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.

Today in distractions from Signalgate:

Shut up. Shut up, shut up, shut up. That two-word phrase came into my mind again and again as I watched Representative Marjorie Taylor Green rail against PBS and NPR. In her ten minute opening tirade, Greene denounced public radio and public broadcasting as wasteful and un-American. Which, I mean, nobody says that about Sesame Street. Nobody.

I will take any one of these Muppets over a thousand Elon Musks.

What? Farmers? Have podcasts?
Wow, they're just like us!

She says that the government's rationale behind funding these entities in the first place was to provide educational content and un-biased news to Americans, particularly those who wouldn't otherwise have access. But then she suggests that they're no longer necessary because of the internet and social media makes news and information available to those in remote areas. She knows this because she represents a rural district, and farmers listen to podcasts while they drive their tractors.

Pictured: Greene, seen here,
making an excellent use of our
time and our tax dollars.

Here's some of her opening screed:

"At the same time, NPR and PBS have become radical, left-wing echo-chambers for a narrow audience of mostly wealthy, white urban liberals and progressives who generally look down on and judge rural America."

-Representative Greene, trying

her damnedest to keep us from 

thinking about Signalgate

Well she is a huge conspiracy-theorist, so
I suppose a lot of what she says is on-brand?

Which is weird thing to say. A weird, evidence-free thing to say. Particularly given that the distorted, rabid-foam, paranoid-delusional, conspiracy-theory driven, co-opted, white Christian nationalist version of American conservatism that's currently thrown our nation and consequently the world into upheaval, is fueled largely by the radical, right-wing echo-chamber aimed at a narrow audience of white suburban and rural conservatives and white Christian nationalists who look down on and vilify whomever shit-merchants like Greene tell them too. 

I mean, look at these headlines from Fox News' site:

Don't worry, I went incognito, and then showered.

I'd like to coin the phrase "orange-
nosing" to describe people attempting 
to curry favor with the administration.

Ok, so "Musk's DOGE pulls back the curtain..." "Killers flaunt twisted kidnapping scheme--but don't last long under Trump Admin." and "NPR chief makes stunning admission about its Hunter Biden laptop coverage." And yes, they're still on about Hunter Biden, whom, if you recall, wasn't an elected official, Republicans just made a career out of going after the President Biden's family. And just above all this is a big headline about Signalgate that misleadingly refers to Judge Boasberg as an Obama-nominated judge (he was first appointed by George W. Bush), and the article itself mostly consists of quotes from Trump's Truth Social account and not, you know, journalism.

Here's the big story on PBS News Hour:

Not the absence of wild assertions, grievances, and
phrases like "radical left" and "activist judges."
It's just a recounting of things that happened.

I mean his only qualifications in the
first place were how woke he's not.

"Trump officials face more questions as new details from Yemen strike chat revealed." Does it portray the administration in a good light? Not particularly, but it doesn't trash anyone. It's just what's happening. They do face more questions. Here, let me re-write this if PBS was the left-wing equivalent of Fox: "Trump officials face more questions as details from their major cockup of a national security breach that endangers not only American service members but also global stability emerge." Which, is spicier, sure, but where's the lie?

This guy started two wars. Two.
I never thought I'd long for the days
of his buffoonery, but here we are. 

Is it at all possible that NPR and PBS haven't really shifted at all but rather that conservative-leaning media, finding itself unable to draw listeners with stories of how great fiscal responsibility and nuclear family values are, moved increasingly towards sensationalism in an effort stay profitable? I say this because I suspect that nothing going on in the country right now would be recognizably "conservative" to the Republican Party the 1960's. Or the 1990's. Even George W. Bush-era Republicans would have been baying for Pete Hegseth's resignation after this week's debacle.

We're sick of being painted with
one Frasier-colored brush.

Anyway, enough of my unqualified sociological observations, back to that congressperson who was allowed to heckle every single one of Joe Biden's State of the Union Addresses without censure, and her broad, culture-war-soaked, and broad characterization of conservatives and progressives. I reiterate: shut up shut up shut up. Her summation of the left as wealthy, white urbanites conveniently forgets the tens of millions of people of color and LGBTQIA+ people of all economic levels in all parts of the country. I like NPR, and PBS, but I don't look down on farmers, and I rankle, rankle I say, at Greene's assertion that anyone who has issues with the current administration is a bunch of snobs.

What? They literally idolize him.

What I look down on is the way the GOP has leveraged a system designed to give rural states a voice to install an autocrat. They play to rural voters not because they give a damn about them, but because they can leverage the culture wars to win elections. The election was a squeaker. Not the overwhelming viceroy they keep insisting it is. More people voted for someone other than Trump, and yet they keep banging the mandate drum. I don't hate farmers, I hate MAGA for exploiting farmers. 

False information and bias is exactly what NPR and PBS were set up to combat, and when they question elected officials, instead of just parroting the Presidents dumb, rambling social media tweets, they're doing their job. They're not left-wing, the GOP's just moved so far off anything resembling reason, everyone else seems extreme.

"NPR and PBS cost about five hundred million a year, while 
Elon Musk and his companies have taken over $38 in government
subsidies, so Marjorie Taylor Green and DOGE can take a flying leap."

-a concerned citizen, speaking to

PBS News reporter Kermit D. Frog

You've got to hand* it to her...

Pictured: that time she gave a HJ
during a production of Beetlejuice.

Uh-oh, look out half of the country watching in horror as a guy corrupt and destroy the last vestiges of the institutions that separate the US from the corporate oligarchical dystopia of billionaire dreams: Congresswoman and noted musical theatre fan Lauren Boebert has suggested that Washington D.C, as in the District of Columbia, could be renamed Washington D.A. As in District of America. Because America isn't Columbia. It's America.

"Becuase Washington isn't in Columbia,
it's in America. Idiots.

-An actual member of Congress

And when I say suggestion, I mean threat. Here's what she said in a committee hearing yesterday, after a fellow representative mentioned the administration's renaming of the Gulf of Mexico:

"I would caution my colleagues on the other side of the aisle to refrain from making jokes about the Gulf of America, because next up may be the District of America that we are working on..."

-Lauren "Public Sex Act" Boebert

When really, Tesla dealerships are the only
part anyone is interested in burning down.

So stop making fun of our idiotic and internationally unrecognized Gulf of Mexico rebrand, or we'll up the ante with an even bigger, dumber, jingoistic re-name designed to appeal to our most rabid-foam base of sociopaths and no one else. Pretty par for the course for the Right right now. If you recall, they've been harping on their "overwhelming electoral win" in which less than half of all voters voted from someone other than Trump, as some kind of mandate burn the country down.

Speaking of half the country, this is where our colleagues on the other side of the aisle need to slow their stupid MAGA role. Half the country hates what's going on. We hate this and nonsense like this isn't going to win any of us over. It can't go on like this, and something has to give. The only thing I'm clinging to at this point is the idea that no one these days refers to freedom fries with anything other than irony or disdain. What does that say about this District of America?

Above: The Gulf of Mexico, seen here after MAGA put it's stink on it.

*see what I did there? And to be clear, I'm only harping on this because of all the hypocrisy.

There may be no bottom.

Tesla Presents: President Donald ™, is hoping to sell corporate sponsorship of the eggs at the White House Easter Egg Roll, thus ruining the second dumbest White House tradition behind the turkey pardon. This according to a document CNN got ahold of. No word yet on whether or not Pete Hegseth texted it to them, but I mean, probably, amiright?

The expression on this nightmare-fuel of an
Easter Bunny, is how we're all feeling these days.

"Don't ask stupid questions."

-Religion

The event, which joins the economy, our standing abroad, and the rule of law on the list of "gone but not forgotten," has been a tradition--for some reason--since the 19th century. It involves children, selected by lottery, pushing decorated eggs towards a finish line. Why eggs? Why roll them? I suppose it recalls the famous story from the Bible in which the giant, brightly colored egg the Romans used to seal Jesus's tomb was miraculously rolled away.

Didn't he run on making eggs cheaper?

Anyway, for between $75,000 and $200, 000...yes, that's seventy-five and two-hundred thousand dollars of money you or more accurately, your corporation can endear itself to the glorious regime by having your logo or slogan stamped on an Easter Egg, or some branded swag. You could even get an invitation to a brunch hosted by Melania Trump. Is any of this legal? Almost certainly not. But the Trump administration has always had a, shall we say, flexible relationship with legality. So shut up? I guess?

Preferably a Swiss one.

Speaking of, you're probably wondering where the proceeds from this would go. I know I am. And the answer is The White House Historical Association: a non-profit, and non-partisan organization dedicated to preserving the history of the White House. Yessiree, that money will definitely not end up in the hands of the administration. If there's one thing this President is famous for it's respecting the law, especially when it comes to money, and the office of the President. And you can take that to the bank. 

Just to be clear, I don't really care about the Easter Egg Roll. I don't wish it any ill, the kids probably have a good time, and that isn't changing (yet). But now they'll be rolling eggs emblazoned with Amazon.com and Budweiser or whatever, and that just offends me. This idea that everything, everything can and should be monetized, is offensive. It's just another new low to which the office has sunk since "Crazy Donny's Low Low Prices on Teslas" ad from a couple of weeks ago. It's a new low, but not, I suspect, the bottom. There is no bottom.

"With prices this low, you'll think he's a stable genius!"

Today in doin' some reps for the Lord:

"You're welcome."

-the AI, not noticing that

I never said thank you

Huh? Why yes, I did start going to the gym. You can tell because I try to work it into all conversations now. You know who else noticed? The Algorithm. At least, I think it noticed. I'm starting to think it's just trolling me with Christian gym wear, because that's what's been showing up in my social media feed ads. It's made by a company called SAVD, which is a silly, unpronounceable name, but trademark-able I guess. Anyway, couple questions: First, look, I'm not particularly religious, but are there rules about what Christians are supposed to wear to the gym? 

"Playing a little fast and loose with
the definition of abomination, are we?"

-God's secretary

I know there's a thing about special garments in Mormonism that they're kind of touchy about it, but generic Christians? I suppose there's that bit in Leviticus about not wearing clothes made of two different kinds of fabric, because it's an abomination. But I checked, and a lot the items on their site are a polyester/spandex blend. On the other hand, Leviticus calls a lot of things abominations. And the typical American evangelical Christian seems pretty fine with ignoring the rules for a good shrimp cocktail, but weirdly strict when it comes to telling others who they can and can't marry. 

"Like most, I first heard the word of 
by reading it off someone's shorts."

Secondly, the apparel--apparel with a mission, the company's slogan proclaims--generally appears to be regular old sports gear, but with Bible quotes, and Christian graphics on them, often subtle or hidden. You might not even notice how Jesus-y the stuff is at first glance, like it's a secret of something. For example, in the case of the Joshua 1:9 Lion Performance Shorts, you have to lift the right leg of the short to revel the quote, and the left for the lion. Which on the one hand actually seems pretty on brand. For the Lord, I mean. 

Above: an unrelated picture of some guy
covered in Christian nationalist tattoos.

My recollection of Sunday school is dim, but I do remember the bit the pastor kind of glossed over about how Jesus told every one not to be a big old religious show off. First century Judea, like twenty-first century America, had a huge sanctimonious hypocrite problem. You know the type, they make a huge deal about how super Christian they are and then proceed to act like a bunch of hate-filled goons. I don't know, you can look it up yourself if you like. I think it's somewhere around Mathew 6:1. Huh? How'd I know that? Oh, thanks for asking. I probably read it off someone's activewear.

I suppose what I'm getting at is that I suppose I don't have a problem with SAVD, or their weird, religiously dubious Jesus merch. I don't. What I am curious about is the recent shift in the algorithm. Why does it think this is what I'm interested in? Is it that the software that targets ads is just inept? Or--and allow me to quickly fashion some tin foil headwear--is Mark Zuckerberg pushing this stuff on us in an attempt to please his personal Lord and Savior? 

"Good work, very nice work. I shall make my countenance to shine
upon thee. So much shining countenance, thou won't even believe."

-So sayeth the former host of the Apprentice.

Power Creep

Another day, another wild claim of powers he doesn't have. The President has now decided that his squeaker of an election win entitles him to to throw out some of Joe Biden's pardons--specifically those he issued for members of the January 6th Committee--because autopen.

Above: the real vilian here.

Isn't X already his propaganda platform
of choice? Why does he need both?

Behold:

"The Pardons that Sleepy Joe Biden gave to the Unselect Committee of Political Thugs, and many others, are hereby declared VOID, VACANT, AND OF NO FURTHER FORCE OR EFFECT, because of the fact that they were done by Autopen..."

-a petulant man child 

throwing a tantrum

Because if autopens are invalid, so are
his giant Sharpie's. Buy a real pen, man.

Ok, I have notes. For one, he needs to knock it off with the Sleepy Joe. Trump's like three years younger than him, and also nods off. Unselect Committee? Wow. Sick burn. Oh, and using hereby doesn't make it sound official, and enough with the all caps. We've talked about this. Now, were any of them signed by autopen? Who knows? Trump doesn't. Like so many of his wild claims, he produced no evidence of this. And even if they were, that's never been grounds for throwing out pardons. For that matter, has anything? 

But I suspect that won't matter. He simply proclaims things, and that needs to stop. He's like Louis XIV declaring "d'état c'est moi" or perhaps more appropriately an octogenarian Judge Dredd slurring "I am the law!" Which is not the case. 

He is emphatically not the law, there's a
whole judicial branch for that. Speaking of... 

Seriously, is he holding every member
of the GOP's pets hostage or something?

I'm no Constitutional scholar, it seems to me that the President's authority--and any authority for that matter--is derived from the law. So when he, you know, defies a Federal Judge or makes shit up about what he can and cannot (mostly can) do, he should face consequences. And I think that's the frustration we're all feeling: half the people charged with holding him accountable are evidently totally cool with all this, or too cowed to do anything to stop it.

"We're looking pretty good right 
about now, aren't we?"

-an actual king

People seem to be rolling out the slogan No Kings, and I 100% support this, but I can't help but point out that an actual king wouldn't pull any of this nonsense. Charles III, the current monarch of the monarchy we fought a whole war over, would never deport people in defiance of a Federal Judge, or tweet decrees about pardons. And he would certainly never do a car commercial on the White House lawn. This is petty dictator shit and it seems to be getting worse by the day as he tests the limits of what we're willing to tolerate and we've yet to see a wall. He's like a spoiled toddler who needs to be told no.

A veritable smoothie of similes!
A melange of metaphor! A potpourri
of parallels! Sorry, I'll stop now.

And since I'm just piling on the metaphors here, why not one more? There's a phenomenon in comics called Power Creep. It refers to the way writers, over the years, increase or add to a particular characters power set. Usually out of plot convenience or expediency, but the result is the character becomes less interesting because they can do anything. For example, early Superman just sort of leapt tall buildings in a single bound, but now he can fly into space, shoot lasers from his eyes, and throw his "S." 

My point is, he's a lawless dystopian super-toddler puppy murderer with delusions of kingship and someone needs to do something. And he's a creep, so the title works on a couple levels.

Pictured: what happens when someone isn't told "no."

Ops-Core SpartaTactical Wolf Alpha Force

Above: cosplay but for fascists

You've oft heard me complain about the algorithm on the Face Books pushing ads at me that were either socks with pictures of my pets on them, ceramic nativity scenes featuring cats, or help for porn addition (spoiler alert, the solution is Jesus). How amusing. But in the last few days I've notice a sharp uptick--that is, none of these to like, fifty of these--ads apparently aimed at the type of MAGA-hat wearing Alpha douche that have basically ruined everything for everyone. And I can't help but feel, you know, a little misunderstood. I mean, what about my interaction with the internet suggested that I'd be interested in body armor, tactical gear, or anything camouflage for that matter?

And yes, before you tell me I could and should just get off the platform, I know. I know. I'm only clinging to it for the couple of friends I'd otherwise loose contact with, and yes, I know how that sounds. It's like I'm being held hostage by some billionaire weasel with a nine-hundred thousand dollar watch.

Pictured: some billionaire weasel wearing a watch
that costs the equivalent of thirteen teachers' annual salaries.

Pictured: the large brush
with which I am about to paint.

Anyway, I've started reporting the ads and that seems to have helped. Or at least, when I checked today, the ads seem to have gone away, at least for now. I suspect that it just shifts whatever demographic data put me on the list of paranoid neck-bearded basement dwellers, but that's pure speculation on my part. There's an option to see why the ad was suggested, but the only points of data that showed me was that I was a forty something male, which is rude, but not, I have to admit, inaccurate. I'd hate to paint everyone with so large a brush, but if ten people are asked to describe the kind of person who shops at stores with names like Ops-Core or Spartan Armor Systems, and I'm willing to bet that a sketch artist would produce ten, really similar pictures. That is to say, ten pictures of white dudes.

Oh look, a flash sale at--wait,
Wolf Tactical? Wolf. Tactical.
Holy shit you guys, seriously?

Sure, their actual customer base are more likely than I, statistically speaking, to have a beard and tattoos that say things like 1776 or don't tread on me, but frustratingly, on that point alone, I am their target demo. But given the number of posts I've liked about Buttigieg, or AOC ripping into some Republican asshat, I'd have thought it would know me a little better than this. Say, you don't suppose this is Mark Zuckerberg's way of trying to bring back masculine energy or whatever nonsense he spouted back when he removed fact-checking from Facebook? So, is the goal here to flood our feeds with so much thinly veiled right-wing propaganda dressed up in what it means to be a real man gender politics that we'll get behind mass deportations and mandatory prayer in schools? 

Because if that's the case, I would remind him that we're not that dumb and how quickly everyone turned on Elon when he cozied up to the former star of The Apprentice. My point is that right now they're setting Tesla dealerships on fire. On fire. 

If you ever needed evidence that capitalism
isn't a meritocracy, but instead a deeply flawed
system ripe for the toppling, I offer you this gif.