Look at me, taking the bait...

Just...just don't. Don't what? Oh! Sorry, I'm not talking to you really, I'm just saying don't to whomever left this dumb card at the book store in which I work:

Literally nobody ever has asked them why they vote Republican. Ever.
But if people--as I'm sure they'd like us to believe--did ask and asked so often
as to make this card a time-saver, I'd invite them to reevaluate their answer.

Apostle's Creed, Nicene Creed, doesn't
matter. The GOP welcomes everyone who
subscribes to one of two different forms
of Christianity. They're a big tent.

Don't bother squinting, both because it's not worth it and because I'm going to get into it. The bullet point is about individual freedom which is weird because Republicans just proposed a nation wide abortion ban so right off the bat this card is preposterous. The next is about equal rights "regardless of race, creed, sex, age or disability." And I mean are they maybe thinking about some other Republican Party? Because the one we're familiar with has really leaned into racism, sexism, transphobia, and general Nazi-ism of late.

The rest of the card is about free enterprise, fiscal responsibility, the proper role of government--and again, I'd direct their attention to the Supreme Court's recent Dobbs vs. Jackson Women's Health Organization decision--patriotism (ha!), and how America famously spreads peace, freedom, and justice around the world. Through drone strikes, I guess.

Don't worry, this isn't the kind of patriotism that asks you to do anything
to serve your community, you can just hump the flag and that'll cover it.

He was basically this
truck in human form.

I'm not sure who exactly left the card, but I have a good idea. There was this rando in the other day, probably in his twenties, white tank top, American flag shorts--what is, shorts where half is the stars and the other side, the stripes. Oh, and a couple of norse tattoos. You know, the kind white dudes get because they think it's like their culture or whatever. It's not, and they're usually adopted by white supremacists who latch on to Viking imagery because they lack any unifying cultural identity of their own beyond whiteness and, I don't know, Trump.

I'm making an assumption here, but
money, actual money says that if asked this
dude would not be able to define socialism.

Anyway, he and some friends wandered around our book store in our blue as blue can be hippie little California beach town talking loudly (you know, so we could all hear) about how our store is full of socialist propaganda and something something liberal agenda and I think there was some stuff about God in there as well. Why? Who the hell knows? I'm sure in their heads they were changing minds with their unsolicited and performative right-wing nonsense, but mostly we all just felt like we needed a shower.

God, remember this asshat?

And what even is with the card? It was found--and I'm sure we'll be finding more of them stashed about all over the coming weeks--on a display of banned books. Was the rationale that someone would be looking at some of the titles rejected by school boards and certain states run by insecure white men and be converted to their way of thinking? Or was it just so that someone like me would see it and work themselves up into a frothy, righteous frenzy over how full of shit Republicans are? Because if that's the case then mission accomplished. 

Also, for someone who's so far up his own ass, our store's supply of left wing propaganda and insidious liberal agenda didn't stop him from spending like two hours in the store and buying stuff, but whatever. Well, at least we got his money.  

It's not like we go into right-wing book stores and preach about universal
health care and equal rights for--kidding! I'm kidding. They don't read.

Today in predictions that aren't:

Hey, do you know what's not news? Huh? Yes, Fox News, but what I'm talking about is--what's that? Yeah, I've heard CNN is kind of getting gross and right-wingy, but where I'm going with this is--yes, fine, those posts on Facebook about positive thoughts re-writing your DNA are also bullshit, but I want to talk about Nostradamus.

The fact that we all rely on a global porn and cat video delivery
system for our news should trouble us more than it does.

Pictured: The late Mario Reading, noted
Nostradamus expert seen here probably
being interviewed by The History Channel.

A British tabloid is--yes, I know tabloids are tabloids, but a couple of other news sites are also talking about how some writer called Mario Reading who, back in 2005, wrote a book claiming that Nostradamus predicted that Queen Elizabeth II would die in 2022 which, I mean, no he didn't. Nostradamus that is. Sorry, I'm not trying to be a jerk here, but Nostradamus, a sixteenth century French John Edward, wrote a book called The Prophecies and for four hundred years there have been people claiming that he was a goddamn wizard.

"Even I don't buy that one..."

-Mace Windu

Here, one of Reading’s claims is that Nostradamus further predicted that Charles III will abdicate and that Prince Harry would be the next king:

"For not wishing to consent to the divorce, 

Which then afterwards will be recognised as unworthy: 

The King of the Isles will be driven out by force,

In his place put one who will have no mark of a king."

-Nostradamus rhyming, so it must be true

Or how half a dozen monkeys given a
week will write a Dan Brown novel.

Divorce? Harry married Megan and everyone hated her! And King of the Isles? Britain is an island! Nailed it! Except, did he though? It's like how they say that given enough time, infinite monkeys working at infinite typewriters will eventually produce Hamlet. Nostradamus was bound to hit close to the mark eventually. And by close to the mark I mean at some point someone in the British royal family would get divorced, right? Like Henry VIII was divorcing wives and wives' heads from their bodies around the same time Nostradamus wrote this so it's not like it came out of nowhere. 

It probably would have been remembered
as a romantic story but then they started
hanging out with Hitler. Like, a lot.

Also, wouldn't this also kind of apply to Edward VIII? You know, the king in the 1930's who wanted to marry American divorcee Wallace Simpson? He said screw it, abdicated, married Simpson and then his brother who wasn't supposed to be king was then made king? Ok, it doesn't fit perfectly, but then nobody's telling Harry to get a divorce either so I guess what I'm saying is that maybe Mario is reading too much into it (see what I did there?). Or who knows? Maybe he genuinely believed he was on to something and what do I know?

Reading's feat is on par with coming
closest to guessing the price of an
Amana refrigerator without going over.

And Reading evidently did predict that Elizabeth would die in 2022 at the age of 96. I guess he came up with that through some kind of weird nonsense math having to do with the fact that the passage above is from Centurie X, quatrain XXII. Somehow the twenty-second stanza means the year 2022? But whatever, she did die in 2022 at age 96. Of course, predicting that someone will die in their mid-nineties isn't evidence of paranormal powers but credit where credit is due. Really, if anything Mario Reading was better at predicting the future than Nostradamus.

And it is. Dumb I mean. But if they abolished
the monarchy, who would wave at the assembled
masses from limos and horse-drawn carriages?

But back to Nostradamus and his weird poems. I suppose if you squint you could see how the one about the divorce and the "king of the isles" could apply to Charles III. At least if suddenly everyone was clamoring for him to divorce Queen Camilla, which they're not. My sense was that most British people are cautiously optimistic, while a growing minority just thinks that monarchy is a dumb medieval relic they should get rid of as soon as possible. Sure, he might abdicate at some point either due to age or because everyone loves Will and Kate but--damnit, now I'm doing it.

Trying to find meaning in something some crackpot scribbled down in order to impress the pre-enlightenment dumbasses of sixteenth century Europe, that is. Look, if Nostradamus really did see the future why wouldn't he give us details? Instead he just writes down a bunch of four line poems with alternating rhymes that could fit almost any story. There's an old adage that the simplest solution is usually the correct one and in this case the simpler solution is that Nostradamus was a charlatan that wanted to sell quatrains. 

Pfft...he couldn't predict Tuesday if he had a calendar.

Today in plenty of reasons:

If you don't like the protests, maybe
hand down less egregious rulings?

"...simply because people disagree with opinions, is not a basis for questioning the legitimacy of the court."

-Chief Justice John Roberts

on why every should just be cool

This was a part of some comments he made about the Supreme Court being reopened to the public after COVID 19 and after the national outcry over the reversal of Roe v. Wade. 

And fine, he's correct. Disagreeing isn't enough, but just to be clear people aren't protesting and questioning the legitimacy of the court because they've been handing down decisions disagree with. I mean, ok, we are and they have been, and I actually think that disagreeing with something is a totally valid reason to protest, but whatever, it's not just that. 

Also, there's disagreement and then there's outrage at the stripping
of a fifty-year legal precedent and fundamental right. It's not like we're
disputing a credit card charge or a parking ticket. This shit matters.

All we knew for sure about him is
that he likes beer and cries a lot.

We're also questioning the legitimacy of the court because three of the last four appointments are questionable. Either way you look at it, Mitch McConnell straight up stole either Neil Gorsuch's seat or Amy Coney Barrett's. With Gorsuch's he argued that it was too close to the election to let Obama appoint a justice. And then when Ruth Bader Ginsburg died he rammed through Coney Barrett a month before Biden beat Trump. Either one is legit or the other is, not both. As for Brett Kavanaugh, the administration sat on evidence that he may be guilty of multiple sexual assaults.

Among other things.

Also, didn't Kavanaugh and Coney Barrett swear up and down that Roe v. Wade was settled law only to change their minds once they had the job? Sounds a little perjury-y to me. And that's not even touching the fact that Ginny Thomas, sitting Justice Thomas's wife, pressured lawmakers to overturn the election. All this on top of the fact that Gorsuch, Kavanaugh and Coney Barrett were all appointed by Donald Trump; someone most Americans voted against--twice--and who flushed the centuries old tradition of peaceful transfers of power down the drain.

Look, we're not a bunch of whiners who can't accept election results, we're the majority of the American people who have watched helplessly as the court was stacked by someone now facing charges for actual crimes. We're not questioning the Supreme Court's legitimacy just because we disagree. We're questioning it because a third or more of the court's justices are eminently questionable. At best. Legitimately illegitimate at worst and we're stuck with them until they either die or retire. So yeah, we're angry and going to let them know it.

Get it? Because the--look, it's not the cleverest slogan, but it's also not wrong.

King for a day!

Being British must be hard on the knees.

The King of England. King. Huh, feels weird. But luckily for me it doesn't come up in conversation that much what with me being an American. We have it relatively easy. Like, I don't have to remember to switch the pronouns when I sing God Save the King/Queen at, I don't know, cricket matches? Do they do that? I'm not going to have to trade in all my Queen Elizabeth II money--which I presume is now totally worthless--for Charles III fun bucks. And at no point will I be at a Tesco, bump into the reigning monarch and have to remember whether I'm supposed to bow or curtsy. This doesn't affect my life at all and yet here I am talking about it.

Print media: yesterday's news, tomorrow!

What do you mean "It what?" The death of Queen Elizabeth II and the en-kingulation of Charles III, that's what? How did you not...oh...oh, do you read newspapers? No offense, but I mean, it's 2022 so maybe it's time to...look, I'm not here to analogue shame. The important thing is that after seventy years, fifteen Prime Ministers, thirteen Presidents, thirteen Doctors Who, thirty corgis and a Brexit, the only Queen pretty much anyone under 100 remembers is dead. Long live the King. Yes, Charles. Yes the one everyone wanted to skip.

Which is not how that works and no, I have no idea why I find this so interesting. I am, as I mention to everyone who will listen, a quarter Canadian so I suppose I'm one quarter affected by the change in figurehead, which I guess is weird because it seems like I'm 100% more interested in the monarchy than any actual Canadian I've ever met has been. But then maybe the fact that I don't have to bend the knee or whatever subjects do makes it ok for me to find this fascinating. It's all theoretical. 

For most Americans Elizabeth II, Queen of Canada was just a pallet
swap of the Queen of England. Like Scorpion and Sub-Zero. But
to millions of people around the world, she was much, much more.

"Stop the count, I'm the next King of England.
Everyone knows it, the succession is rigged."

-Some idiot

As an American I don't really have any context for what the death of a monarch means. It's not the same as a President. A President is just some rando and they become President because A: They were elected. B: They were the Vice President when the President dies. C: they're a narcissistic gameshow host who convinced enough dumbs in electorally more valuable states that they're victims and electoral college won the office. But the Queen, and now the King, are monarchs because God says so.

Ok, metaphorically anyway. They're actually monarchs because they happen to be born to someone who was born to someone who blah blah blah Norman Conquest. 

Pictured: the Blah Blah Tapestry.

I think that's true. It's hard to say, my
understanding of US history is based
mostly on Hamilton and Liberty's Kids.

Is it ridiculous and medieval? Absolutely. Do I think it's kind of awesome from my privileged position as someone who's never lived under a divinely appointed monarch? Sure. Again, in theory. But then we Americans have never been under the heel of one. Well, ok, George III but then all he did to us was stamp tax our paper products and sing the occasional musical number. People in say India, South Africa, and China probably have a very different and far dimmer view of the monarchy as a thing.

Uncle Sam and Elizabeth II had more in
common then just patriotism and bulging
biceps, they were also both fond of hats.

I mean, there's a reason everyone in the Galactic Empire has a British accent. But this is the future and the British Crown has no real, practical political power. They're instead just figureheads. I'm not a political scientist, but to give an analogy I have no business making, it would be like if Uncle Sam was an actual person and also the living embodiment of The Constitution. So if you want someone to blame for Britain's historical misdeeds you need look no further than the elected officials, so they're a lot like us in that regard.

But back to the King of England--still weird--and his first day on the job. A job which will mostly consist of trying to keep the British people from opting for a republic. And to them I have two pieces of advice. Unsolicited, meaningless advice from someone with no stake in this whatsoever. First: remember the last time you tried a republic. Second, remember that the U.S. is a republic. I'm not saying don't, I'm just saying think before you do anything.

Also, the King just gave a lovely, heartfelt speech in which he pledged his life to
serving the British people. With a republic, you occasionally get washed up TV
 stars who can't form complete sentences and who steal your nuclear secrets. 

If the Trilby fits...

Ok, fine, not all Trilby wearers, but I mean, c'mon. Most of them. But that's not important right now. What is important is that Elon Musk, evidently hellbent on burning whatever good will might be left in the minds of anyone who hasn't paid attention to him in the past few months, has waded into the TLOTR: TROP nonsense.

The Trilby: for the discerning gentleman who interprets
strong female characters as a threat to his masculinity.

To everyone so concerned with author's intent,
just consider that Tolkien might have left some of
this stuff locked in a drawer for a reason.

That's The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power. You know, the streaming series based on J.R.R. Tolkien's notes which seemed to surface whenever his son Christopher Tolkien needed a new kitchen reno or whatever? But I kid. I'm sure Tolkien the younger was in no way motivated by profit when he edited together every scrap his father wrote and published them. Twice. And to be clear, the nonsense I referred to isn't the series itself, but rather the crackpot hatred of the it, because the show is fine. I'd go so far as to say that it's actually pretty good despite it coming at the price of giving Jeff Bezos more money. Or rather would if I wasn't sharing someone else's Amazon account. Wait, uh, allegedly sharing someone else's Amazon account.

I've eaten meringue's more durable
that some people's masculinity. 

But whatever. Rather than the chorus of butt-hurt cave-dwellers wailing about how some of the elves are Black and how the very idea of Black elves flies in the face of Tolkien's 100% accurate documentary about the magic fantasy land he made up, Musk's fragile worldview is instead rocked by the strength of Galadriel's character and the comparative weakness of the male characters. "Tolkien must be turning in his grave." He cries. And, ok sure, he probably is but not necessarily because of TLOTR: TROP, people of color playing elves, or its strong female characters.

Rather, I think he'd just be baffled by contemporary storytelling. Take the Peter Jackson films, which I recently suggested would set Tolkien's corpse to spinning. I think they're great, but the author would've almost certainly been turned off by the emphasis on action, quippy dialogue, and lack of songs, but that's just how we tell stories now. Have you read the books? They're practically musicals, which is fine, but if you're trying to sneak into Mordor, maybe don't burst into song every five minutes. That's realm of the dark lord infiltration 101.

"Sam, I get it. You like big butts, and while I appreciate that you cannot
lie, I would ask that you keep it to yourself for the time being. At least
until we're past all these orcs and I can fling myself into that volcano."

-Frodo, the Ringbearer, 

kind of over it.

The Double Down alone would
likely be enough to shred his sanity.

But I think one could argue that the author would take issue with any twenty-first century interpretation, so it's probably a good thing that he's dead. He'd also probably lose his nineteen-diggity's mind about virtually all aspects of living in 2022. The internet, streaming television, the broken, out of control capitalism that allows a single person to amass an obscene amount of wealth. All of it would send a reanimated Tolkien scrambling back to the cold embrace of the grave.

Sort of like how if you put Elon Musk
next to someone even worse, he might 
come off as tolerable. Might.

As for the specifics of Musk's complains, I mean, maybe he was watching some other streaming fantasy show loosely based on something Tolkien may have jotted down on a napkin in 1938? But I don't see it. Yes, two episodes in and Galadriel is an elven special forces bad ass and yes, she did encounter a guy one might describe as a nave. But even if Musk was on to something--he's not, but if he was--this is story telling and Galadriel is one of the protagonists. The characters Galadriel encounters have to serve the story and by contrasting with her they help to tell us who she is.

But the fact that the richest human on earth is so shaken by a strong, fictional female character suggests to me that no one, let alone someone so insecure that they take to Twitter to whine about elves, should control enough wealth to launch a roadster at Mars.

"Walking away from an explosion? But that's our thing!"

-Male movie characters

Blatant Tolkienism!

Look, I know it's kind of an obvious opinion to hold, but for real, anyone whining about people of color in Middle-Earth can go--I don't know--not watch it?

"You're going to watch the Lord of the Rings TV show, or else."

-An Amazon spokesperson, evidently

"Must express outrage...it sustains me..."

My instinct there was to opt for harsher language. "Fuck off" for example. But it's just not worth it at this point. Anyone working themselves up into a rabid foam lather about Black elves or whatever and raving on the internet about it is doing so out of the performative rage that insecure white conservatives feel because a fascist gameshow host tells them to. The rabid foam was already there, collecting around their rage-twisted mouths ever since Trump first upward failed his way into the White House.

Above: British actor Sir Lenny Henry as
Hobbit-like Harfoot Sadoc Burrows, seen here
ruining Tolkien and white culture forever.

According to CNN, Brandon Morse, editor or bullshit right-wing site Red State was complaining about the new show back in February when the first Super Bowl ad released, so it's not like--huh? Oh, sorry, we're talking about the redundantly named "Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power." It's on Amazon and yes I'm watching it, but if it makes you feel any better, I'm using someone else's login, so in a sense I'm stealing from Jeff Bezos. Which is basically heroic. Now, where was I? Right, Brandon Morse's screed which, to be clear, he had already formulated without having seen the show. Which, ok, cool. 

Pictured: the Secret Woke Council
who meet once a year under a full moon to
subvert Brandon Morse's favorite brands.

His argument is that LOTR: TROP (yikes, but I guess that's the acronym), and really all the:

"...brands and franchises that our culture holds up in high regard are being repurposed in order to create pre-made delivery systems for their message. It's an attempt to normalize their politics by embedding them in things we love."

-Brandon Morse, butt-hurt over Hobbits

Above: Brandon's culture.

So, couple of things. First, what does he mean by "our culture?" Normally I'd assume American culture, but this is a right-wing thing so it kind of feels like code for white. Similarly, the they of "their message" and "their politics" can, I believe, be presumed to mean progressives like us whose sinister agenda includes things like not bullying trans kids, guaranteeing bodily autonomy to women, and sometimes yes, fantasy TV shows with Black elves. We're, as you can imagine, monsters. 

You know, it's almost like Brandon Morse is just uncomfortable with people who don't look like him. "It's an attempt to normalize their politics by embedding them in things we love." Ok, but why does he love Lord of the Rings? Is it because of Tolkien's super-white fantasy realm? Or is he into the deep--at time incomprehensible--world building and stories.

Pre-wikipedia, your best bet for lore was to try and
make it through The Silmarillion. It was...dense. 

Congratulations uncredited background actor!
You are no longer single handedly responsible for
all representation in the entire LOTR series. 

Look, when Peter Jackson failed to cast a single person of color in the first three film versions of Tolkien's novels it was an error in judgement. He attempted to correct this with the (kinda mediocre) Hobbit prequels, but it just felt half-hearted. I mean, would an Asian dwarf have really thrown the verisimilitude of this fantasy world out the window? But now in 2022 it would have been downright unforgivable for LOTR: TROP's producers to cast an all-white Middle-Earth. We're just not having it.

I think we can all agree that Legolas
headshoting an oliphant and then surfing
down the trunk is, objectively, dumb.

But the argument that the producers of the new show are betraying Tolkien's work by casting people of color in roles that readers have either interpreted as, or Tolkien expressly described as, white is just frustrating. Sure, Tolkien constantly equated "fair" and "blond" with goodness and blackness with evil. He was also born in 1892 and couldn't write female characters to save his life. And, he'd be spinning in his grave had he lived to see the movies. 

Peter Jackson's plan was to put the Haradin in
masks and hope no one asked too many questions.

Was Tolkien a racist? I don't know. He did list the Haradin or "Swarthy Men" alongside orcs and goblins as servants of Sauron. But I'm not sure I'm qualified to sum up Tolkien as a person. Neither is Morse, but I do know that some elements of his work are hard to view otherwise. But we don't not enjoy them. We ignore the shitty bits or chalk it up to Tolkien writing in a less enlightened time. The TV show is a product of this time and as such is made with an understanding of both the lore and of the world as it is now. I mean, sometimes you have to cast a female X-Wing pilot. 

Lando Calrissian: also a trailblazer in the
under-represented Cape Enthusiast Community. 

Lemme explain. Take the original Star Wars . It has--and I'm sure someone can correct me on this--not a single character who isn't white. The Empire Strikes Back gave us Lando, but that's a lot for one actor to carry, even if he is Billy Dee Williams. Now take the prequels, the sequels, and the one-offs that followed in the twenty-first century. They're far more reflective of the world as it is today than the originals. Does this betray George Lucas? Of course not, he just wasn't thinking in the same terms back then as we do now and that's not a bad thing, that's progress. 

But does it violate continuity to suddenly insert Black Imperial officers into Star Wars or Brown Hobbits into Middle-Earth? Eh? Maybe, but no more than it does to suddenly switch to CGI spaceships or to film against an LCD wall. Diverse casting is just another filmmaking technology that has improved over time. It's a richer, more detailed world and if that's upsetting to the kind of person who would hate-watch Rings of Power just to complain about it on the internet, I'm fully behind it. 

"I mean, a Black hobbit? How am I supposed to relate
to fictional characters in a fantasy world if they're not cis
hetero white men with carefully manicured beards?" 

-Brandon Morse, noted

victim of wokeness

Today in vacation photos you didn't ask for:

Huh? What? Yes I'm still here. Sorry, I was gone for a week, but I'm back now. Well, I'm not sorry I was gone, but-wait, no, actually I am kind of sorry because it was brutal.

Turns out that an arid desert isn't maybe the best vacation spot?

Above: Baaahs. It's an art car designed
to look like a sheep for reasons we're
not allowed to know. 

Where? Uh, fine, but don't judge me, ok? Burning Man. Yes. Again. I know. But everyone's got their thing. Some people play sports, other people, I don't know, raise children. I and a few friends go hang out with people on drugs in an inhospitable environment, unable to sleep because every four minutes or so, a bus made up to look like a pirate ship or a polygonal sheep drives by thumping base at a frequency so low that it's still reverberating in my molars hours later. And the heat. Sweet mother of Willian Thompson, 1st Baron Kelvin, the heat.

Anywhere else it would be weird to spray
strangers in the street, but here we are.

I know that we knew what we were getting ourselves into by going to a dry lake bed in Nevada in the worst part of the summer during a climate crisis centuries in the making, but hot. So hot. I've been nearly a dozen times now, and it's certainly been hotter on one or two days, but this was a constant, unyielding heat that hung on until well after dark. Days were useless and I spent most of them in a folding camp chair, misting myself with a hardware store garden sprayer and remarking on how death might be preferable. It kind of helped, but not much.

Pictured: most of what we
were looking at all week. 

The sprayer I mean, although the complaining was therapeutic as well. The downside though was that the water mixed with the alkaline dust to form an ever-present, desiccating layer of mud on all exposed surfaces. And this dust was everywhere. The winds were something of a mixed blessing as while the breeze was nice, it usually carried with it the dust which, in particularly dense moments reduced visibility so that you only could only navigate by electronic house music. 

"You people understand that we serve
coffee, right? Hot coffee? Ok..."

-us

It wasn't all bad. I mean, I got to see some friends I only see once a year. We have a theme camp, which is a kind of camp where you offer something to attendees. In our case coffee. Piping hot coffee. In the middle of a dry desert in unseasonably warm weather. That part didn't go too well. It's a good thing Burning Man rejects commerce and monetization because this would have been a disastrous business if we'd had to charge people. I mean, some people showed up. We made some new friends. We mostly sat around commiserating about how it was too hot to do anything, but still, new friends. 

As I write this, I'm home and recovering. The heat was--huh? I know, I'm talking about it a lot, but you did keep reading after I said I was going to talk about my vacation so this is on you--anyway, the heat takes a lot out of you so since I've been back I've been sleeping, eating, and showering the dust off. And I know there are plenty of good reasons to actively try and course correct our species' carbon impact. Rising seas, extinctions, not leaving our children a dry-burnt out husk of a planet. But if you needed one more, it's really screwing up my yearly excursion to go be weird in the desert for a week. 

If you won't do it for the children, then do
it for the weirdos who act like children.