to collapse rather than admit he doesn't know what he's doing, do you? I ask because yesterday's Canadian elections were a stunning turnaround for that country's Liberal Party who won on a platform of anti-trumpism centered largely on the U.S. President's threats of economic war and annexation.

I mean, he is so bad at his job that he's loosing elections in other countries.

So money can buy happiness now?

What even is going on here in this car commercial?

Pictured: a car commercial.
Not pictured: what even is going on here.

Honda CEO: "Design electric car."
Engineers: "Electric car: designed."

It's for an electric car made jointly by Honda and Sony in what I think business people call a collab. The preposterously named Afeela 1 is perhaps the world's most boring EV. Which I guess is why the car's technology and not design, is the selling point. It's stuffed with cameras, and sensors and boasts an AI-powered hands-free driving mode which, just on a pedantic note, isn't driving. Like, if your hands aren't on the wheel, I'm fairly certain you can't be said to be driving the car. 

You are that that point a passenger a best, but given the track record of self-driving vehicles, a human crash test dummy for Honda/Sony at worst. 

"Don't think of them as "fatalities," think of them as
customer feedback that helps us improve our product."

-Self-driving car manufacturers

It's basically a diamond
lane for rich people.

Anyway, the point here is that it's a robot car, which brings us to the weird ad I've seen every time I watch something on Youtube. It opens on a man crying in the driver's seat of his car. A disembodied AI voice then informs him that the road is clearing, and asks him if he'd like to take control. Then we're treated to drone shots of a personality-free car speeding down a winding stretch of the Pacific Coast Highway which I'm beginning to think is closed to all traffic except film crew making luxury car commercials.

As he drives, his mood evidently improves as his face breaks into what I can only imagine this car's AI thinks happiness looks like. So I have questions. 

Above: definitely how a human smiles.

Traffic, pedestrians, and ACME-
branded traps laid by coyotes.

Why was he crying at the beginning of the ad? Is it because his car costs $100K? And why does the AI offer to let him take over now that the road is clearing up ahead? It's just weird. Like, the road is completely empty in the wide shots, so what is it cleared of? And secondly, aren't self-driving cars famously bad at dealing with traffic and pedestrians? Shouldn't it offer to drive on the clear stretches where there'r few bike messengers to mow down, and let the human handle the trickier, more litigious traffic? 

"Afeela: purchasing one
literally makes you happier."

-this ad, apparently

Our story ends with the man parking, running his fingers in an alarmingly affectionate caress down the side of the vehicle, and then gazing out at the majesty of nature. The whole thing is just so unnerving. The m'eh design, the artless intercutting between shots of the car, and the man's increasing happiness, and why was he crying? Why? He's clearly doing alright for himself, did I mention the car costs a hundred thousand dollars? I'm not saying money buys happiness, but this commercial sure is.

It just seems like such a bizarre pitch when all they have to say is "our car company isn't owned by an autocratic right-wing repo-baby" and people will flock to their generic EVs.

What is he doing? Just...stop, stop doing that.
Is this...is this why they call it an "Afeela?"

George Bernard Shaw is a disappointment...

Above: The author of Pygmalion, seen here
probably thinking about ethnic cleansing.

Did you know that George Bernard Shaw was an anti-vaxxer? Yeah, I didn't either, but I'm willing to cut him a little slack since vaccines had been around for less than a hundred years, although he was also a eugenicist, so I don't know, wait, why was I talking about Shaw? Oh, right. I looked him up to make sure I was crediting the right person with the term "Bardolatry," and good news, I am! The bad news however is that I know that he was basically the RFK Jr. of turn of the last century Irish playwrights.

Pictured: a child who's not going 
to die of a preventable disease.

But he did give us Bardolatry, and for that we are grateful. Conflicted now, but grateful. Bardolatry describes the tendency of people to glorify William Shakespeare to the point where you'd think he'd come up with a way to prevent small pox, but exposing people to a small amount of the dead virus. And to be clear, I love Shakespeare, love the plays, and am even attending a fundraiser tonight called the "Shakespeare Gala" which promises to almost certainly be a ninety-minute bardol-a-thon. Which is a word I just coined.

Above: Shakespeare, seen here probably
thinking about plagiarism.

But look, I mean, the guy didn't lock himself in a room one day and just emerge with Hamlet. He was a working playwright and didn't exist in a vacuum. He collaborated with other writers and artists, and because IP wasn't a thing back then, stole freely from some of them. Part of the reason he's so famous is that after he died some of his friends decided to honor his memory by profiting from it, publishing a Best of Shakespeare, we now know as the folio. 

She's done quite well for herself despite
dying in 1623. What is her secret?

Which brings us to his wife, Anne Hathaway--no, not the Anne Hathaway, although I guess 17th century Anne had the name first, but whatever--so that brings us to his wife and the startling assertion that maybe he didn't ditch her for big city playwright life. So the story goes that Shakespeare married an older woman because he got her pregnant and then scarpered-off to London to invent both a sizable portion of the English language and, according to Harold Bloom, the human, which he didn't, so settle down. 

Shakespeare and Anne Hathaway living together in London? Mind-blowing, right? Yes, if you care about such things, otherwise the correct response is, from The Devil Wears Prada? According to Professor Mathew Steggle from Bristol University, a piece of a letter found in 1978, but only know re-evaluated, suggests that the Shakespeares lived together, at least for a time, in London.

Two hundred thousand people lived in London in 1600, so
mind-blowing is directly proportion to how famous someone was.

Sorry Christopher, but nobody's
going to the Marlowe Gala.

The letter was written by someone asking the Shakespeares to turn over some money they owed--which was super-on brand for him--and refers to the couple as having "dwelt in trinitie lane" which is surprising since there'd been no other reference either to that address or to both of the Shakespeares living there. Which I get. I couldn't tell you my last five addresses either, but then I'm not regarded as the greatest writer in the English language. In fact, very few people are. But despite this fame, Shakespeare's life is pretty obscure, and there's just not a lot of first hand evidence. 

Above: Wes Anderson, seen here 
probably thinking twee thoughts.

I think it would be something like if in four hundred years the only extant movies were Wes Anderson's, and scholars were obsessed with accounting for every aspect of his life. Oh, and let's say Variety, and TMZ are lost to history, and we're relying solely on CVS receipts and an Owen Wilson memoir. Obscure, right? So I suppose the discovery of a random email saying that his Temu order is out for delivery to an apartment in Paris would be huge. It would give Andersonian researchers years of paper-fodder.

Maybe nutcases would even come up with elaborate conspiracy theories about Wes Anderson never existed and that Charlie Kaufman directed all his movies. I don't know, the point is Shakespeare was famous, but nobody at the time ever expected him to so famous that four hundred years later his sleeping arrangements would be news and that George Bernard Shaw would have to take time away from his busy schedule of talking nonsense about vaccines to invent a whole word about how famous he is.

For those keeping score, Charlie Kaufman is the Christopher Marlow of
quirky films about universal themes explored through dysfunctional characters.

The Kombuchan invasion fleet is on its way!

Inhabited like, we should prepare for invasion or inhabited in the same way that a kombucha or yogurt is inhabited? Asking for a pre-warp civilization.

I mean, at this point it'd be a mercy.

Should we make a list?

I'm referring of course to The University of Cambridge's announcement that the James Webb Telescope may have discovered life signs on the tediously named K2-18b. That's a planet, but the way. And exo-planet meaning that it's outside our solar system. Not only that, but at one hundred and twenty-five light years away, it's outside the range of our space probes, although I invite as many billionaires as would like to to try. If they head out now, they should make it by the mid twenty-third century.

For the record, Jeff Bezos's phallic
rocket maxes out at 321 kph.

And that's assuming that they'd be traveling at the speed of light which they definitely wouldn't. The fastest human made object, the Parker Solar Probe launched back in 2018. It made it to 635,266 kph, so if we're talking about something similar, the long disintegrated remains of our intrepid one-percenters might make it to K2-18b around the year 214,524 A.D. But what would they find there? Well, nothing, because again, two-hundred thousand years.

Ok, fine, a third of all sci-fi movies
released in the past fifty years...

But let's say they froze themselves in some kind of Encino Man situation. According to the--huh? Um, the 1992 Brendan Fraser/Pauly Shore comedy about a frozen caveman who is thawed out in the present? If you can think of a better cultural reference point, I'd love to hear it. Whatever, it doesn't matter, the billionaire astronauts are just hypothetical. They're far too busy cheating at Paths of Exile and strangling democracy in America to go to space anyway.

"I don't know, maybe aliens?"

-Some scientist

The important question is what's out there, and the answer is a qualified, "I don't know, maybe aliens?" The life signs I mentioned before are not like Star Trek life signs where they can spot a Ferengi from orbit, but instead signs of dimethyl sulfide, which on Earth is only produced by plankton. Which, cool, so humans have discovered pond water. This is a disappointing decade, isn't it? On the other hand, the Earth has pond water, but it also has a sophisticated, technological civilization.

Oh, and about seventy-seven million rubes who may ultimately lead us into and ignominious extinction, but other than them, we're pretty advanced, so who knows? Maybe someday we'll meet the K2-18b-ians. But I'm getting ahead of myself. This is science, and science requires evidence...contrary to whatever the aforementioned rubes might think. There are still a lot of maybe's here and the researchers hope others will independently verify their findings before they say anything definitive, but this is the most exciting thing to come out of space news in some time. And yes, I'm including Katy Perry in space.

I have nothing against her, but don't people--specifically 

astronauts--work their entire lives to get to go to space? 

Oh well, I guess anyone can do karaoke...

Wokerati!

I suppose, in a way, it's comforting to know that the U.S. isn't the only country dealing with fragile conservatives shrieking about how woke is ruining everything. Of course, the U.K. isn't stuck with a deranged autocrat fiddling while the economy and our global standing burns, but still, it's nice to know it's not just us.

I'm sorry, comparing the President to Nero fiddling while Rome burned
is disrespectful and I'm better than this. There were no fiddles in Ancient
Rome, he probably would have had a lyre or something. I apologize.

I mean, how did these people ever
conquer three quarters of the world?

I'm referring to this story about the U.K.'s Conservative Party flipping their wigs...do they still wear wigs? Well, there's no way to know, so let's say, yes? So they're flipping their wigs because the current Prime Minister, and leader of the Labour Party, Keir Starmer, has had a number of paintings taken down at No. 10 Downing Street and replaced them with different paintings. Like a monster. Apparently the Conservatives had to learn this via a freedom on information request, presumably because Starmer wouldn't invite them over for tea. 

Anyone know how to get bronzer
out of centuries-old parchment?

Yes, apparently PM's, like our presidents, get to decorate their own place. You might recall that President Trump recently demanded the original Declaration of Independence be moved to the Oval Office over the objection of the National Archives and like, everyone? Don't worry, they eventually convinced him to take one of the copies. It's a thing world leaders are allowed to do, and Starmer has taken the opportunity to redecorate. It's how he's chosen to redecorate. Gone are paintings of Elizabeth I, Sir Walter Raleigh, several of Winston Churchill, and one of Margaret Thatcher. In their places are piecesfrom a wide variety of artists, including some from outside Britain. 

Sort of like how we call MAGA
people fascists. It's a synonym.

And to be clear, they're not gone like he chucked them in a dumpster and lit them on fire. Starmer's a big supporter of the arts, the works are just in storage. What's making the Torries lose their shit, is that Starmer took down paintings of famous dead white Brittons and put up paintings of and by people who better represent the diversity of country. It's not like--huh? Torries? Sorry, it's another name for the British Conservatives. 

Pictured: J.D. Vance's beard hole, seen
here probably mocking a war hero's
clothes, or calling people peasants.

Speaking of MAGA's, replace "this Labour Government" with "Democrat Party" and this quote from a Conservative MP practically sounds like it tumbled out of J.D. Vance's beard hole:

"It speaks volumes about the Labour Government that they have purged Downing Street of some of the greatest figures in British history...The wokerati now run Britain and want to tear down our past."

-Alex Burghart, MP, and fragile man baby

In our country we're going to forget
who they were because the President
is gutting the Education Department.

So, couple of things. First, some of those greatest figures mentioned above helped invent the trans-Atlantic slave trade. Another fought a whole ass war over the Falklands. But that aside, it's not like everyone's going to forget who Elizabeth I or Shakespeare (also taken down) were because paintings of them aren't on the wall in the British Prime Minister's office. But people might hear about Ghanaian British artist Lynette Yiadom-Boakye because Alex Burghart threw a nutty about her work hanging in Downing Street. So, thanks Alex!

And secondly, as an American, I'd like to apologize to the British people on behalf of our previously reasonable nation for introducing your right-wing nutters to the word "woke." Go on, ask them what it means and watch them squirm. Oh, and good lord, I would pay money, like, pounds sterling, to hear this guy pronounce "wokerati." 

I'm guessing it sounds something like: "wohk-uh-rat-ee?"

Like a warm tauntaun corpse of familiarity.

To be clear, I'm not mad about more Star Wars. I don't know if it's because I'm getting older and am just too damn tired to rant and rail about how new Star Wars isn't as good as old Star Wars, or if my tolerance has been steadily lowered ever since that needlessly long establishing shot of Mos Eisley crammed a bunch of CGI nonsense into the Special Edition version of A New Hope. 

Pictured: CGI nonense.

Especially the singing lesbian space witches.

My point is, if they make it, I'll probably watch it. I have watched it. The Mandalorian, Andor, that Obi-Wan show, uh, Obi-Wan, I guess. And most of it was pretty enjoyable, if not terribly memorable. I even watched The Acolyte. I even liked The Acolyte. Huh? Yes, even the bit with the singing lesbian space witches. And I am kinda disappointed that there's not going to be another season of it. So when Tony Gilroy, the show runner for Andor, says to Business Insider that a Star Wars horror streaming series was in the offing, my reaction is: sure, why not? 

Entries in the series have ranged from kids stuff like Rebels and those made-for-TV Ewok movies to the gritty Rogue One and--speaking of, have you seen that one lately? It's dark. Like, heavy stuff.

Think of the ending of Rogue One, and then remind yourself that
it's set in the same fictional universe as The Phantom Menace.
You know, the one where Jar Jar steps in alien poop.

"Bleh! I vant to create value for shareholders!"

-Bob Iger, in a notably odd investor's call

Anyway, I don't read Business Insider, I just read about the article. And technically, Gilroy didn't say it was a streaming series, but since there's been like sixty streaming series every since Disney started slurping every last bit of profitability out of Lucasfilm like like some kind of starved money vampire, I think it's a safe bet, if a bleak one. Not the existence of such a project, but that we're hearing about it in Business Insider. Like, it's just another reminder of the fact that these things we enjoy are, in reality, driven entirely by money, and not, you know, art. 

Which, yeah, I know it's naive to think it's ever been otherwise. I mean, as far back as the original films, George Lucas was cashing in on lunchboxes, action figures, and Darth Vader Bubble Bath, so it's not as though it's ever been l'art pour 'l'art. 

What's weirder, that this exists, or that someone
kept the original packaging for four decades?

Above: Disney.

It's, you know, icky. You know, to know how easily manipulated we are. I'm not a horror fan, but all they need to do is slap Star Wars on it, throw in some whoosh Tie Fighter noises and feathered seventies hairstyles, and I'm in. Ashamed, but in. Of course, rolling out zombie Storm Troopers or whatever, makes sense for Disney who, again, are motived by profit. People like Star Wars, and people like horror, so, the math checks out. But why am I there? Familiarity, I guess.

It's an old, tired internet rant to go down the list of upcoming movies or whatever, and bemoan how many of them are sequels, remakes, and reboots, but we have only ourselves to blame. If we didn't gravitate towards the familiar, they wouldn't keep cranking it out. And do we even care anymore or are we just content to let them iterate until we get bored and move on? Oh, no, I'm not trying to make a case here one way or the other, I'm genuinely asking. Also, I think I know the answer. It's the iteration thing, isn't it?

You know what'd make everybody happy? The non-special editions of the original trilogy.

They already exist, so it wouldn't cost Disney anything, and we wouldn't have to try anything new.

And now it's personal...

You weren't using that 401K, were you?

In response to the President's voter mandated tanking of the global economy, Nintendo has announced that they'll be delaying preorders for the just-unveiled Switch 2. They were due to start taking--huh? Wait, you mean to say that the narrow election victory in which most voters voted for someone other than a convicted felon wasn't a mandate to fire federal workers, wipe out trillions of dollars of stock values and reduce America's standing on the world stage to slightly above North Korea? But...but, why would he say it was unless...oh...oh no.

You don't suppose he doesn't know what he's doing, do you? Like, that he has no idea and is just flailing, lurching from one bad move to the next heedless of the chaos and lasting damage he's causing? I ask because he's famously bad at business. And president-ing. And didn't we go through this last time? And it sucked?

Or maybe he's just out golfing...hey, does he think stocks work like
golf scores? Like, the lower the better? That might explain a lot...

What? I'm not wrong. I'll stop calling
them dumb when they stop acting dumb.

Now look, as someone who reached adulthood in the late nineties and early two-thousands, I was at no point under the delusion that I would be able to retire. So, in many ways the disastrous financial consequences of half the country's (the dumb half, there I said it) President of choice aren't particularly shocking to me. The entire trajectory of my life has seen a steady decline in the likelihood of home ownership, financial security, and not dying under a mountain of medical debt, set against the worst wealth inequality since the Gilded Age.

Pictured: the stock marker being
liberated of thousands of points.

But at least we had video games, right? Soothing, escapist video games...Well, about that. Nintendo has announced that they'll be delaying the pre-orders for the Switch 2, the follow-up to their successful handheld gaming console, that they announced on Wednesday. Remember Wednesday? "Liberation Day?" They need to asses the impact of Trump's tariffs. You know, those things his supporters thought China was going to pay for? Because they literally don't know the meaning of the word "tariff." (see above, and again, I'm not sorry).

Hey, cheer up buddy.
At least we're not woke, amiright?

The Switch 2 was already going to cost four-hundred and fifty dollars of money. An obscene amount, sure, but reasonable when you factor in how much distraction we're going to need during the next few years. Oh, and it's actually five-hundred, if you want Mario Kart, which, obviously. And the tariff is going to increase that even more. Because consumers pay for tariffs...like we kept trying to tell the dumbs, but they're more interested in Hunter Biden's laptop and throwing themselves between protestors and Tesla dealerships. 

Anyway, to be clear, I'm more concerned (in no particular order) about the arbitrary and illegal deportations, the attacks on trans and queer rights, the racism, the misogyny, the climate, Federal agencies, Federal workers, but that's the beauty of being a millennial (fine, xennial): I have can have a nervous breakdown about more than one thing at a time. 

So let's turn that debilitating anxiety into positive action! And posters!

Today in Tilt-shift teases:

It is with a sense of great shame that I have to admit that I just got taken in by an April Fool's prank. A video game-related April Fool's prank. Specifically this:

Final Fantasy 6 and Chrono Trigger are catnip to nerds of a certain age.

Or, if you're younger than I, I don't
know, Taylor Swift? Is she still cool?

You clearly live a rich, full life with many outdoors activities, so I'll explain. Davidvinc RPGs is a channel devoted to role playing video games, usually of the classic Japanese variety. Today's video was entitled Final Fantasy 6 and Chrono Trigger in HD2D?! So I clicked. To an outsider, that title is inscrutable, but know that it leads one to believe that there'd been an announcement of HD2D remakes of two super-popular JRPG's of the 1990's. They're to the xennial micro generation what The Eagles are to Boomers.

I kind of had the sense that--huh? Right, HD2D is this recent aesthetic trend in gaming that combines pixel art with a faux tilt-shift effect, so everything looks like an animated diorama. As a style it's slightly twee, but those of us who sip from the chalice of nostalgia for video games we playing in middle school love it. Love it. 

"Put it in my veins."

-adults who were indoor kids in the 90's

YouTuber David Vincent: as adept
with kettlebells as he is pleasant lies

Anyway, as I'm watching this video of alleged footage from the aforementioned remakes, I'm waiting for David, the gaming/gym enthusiast to say something about how it's fan-art, or an unofficial mod, or something, but he doesn't. The footage isn't wholly convincing, but as it went on and no disclaimer was forthcoming, I found myself thinking that perhaps it was legit. I wanted it to be so. For a moment, I allowed myself to believe it. And then it dawned on me what day it was. What's more, I should have known better. After all, April Fool's Day pranks and video games have a long history. A history I've witnessed firsthand: in 1992, the now defunct gaming magazine Electronic Gaming Monthly published a trick that supposedly unlocked a secret boss in Street Fighter II. A prank that lives in infamy too this day. 

And it worked. Untold numbers of kids around the country dumped untold dollars worth of quarters into arcade machines in a vain attempt to fight mythical, and in fact apocraphyl, Sheng Long. But not me, I was on to them and clocked this as fake. Yet here I am today, more than three decades older and none the wiser, for I am now the fool. An April's fool at that. The ignominy of it all!

In retrospect, it's a pretty convincing hoax. So much so, that I'm beginning to
question if I was a particularly astute tween, or just one with serious trust issues.