They look them up before hiring them, right?

This Jeopardy! host thing is just, as the kids would say, a goat rodeo, isn't it? Huh? What, don't the kids say that? Like, when something is just an unmitigated disaster, it's a goat rodeo. No? Fine, would you prefer shit show?

Pictured: Basically Jeopardy!

Is it just me or does Richards have a
punchable face? Even before I knew about
him, I kind of wanted to punch that face.

In the seemingly unending quest to fill the un-fillable shoes of late host Alex Trebek, nothing, like, nothing, has gone right. They went through a series of guest hosts including everyone's favorite and objective best choice LeVar Burton, but then chose Mike Richards, pleasing no one. Then suddenly noticing Richards's list of problematic comments and actions that everyone else had been pointing out all along, they did an about face. Richards stepped back and agreed to sensitivity training which I'm sure is definitely going to happen and which I'm also sure he's going to take super seriously and reevaluate his own behavior.

And thanks to billionaires selling rides
on their dick rockets, I guess "this isn't 
rocket science it's _____" is out too.

Ok, fine. In the short term, Mayim Bialik, the other host Sony announced for Jeopardy! specials is going to take the reins. Cool. Except she has a history of espousing anti-vaxxer nonsense, blaming Harvey Weinstein's victims for dressing too sexy, and promoting creepy, survival of the fittest views on parenting and child birth. Which is super-disappointing because, I mean, she's a scientist. A neuroscientist in fact. Like, that's the go-to branch of science we bring up when we want to say something's easy. Like, we say" "this isn't brain-surgery it's whatever is way less difficult."

Pictured: the exact amount of
research Sony needed to do.

So a scientist with a passion for pseudo science and debunked crackpot theories about vaccines and autism is maybe not the best choice for hosting a gameshow all about knowledge. "But whatever, bring on LeVar Burton!" you say. Weeeell, here's the thing. LeVar Burton was--oh! No! Don't worry, he's fine. He's not like secretly a flat-earther or a MAGA goon or anything. As far as we know he's great. The problem is that apparently he wasn't even in the running, and that Sony was only every considering Bialik and Richards. So now what?

Ken Jennings was the original front runner, but he's also someone who doesn't know when to shut his tweet hole. So LeVar Burton, right? He was the next favorite on that poll. Ahead of Bialik even. The studio apparently felt he just wasn't a good fit, but we know how good their judgment is, so maybe it's time to give him a second look?

"Nah...Hey, what's Pharma Bro doing? Is he still in prison?

-Some Sony exec

The vast, maskless divide!

Well it was a long, harrowing drive, but I'm glad to be home and-huh? You didn't notice I'd gone radio silent for like a week? I'll uh...I'll try not to take that personally. Anyway, I just completed a four day drive across country back to my adoptive home of California after being gone for more than a year. Long story, you don't care, I just wanted to talk a little bit about what I noticed while passing through half a dozen states during a pandemic, twice. 

Above: literally any point along this drive.

What? Not only is that comparison fair,
it's also apt. If anyone knows STD's...

Usually around this time of year, I'm off to Burning Man which--don't judge me--anyway, it doesn't matter because it's been canceled because of COVID. Again. Well, more precisely because dumbs turned some simple precautions like wearing a mask and getting a life-saving vaccine into a weird political issue. Because Trump. Yeah, I blame him for a lot of things and in a sense that's oversimplifying. That's like blaming open sores instead of herpes or the decisions that led you to herpes. 

Above: a crowd of people angry at, yet
lacking a working definition of, socialism.

My point is that the thing that's actually killing us as a nation is divisiveness. Well, ok, and a virus. And I-huh? No, COVID, not herpes, but I can see where you--doesn't matter. Where I'm going with is that I don't mean divisiveness in the both sides-y, the solution is somewhere in the middle sense. I mean divisiveness in the sense that one side hates the other so much that they're listening to junk science and endangering their own kids (and the rest of us for that matter) because actual science is librul and they'd rather die than let the socialists win. 

First of all, I asked you not to judge me.
Secondly, it's not like I said Coachella.

I mention this because on this trip back to California, like the drive I did back in 2020 to New York, masks were few and far between everywhere in the emptiness that is the states in between and I blame them. You know, for the fact that we're still talking about COVID in the present sense. Granted, this is just based on observation and my sample size when gauging the vast, maskless divide in America was limited to the gas stations that line Interstate 80, but holy shit, if they'd just get with the program, we could all go to Burning Man again.

And the most frustrating thing--ok, apart from the death toll, the continued need to mask, and the crushing economic repercussions of a sustained crisis--forget it. A frustrating thing about all of this, is that very same people who can't stop shrieking about how that they have a God-given right to military-grade weapons to protect themselves and their families are often the least likely to get the damn vaccine.

They know they can't shoot the virus, right?

The Great Chicago Ire

Everyone: 1, Amazon: 343,123,653, which, I mean, still pretty bad, but hey, at least they won this one, right? Which one? Why this one: the City of Chicago's Park District moved a bank of Amazon lockers they for some reason--ok, money, but we'll get to that--agreed to instal in the middle of the sidewalk. Like, just right there, bolted to the concrete.

"Are you for goddamn kidding me?"

-Everyone who tried to

squeeze past this

Remember when they were content
to just run bookstores out of business?

The lockers, which we're supposed to refer to as an Amazon Hub™Locker System, are, well, lockers where packages can be securely delivered or picked up. They have some at convenience stores and other businesses and I was apartment hunting recently and I saw a place that advertised a Hub as a selling point. And I guess it's slightly less invasive than say, letting the delivery person open your door and come in to your home, which is another "service" the company offers, but it's still an unsettling reminder that they have their tentacles everywhere.

"You left out the part where I get a
cool hat and go to space, but yeah, that's
pretty much been my business model."

-Jeff Bezos

While part of the public outrage in Chicago was practical; the lockers blocked park access, especially for people in wheelchairs. It also came from the idea that public spaces should be free of commercialism. The petition that went around referred to Amazon as a predatory business and it is. They can sell things for less because they underpay workers and they don't have to pay for overhead (or taxes). This kills brick and mortar retail, leaving more people unemployed and desperate, leading to crime like porch piracy, hence the need for the lockers. Am I warm? 

Ok, people wanted them gone because they're a business-y eyesore in what's supposed to be a retreat for city-dwellers. But I guess what I'm left with is utter bewilderment at how anyone at the Park District could have thought that everyone would just be cool with these things? Turns out it's money. Try to act surprised. 

"Whaaaa?"

-No one

"Our aim was simply to improve the park
by utilizing otherwise wasted green space."

-Amazon (probably)

According to Alderwoman Rosanna Rodriguez, whose office took the brunt of the complaints, it's a case of a municipality desperate for income:

"When you have public institutions that are not well-funded, and can't function with the budget they're provided by the government, they need to look for other sources of revenue. This is how we get a company like Amazon to have a presence in our public parks. It's disheartening."

-Rosanna Rodriguez on the corporate 

dystopia we're sliding towards

Yup. Disheartening is the word, although the fact that the reaction and subsequent removal was so swift (it took like three days from tweetstorm to crowbar) gives me some hope--like, the faintest hint of a whiff of hope, but still quantifiably hope--that we've not completely surrendered to our hyper capitalistic overlords.  

Remember how in Blade Runner the future was just a constant barrage
of advertisements and copora-oh, sorry, that's actually a picture of now.

The white whale of immature adulthood

So let me begin by assuring you that I realize that there are far more important things to worry about than what I'm about to rail against. The pandemic, voting rights, who's hosting Jeopardy!, lots of things matter more. That said, can we just talk about how aneurysm-inducing it is to try and get one's hands on the new Xbox?

Pictured: the part of the brain responsible for
loosing one's mind over retail scarcity.

They were a nail in the coffin of small
business, but Amazon was the last nail,
so I'm in the clear right? Right?

I mention this because yesterday I got a notification that Walmart was going to restock the new console at noon and then again at nine. And yes, I've become the kind of person that signs up for notifications. Want to know when a Funko Pop is up for preorder? No, me neither, but here we are. And before you judge me know that I boycotted Walmart for years for paying low wages, selling guns, and for being the death of American retail and it's only now that they've begun offering to pay employees' college tuitions that I'm even thinking about buying something from them. Thinking about mind you, but we'll get to that. 

"Take it. Taaaake iiiiiit!"

-Me, evidently

Putting aside my uh, what do you call them? Ethical qualms? I decided that I'd try to snag an Xbox from Walmart. So the time came, I hit refresh again until the "add to cart" button appeared. I hit it and nothing. Sold out. It sold out in actual seconds. The notification had said that the store would make more available every ten minutes for the next hour so I sat there until one, finger hovering over the refresh waiting, but to no avail. Sold out every time. Ok, fine, I'll just wait for the next batch at nine. I mean, what else am I going to do, not give them my money?

So nine p.m. rolls around and this time I get a button that says "press and hold" so I did. It was some new captcha thing they apparently decided to implement since earlier that day. I suppose it was designed to screen out the bots. You know, that software dirtbags use to snap up scarce items and then resell them at an inflated price?

I'm sure the programing skill required to create software capable
of pressing and holding is far beyond the capabilities of resellers.
I mean, that's just the stuff of science fiction. 

While we were pressing and holding like a
bunch of chumps, some reseller was putting
 the last Xbox up on eBay at a $300 markup.

Super, so Walmart was finally doing something about that. Except no. The progress bar filled up, and I got a check mark, but nothing happened. And it wasn't just me, my fellow grown-ass adults on twitter seemed to be experiencing the same frustrations. It went on like this for an hour while I sat there holding the button, reevaluating the life choices that led me to spend my evening trying in vane to hand a symbol of everything wrong with capitalism five hundred dollars. This is actually the third time I've tried to order one of these, so you'd think I'd have learned, but no. 

I'm not even sure I could tell you why I want one at this point beyond the fact that they're impossible to find. But buying something from Walmart? In the end all I'll have done is surrendered five hundred dollars and my self-respect and for what? A slightly improved version of a game console that's already taking up too much of my time and space under the TV? Has it come to this? Well, it does has ray-tracing--whatever that is--so yes, I guess it has indeed come to this.

Pictured: basically.

The host with the least!

In a move sure to please no one with the possible exception of Mike Richards, Mike Richards has been confirmed as the new host of Jeopardy. 

Oh...a nondescript white guy in suit. Way to think outside the box.

"Hurray!"

-No one. In the world

And my question is why? And also, who? As you probably recall, when beloved and Canadian host of 37 seasons Alex Trebek died of cancer last year (because fuck cancer), the show's producers including, Mike Richards, were left with the difficult task of filling the position. Their solution was to test the waters with a series of guest hosts these past few weeks including Dr. Oz, Katie Couric, Anderson Cooper, Mike Richards himself and some sports guy that some people don't like I guess? I don't know. Anyway, there were a few others, but by far the objective best choice was LeVar Burton. Or Mayim Bialik, she would have been good too. But instead they went with Richards. 

And I guess I just feel that Jeopardy! should be hosted by smart people. Ok, I have no reason to suspect that Mike Richards isn't smart, but LeVar Burton is the walking, talking embodiment of reading to millions of Americans and Mayim Bialik is an actual neuroscientist. And to be fair, she will also be hosting, but only the specials, begging the question: why isn't she the regular host?

Pictured: Mayim Bialik talking about something way the hell smarter than whatever
gameshow producers talk about. Ratings probably? Or which case has the money in it?

"Fuck mailboxes."

-Alex Trebek 

(actual quote)

Also, isn't Mike Richards the subject of numerous discrimination lawsuits from his time producing The Price Is Right? The answer is yes. Alex Trebek was never a jerk to anyone, that we know of I mean. I did extensive research of his wikipedia page and the worst thing he ever did was fall asleep at the wheel and take out some mailboxes. And that was an accident. Probably. Mike Richards, fired a Price is Right model for being pregnant, and sexually harassed and fired another one. Oh, and he demanded that the models' skirt be shorter and that they appear in bikinis more often, which, I mean, that's gross right? He's gross. 

Ok, all of that is alleged, but he settled in both cases, but I mean, if nothing else the Jeopardy host should be above reproach, shouldn't they? 

Like this guy. This guy would never fire you because you're pregnant.

Maybe he cried at the interview?
Worked for Brett Kavanaugh. 

There was a poll that found that 74 time champion Ken Jennings was the frontrunner, with Richards as the number two choice and Burton in third and Bialik in fourth, but hear me out. Jennings is recognizable to Jeopardy!'s fans and he was the first guest host, so no surprise that he came in first. Richards was second so he may have seen a bump there as well. Now I'm just speculating but if Jennings was un-cast-able thanks to his habit of shitty tweets, shouldn't Richards also have been out of the running for the firings and the bikini thing?

Sure, the poll had LeVar Burton in third but they only surveyed 1,003 people while he had an internet petition with a quarter of a million signatures. And Mayim Bialik has a huge following as well not to mention a PhD. So is it me or does this look really bad? I mean, who knows why they went with Richards, but it kind of looks like they skipped two more qualified choices and went with a white guy with a history of harassing women.

Pictured: Not the new host, but should be.

Pictured: Also not the new host, and should
be, but at least she gets the specials?
Which is something...I suppose...

Today in why this is still a thing:

I'm sorry, help me out here. Is all this because Republicans love the pandemic or because they hate Democrats? 

"Whoa, whoa, whoa...can't it be both?"

-Ron DeSantis, the Florida Man-ist

Florida Man who ever Florida Man'ed

"It's only overreach when Democrats do it."

-Governor Abbott, Republisplaining

All what? Why the batshit crazy resistance on the part of conservatives to the basic, completely reasonable suggestion that people wear masks and get vaccinated so we can all get on with our lives. I ask because Florida Governor Ron DeSantis and Texas Governor Greg Abbott are staging total nutties over this while people are dying. Both have banned mask mandates and are going so far as to threaten school officials' salaries if they dare to defy them which is weird because aren't Republicans all about freedom from government interference? Like, holy shit, pick your hill guys.

Pictured: why we're boned.

This is why we're so boned as a civilization. I'm sorry to get all bleak here, but how are we even supposed to solve any of the problems we face when a chunk of the country is not only actively working to make things worse, but has made a virtue out of doing it? Reliance on fossil fuels sending the planet's climate into a death spiral? Tough shit, we love our trucks. Mass shootings are a daily occurrence, but we can't even talk about reasonable gun control laws. In fact, more guns! Because freedom. 

But the minute a woman walks into Planned Parenthood or a trans person is looking for the restroom, or a school district wants everyone to mask up in the middle of a pandemic that's killed hundreds of thousands, they're all about inserting themselves into the conversation, passing laws, and imposing their dumbass worldview.

"The Republican Party is all about freedom: the freedom to do what ever we say 
you can do. Isn't that what America is all about? The answer is yes. Because I said so."

-Florida Governor Ron DeSantis on

why a lot of kids are gonna die

So it's come to this, eh capitalism?

Do...do I even have to say it? Fiiiine. Two million dollars? Of money? For a video game? Something something, rich people are the worst. 

"Here's to an economic system that allows a select few to live
in abject luxury while everyone else struggles to buy insulin!
May it never come crashing down around us!"

-The rich

"Hurray for business! Are we rich now?"

-Shareholders

And I stand by that, although this exercise in everything wrong with capitalism is slightly different. Instead of some rando kajillionaire at an auction buying a factory sealed NES game that was sitting in someone's closet since 1986 or whatever, this sale involved shareholders. For some reason. Sure, there is still a one percenter with money to burn in play here, but instead of Heritage Auctions, this copy of the original Super Mario Bros. was sold by a company called Rally and Rally is website that buys and sells "equity shares in collectible assets."

And to answer your next question, yes, 
these idiots could have saved themselves a
lot of time if they'd just downloaded the app.

Yeah, I died a little inside when I read that too. This new way to get rich without making the slightest improvement to the world in which you live works by offering investors the opportunity to buy shares of some collectable, say a baseball card, or a copy of the Declaration of Independence (no, really) or, oh, I don't know, the one NES game literally every kid in America owned, and then those investors act like a board in a corporation, making decisions about when and for how much to sell. You can even do all this from your phone via an app. Because the future.

Or it might burst when everyone catches
on to the fact that it's just Mario 1.

I guess it's a way to reduce risk and maybe this puts the collectable tchotchke market within reach of the average person. So in a way it democratizes it. But in another way, it rewards hoarding behavior. Regardless, at two million dollars, this is now the record holder for the most anyone has paid for a single video game, at least for now. Sure, this bubble could burst at any moment when everyone catches on to the fact that every three weeks there's another incredibly rare sealed, WATA rated, once-in-a-lifetime copy of one game of another, but if it hasn't happened by now, who can say when it will be?

But there's something incredibly depressing to me about what this represents. Instead of producing things, this is an economy based on speculation about how much some idle rich person might be willing to spend to buy back a piece of their childhood. Like, that can't be sustainable, can it? I don't know, maybe I'm just kicking myself for not buying an extra copy when I was a child and putting it away for my retirement.

Of course, who could have predicted that this is what capitalism would be now?

Unpardonable!

Phew, that was close. I mean, they almost faced consequences there. Who? Why the gun-loving knee-jerks who waved firearms at protestors who marched past their house last year. 

"Nyaaah see, get off our lawn or we'll pump you full of lead, see! Nyaaaah."

-The McCloskey's (actual quote)

"Um, please stop murdering people?"

-The St. Louis protestors'

not unreasonable demand 

Remember them? Yeah. So the protestors were protesting Mayor Lyda Krewson's reckless public reading of the names and addresses of people who had written in calling for the defunding of the St. Louis Police Department. A police department with the highest per capita use of deadly force in the country. Anyway, in their protest, they passed the McCloskey's home in a private community, so the pair grabbed their guns and waved them at the unarmed and peaceful crowd. They would later claim that they felt threatened and were therefore justified in making other people feel threatened. I guess. 

Oh, and someone--nobody even knows who--broke their gate. An historic gate according to Mark McCloskey. Have they never heard the phrase "proportional response?"

"Antiquarians are still reeling from the loss of such an
important piece of gated community history."

-No one. Literally

know one said this

Above: Basically.

I mean, the crowd wasn't coming at them, they were passing. So how they posed a threat, much less one that warranted a goddamn automatic weapon, is anyone's guess. Well, that's not right. It was actually a Grand Jury's guess. Anyway, the couple was charged, pled guilty to misdemeanors, and were given fines totaling $2,750 which, to a couple of lawyers who live in a gated community is like, no big deal. It's couch cushion money.

"Are you...are you just now getting that?"

-Republicans

At best, the outcome was symbolic; a way to say ok, what these people did was wrong and dangerous, but no one was hurt so let's move on. Except now the Governor of Missouri just pardoned them. So instead the message is that rich white Republicans can do whatever they want and the Republican Governor will just give them a pass. Oh, and did I mention that Mark is running for Senate? Because he is. And he's running on a pretty standard right-wing nutter platform of voting rights restrictions, more conservative judges and fighting cancel culture. 

You know, like the cancel culture that is, thanks to the Governor's pardon, the only consequence the McCloskey's faced. Oh, and guns. Did I mention guns? Because he's also running on guns and how much he loves guns. In fact, the landing page for McCloskey for U.S. Senate is that picture of him and Patricia threatening to murder people for walking past their house. Is it me or is the Republican Party platform entirely threat-based now?

So they're facing no consequences, they're not sorry, and they're
using the incident to ask for money for the Senate campaign. Super.

Is Facebook is my racist uncle now?

Ok, I mean that metaphorically. I don't have a racist uncle...that I know of. But I ask because lately the "suggested for you" posts I've been seeing have taken on a decidedly you know, Red State bent. An unsolicited bent, because I don't know what I'm doing in my searches that Facebook thinks I want this. Like, look at this, what even is this:

Suggested for me why? Because I think the carbon they want to reduce is 
atmospheric carbon dioxide, and it's why the west is on fire, so maybe back off?

Et tu Mel Brooks?

It's just been this weird uptick in links to memes and jokes about how we're all a bunch of idiots for believing that Trump lost the election. Like, it's bad enough having to block old friends because they've gone round the bend and started posting this nonsense, but what am I supposed to do when Facebook itself keeps throwing these at me? And I mean, this one:

"We have become stupidly politically correct which is the death of comedy."

-Mel Brooks, noted Fox News

 meme apparently

Is it me or is it weird that conservatives
are suddenly quoting Mel Brooks?

That just hurts. Despite the quote being attributed to Fox News, I looked it up and this is a real thing Brooks said, just not to Fox. In an interview back in 2017 with BBC Radio 4 he said that some of his movies would never be made today because of our politically correct culture. And I mean, who doesn't love Mel Brooks? I do. But that doesn't mean I think he was right about this. Mostly, I think he's just ninety five years old. I'm not questioning his observation, like, of course we wouldn't see racial slurs and rape jokes in a comedy today, but I question whether to not that's really a bad thing.

I think the bean scene is about the only thing
in the film that transcends both time and culture.

Like, Mel Brooks making Blazing Saddles in 1974 is one thing. I'm not like an expert in film theory or anything, and the last person that should be weighing in on what is and isn't racist is someone like me, but I guess I always thought that that movie was ridiculing racists and doing it in a way that was accepted in movies in the 70's. Whereas if some butt hurt 21st century white guy with a persecution complex tried to remake it now, I don't think it'd come off the same. My hypothetical white guy is not, nor could he ever be, Mel Brooks and it will never be 1974 again.

Ok, it's not that old, but they
should have known better.

Political correctness isn't the enemy of comedy. Time is. I think we can all handle dated sensibilities and humor in an old movie. What we can't handle is dated sensibilities in a new movie made by people who should know better. It's the difference between Blazing Saddles and I Now Pronounce you Chuck and Larry. This is a different time and we're a different culture and one that's pretty raw right now. And I don't think we're necessarily a politically correct culture. Like, the shittiest views I've ever heard espoused have come from politicians. But I think that what he's calling politically correct is what you or I might just accept as a bare minimum for being being a decent human. Look, I probably don't know what I'm talking about, but I really resent whatever quirk of advertising algorithm decided that I'd nod along to something like this. 

I mean no one is out to kill comedy, it's just that what's funny has, you know, moved on. And I'm sure it will continue to move on and years from now, perhaps sooner, things I find funny will be passé and people will cringe at us for our tasteless jokes. 

That is, if they're not to busy fighting over the last bottle of potable
recycled urine in the vast, waterless hellscape we've left for them.