Don't his robot cars keep killing people?

I mention this because being ultra-wealthy is not the same thing as being an expert in...well, anything's really. Did you see this? Elon Musk's defense of Dilbert creator Scott Adams's batshit video about how America should just give up trying to not be racist. 

Has it been though? Racist against white people I mean.
Is he...could he be thinking of some other the media? 

Pictured: what Musk did.

After the preponderance of the internet clapped back at Adams for his ignorant shittiness, Musk leapt to his defense, both turning the table whilst simultaneously flipping the script. Yeah, you read that right, it's the media that's racist. Against white people. Asian people too. And um. Cool, yeah. I mean, he's half right, maybe. There's absolutely racism in the media, but I've never noticed being aimed at white people, have you? At Asian people, sure, but I think he just stuck that in there so he'd sound less racist. Which didn't really work. In fact, it kind of backfired. 

"Mondays? More like No Fun-days!"

-basically Dilbert

Adams coming out with his nonsense was weird enough. He's been voicing some pretty retrograde opinions for years now, but I guess he's never said anything offensive enough to overcome his lack of relevancy. It's like people didn't care enough to cancel him before now. And I'm sorry, I'm not trying to be a dick, I know he was a successful comic writer for years, and Dilbert had it's day but it's not like anyone in twenty twenty three was waiting for Scott Adams to weigh in on race in America. Nor was anyone waiting for Elon Musk's opinion either.

So why did he jump in there? Nobody cares what he things about this and it's not like he needs to attach himself to controversy to get attention. Everyone hates that he bought twitter, his self-driving cars keep getting into fatal accidents, and he's started hanging out with MAGA goons. Is it that he feels like he's so rich and powerful that nothing can touch him? Sure, it's been true so far, but sooner or later this catches up with him, right?

"It's about time a cis, straight, white, male billionaire set the
record straight about how hard it is to be white in America."

-literally not one person ever

You know what really doesn't pay off, Scott?

Look, I don't want to tell people with shitty worldviews how to live, but you'd think--particularly now--that they'd know better than to, say, go on racist screeds in Anno Domini MMXXIII, right? Look, I don't care about Dilbert--like, at all--but what I am interested in is asking what Scott Adams's endgame here was? Like, what was his plan? I mean, what did he think would happen when he put his horseshit out there for all to enjoy?

Was he hoping for condemnation, the erasure of whatever goodwill he might have
had, and every paper in the country dropping his comic strip the instant he opened
his racist face-hole? Because that what he got. Like at the speed of outrage. 

Oh no! What's Black America going
to do without Scott Adam's help?

I didn't want to watch the video for the same reason I don't watch Dr. Pimple Popper; I just don't what that in my brain. But I did watch it, and it's as gross as you think it is. He found some weird right-wing poll about race, decided that there's no fixing racism and advises white people to "escape" from Black people by moving into white neighborhoods. Oh, and then announced that he's going to "back off" from being helpful to Black America. 

I'm not super-clear on how writing Dilbert
was helpful to Black America, but I don't know...

"I'm going to back off from being helpful to Black America. Because it doesn't seem like it pays off. Like, I've been doing it all my life, and I've been--the only outcome is that I get called a racist."

-Noted cartoonist and racist Scott Adams

Ok, but surely even he's got to admit that saying things like helping Black people doesn't pay off, sounds pretty racist, right?

Anyway, after showering, I'm left with the question of what was he looking for here? Was he thinking that the tens of Dilbert fans out there might flock to his cause? Or that America, as a nation, might suddenly revert to separate water fountains and red line neighborhoods just because Scott Adams is feeling under appreciated?

Like, literally no one anywhere was asking Scott "Dilbert" Adams to chime in on
race in America. No one. All he had to do was keep his shitty opinions to himself,
and the five or six newspapers left would still be running his dumb comic.

Once more unto PVP dear friends, once more!

Pictured: online gaming.

I should be upfront that while I am a video game person, I'm not an online video game person. That is, I don't play online games with other people unless I know them and it's Mario Kart or something. I'd like to say that it's for some kind of snobbish reasons, but really I'm just socially awkward in some ways and don't want to interact with strangers in a video game. Because gross. But I do admire the fact that performing plays, including some of Shakespeare's, is now a thing people are doing in MMORPG's. 

Above: Shakespeare's Globe with historically
accurate metal girders and Tommy gun.

Yup, a group called the Wasteland Theatre Company gets together and puts plays on in Fallout '76. The game is part of the Fallout series and is a post-nuclear apocalypse role playing game, so it's a lot of desolate ruins and, well, wastelands. The game is famously not great, but has attracted a cult following including, apparently, theatre nerds. They hold auditions, build the stage, including The Globe, sets, and costume the "actors," all using in-game assets and then perform using the game's chat.

Cheap shot? Sure, but I'm not wrong...

Theatre is best when you're seeing it live and in person, and I guess Wasteland's productions work the same way. They have a Twitch channel, but apparently you can also go see it in the game. Of course, that means you have to play Fallout '76. Because it's an MMORPG and in a consistent world where anyone can play, one has to be prepared for some rando to pop in and murder everybody. So it's a lot like what I imagine doing outdoor theatre in a Redstate is like.

I suspect most people catch them on their Twitch channel, although a recorded production of A Christmas Carol they did for charity back in December is up in its entirety and I watched some of it. Was it the best thing ever? No, it was not. The actors were a bit flat at times, and lost their places in the script, but it was definitely the best Dickens play I've ever seen performed in a video game. And I admire the passion and the nerdery it takes. Which, I mean, that's live theatre, right? Passion and nerdery.

"Out out brief candle! Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player that struts
and frets his hour upon the stage and then is heard no more. Until he respawns."

-Macbeth, World V, Level V

Presidents* Day

They're on the money, they have cities and even a state named after them, I guess what I'm asking is do they need a whole day too? Because some of them were kind of awful.

This one committed genocide. Like, actual genocide.

"Enjoy your federal holiday, I'll just
be here. You know, working."

Presidents, I mean. I ask because tomorrow is Presidents’ Day, which is a holiday for some people. You know, people whose jobs are, shall we way, non-essential. Which is another way of saying that they make more than the rest of us who will be taking their lunch orders and customer service calls while they reflect on the U.S. Presidents. Anyway, doesn't matter. I'm not here to whine about having to work tomorrow, that was just a bonus, I'm here to call into question Presidents Day, as a holiday.

"Because the real victims of slavery are
white kids who have to learn about it."

-Ron DeSantis

Officially it's Washington's Birthday, but then they rolled Lincoln's in there was well, and now I guess it's a holiday for Presidents in general. Washington, I kind of get since he was the first President. I suppose the bar was super low, and he did defeat the British and basically start America, but he also enslaved people so I guess I don't mind that he has to share now. Oh, and in case you live in Florida, yes he did, he absolutely did. And no he was not nice to them. It's literally impossible to be kind to someone you own and make work for no money.

Pictured: the woman most of us
voted for but wasn't President somehow.

Where was I? Lincoln. Also great. Won the Civil War, freed the enslaved people, he gets a day even if it's weird that he has to share it which the be-powdered wigged proponent of forced labor. But what about the rest of them? Does President's Day celebrate all the Presidents? All of them? Really? The thing about Presidents is that unlike say, a king, is that they're supposed to be real people. Not the vessels of divine will, but just some randos whose careers in politics landed them at the top. Or maybe they just gamed the electoral college. Either way.

Above: Ninth President William Henry
Harrison, seen here wearing the coat he
should have worn on inauguration day.

I guess where I'm going with this is I think they need to do something to warrant a holiday. Like for every Lincoln and FDR, there's a Buchanan, right? In fact, there were probably several Buchanans for every FDR. Or William Henry Harrisons. Remember him? He caught pneumonia while giving his inauguration speech and died thirty days in. What did he do to deserve getting one forty-sixth of a national holiday? I don't mean to pick on they guy, I'm just saying that I'd kind of get it if he was the reason we have sick days now, but he's not. They just swore in the next one and moved on, but he still counts.

I guess my point is, shouldn't it be Some Presidents Day or maybe Good Presidents Day? Presidents* Day? I'll leave you consider that while you spend tomorrow in solemn contemplation of the achievements and contributions of some of our nation's commanders in chief. If you need me, I'll be, you know, working at my job.

Contemplation, shopping. Same difference. I guess they have good deals on stick
blenders, maybe pick one of those up? It's what Lincoln would have wanted.

Today in relentless fan service:

Huh? What's that? Why yes, I did see the new episode of Star Trek: Picard. What's that? My opinion of it? Why certainly, I'd be happy to. What? In my defense, it's not like anyone needs to ask me. Should I encounter you in person, there's a decent chance that I'm just going to launch into my thoughts about it.

The internet is something like forty percent fans opining
on media franchises they like. I'm just doing my part.

I read more Star Trek novels in my misspent
youth than I'm prepared to admit to you now.

Anyway, Picard season three. I thought the first episode was great, but I'm not saying you should go watch it. Nor am I saying you shouldn't. You seen, I'm just not sure I'm the one to ask. Or even the one to pretend to ask as a set up for a blog post. Star Trek: The Next Generation and the extended universe of spin-offs and movies and even comics and novels, were a big part of my childhood and teens. I may have even, to my great shame, built models. Models. So I'm not sure I can evaluate it objectively. And this defiantly works in Star Trek: Picard's favor, because I have mixed feelings about the series.

Share them? Well, ok, but only because you insist. Look, it's not a great show. In fact, it's probably been the weakest Star Trek series out of all of them. And yes, I am familiar with Star Trek: Enterprise.

Yeah, you heard me. Trust me, I'm as surprised as you are.

All I'm saying is that Star Trek Discovery
did "extra-dimensional doomsday sentient
machines" like two months earlier than Picard.

They both played out like miniseries, each season telling a single over-arching story rather than being stand alone episodes, which is a completely contrary style to the series it was based on, and neither told a very interesting one, if we're being honest. Season one--and spoiler alert, I guess--ended up being a "stop the rise of the evil robots" story. While season two was time travel shenanigans. And yet, I watched and enjoyed them both. How could I not? They're tailor made for exactly people like me. People who built the goddamn model kits.

Before you ask, no, Crusher's sex
candle was vaporized years ago.

People who, as I did last night, scrutinized the dialogue and even the backgrounds picking up on every detail placed there by the writers and the production team for nerds like me. The orchids we see in the beginning of the episode? Oh, Doctor Crusher grew orchids in the episode Cause and Effect. Geordi LaForge's daughter Sydney? She was mentioned in the series finalé All Good Things... Space dock? Dang, straight out of Star Trek III.  Does any of this make for good television? No. Am I there for it? You betcha. And they--the writers--know this. They know the buttons to push. 

And I know that they know. And yet I don't care. Well ok, I do care. I mean, I feel like I'm being manipulated, but that will in no way stop me from watching the next nine episodes. Which, and don't get me wrong, could actually be great. I think this season's first episode was actually good. Like, really good. It's just that I don't trust my own objectivity. 

What was it about? I uh...I don't know, but Doctor Crusher's
jacket is totally a call back to The Wrath of Khan, so...there's that.

Wait, did someone think it was aliens?

You've got to feel for the White House Press Secretary, right? Well, the current one, Karine Jean-Pierre, not Sean Spicer or Sarah Huckabee Sanders. 

Pictured: Sarah Huckabee Sanders seen here calling the women who accused
Donald Trump of assault liars, or possibly calling Democrats baby killers. It's hard to say.

"And before you ask, Pete Doocy,
no, the objects aren't angels either."

-Jean-Pierre, covering her bases

I say this because Jean Pierre had to reassure the press--a room full of adults mind you--that we didn't just shoot down four alien spacecraft:

"I know there have been questions and concerns about this but there is no, again there is no indication of aliens or extraterrestrial activity with these recent takedowns..."

-Karine Jean-Pierre, on how

definitely alien these objects aren't

"Our patented five blade design ensures a
close, comfortable cutting through of the bullshit."

And I mean, really? Is that really a question the White House has been getting? Ok, fine, of course it is, but I kind of think they can just let them stew. Stew in their tin-foil hat juices. Sorry, that's a mixed metaphor, but I think you get me. Of course this rash of as-yet-unidentified high-altitude objects has nothing to do with aliens. Of course it doesn't. Not just because of some Occam's razor argument--although, also because of that that--but because it's preposterous. And a little insulting if there are aliens.

Do we have a tachyon detection grid?
No? Then they have nothing to worry about.

Ok, to be clear, there are absolutely aliens out there. Like, it's just math. Whether or not they can or even want to visit us is a whole other question. But let's say sure, there are aliens with the technology and morbid curiosity to check out our backwards, fossil fueled little garbage fire of a planet. Are they doing it with balloons? Balloons easily visible to our tracking devices and vulnerable to our puny weapons? Or are they scanning us from a distance in cloaked spaceships with sophisticated sensors? I'm not an alien, but I know which I'd pick.

Call me a skeptic, but to get here, they would have presumably crossed impossible, interstellar distances and I just have a hard time buying that they'd not only come all this way to surveil North America, but to do so in a hospital gift shop mylar balloon that can be taken out by bunch of pre-warp barbarians. 

Although in the unlikely event that these things were alien in origin,
I feel pretty good about our chances should they try and invade.

You might say it's a real A.D. campaign...

Or you might not...anyway, have you ever heard of this niche religious movement called--hand on, let me see if I've got this right--Christ-ism? Wait, no, Christianity. Yeah, that's it. If you haven't and you're a fan of the football, you're about to hear what it's all about at this year's annual Super-bowl sporting event.

"Christianity? Never heard of them. Are they a band or something?"

-literally no one in the world

Pictured: a crusader bludgeoning
non-believers with God's love.

The movement, founded in the first century A.D., is based around a street preacher/son of God who hung out with the destitute, the chronically ill, and the socially outcast and called out the political and religious establishment of his age for its hypocrisy. The religion went on to be the dominant belief system for a significant percentage of the human species for the subsequent two thousand years. It inspired art, architecture and incredible acts of kindness, but it was also used as justification for slavery, countless wars, and acts of brutality and intolerance that resonate down through the ages.

So it's a little weird that someone feels that they need to take out a Super Bowl ad to raise awareness of the religion's existence. Although I am given to understand that God does routinely take time out of his busy schedule to intervene on the behalf of the faithful in the outcomes of sporting events, so what do I know?

"He who prayeth the hardest shall winneth the big game, so sayeth the Lord."

-the Bible.

They should probably call it: 
"We Don't Get Him, Like At All." 

The ad campaign dubbed "He Gets Us" (he in this case being Jesus) is aimed at the youths, a demographic the religion has lost significant ground with over the past few decades. Why? I don't don't, but if I were to speculate, I'd say it has something to do with the way Christian organizations have become increasingly hostile and toxically right-wing. They tent to be anti-choice, anti-LGBTQIA+, xenophobic, racist, authoritarian, hyper-capitalist and--fine, Republican.

"Birth control? I don't know, have you
discussed this with your managers pastor?"

-some doctor

He Gets Us however aims to change all that. Huh? No, not by actually addressing the gross, right-wing bent of American Christianity, but by trying to change the public perception. The hip sounding He Gets Us website emphasizes the love one another, everyone has a seat at the table, Jesus as Hippy vibe and that's super. But the organizations funding the campaign are a bunch of conservative, anti-choice, homophobic groups and individuals including David Green, the Hobby Lobby founder who fought for an won the right for businesses to deny birth control coverage for employees on religious grounds.

After all, a rebranding is way easier for American Evangelical Christianity than actually examining the questions and irreconcilable paradoxes at the heart of their political beliefs. Questions like "how can pro-life people also be pro-death penalty, pro-gun, and anti-healthcare?" And "why are Evangelicals anti-gay when Jesus mentions gay people exactly zero times?" You know, the real come to Jesus stuff they don't like to think about.

You know, David Green is awfully vocal about how Christian he is for
a guy who has not, as Jesus explicitly asks, given all his money way to the poor.
Pretty sure he never said anything about donating to right-wing political groups.

Not with a bang, but with a bing...

"Just Bing it." Said no one ever, at least no one outside of product placement inserted into strained dialogue in some NBC sitcoms in the the late 00's. 

"I couldn't have killed him. The killer used Google to find out
how to dispose of the body, and I only Bing. I only Bing!"

-Emphatically pro Microsoft 

suspect, Season 19, episode five

Coffee shops are filled with humans
performatively writing screenplays in public,
so why bother building software to do it?

And yet it's still around. Microsoft's also-ran search engine, I mean. And possibly Law and Order, I don't know and I'm certainly not going to Bing the question. Anyway, I mention this because the tech company is employing AI technology similar to ChatGPT to improve search responses. What's ChatGPT? Great, I'm glad I pretended you asked, because I was starting to feel out of touch. It's a fancy chatbot designed to mimic human responses. It can write anything from computer programs to music and even novels and screenplays. Not well, but it can.

I say not well, but I've not tried it myself. It wants you to create an account and I mean, for one thing, I don't need any more accounts in my life. Secondly, I'm not sure I want to be on this thing's radar when it becomes sentient. 

What I'm saying is that if you build robots that look like chrome skeletons, and then give
them guns and autonomy, you don't get to act surprised when they murder everyone. 

"Everyone's used to iOS, so I was
thinking we change it. For no reason."

-Someone at Apple

Irrational Skynet concerns aside, so what? Like, why do we need to converse with our internet search engine? We don't, obviously, but if there's one thing tech, like as an industry, loves to do, it's improve things. Ok, that's wrong, if there's one thing the tech industry loves to to it's go public, make embarrassing amounts of money, and then lay off thousands of people, but if there're two things it loves to do, the second one is improve things. And a more conversational search engine means you can use more natural speech when doing a search. 

"Oh and Siri, is it too spicy? Make sure 
it's not too spicy. Siri? Can you hear me?"

-everyone's dad

If you wanted poke, you might type "poke" into your browser. Or maybe use Siri or whatever, and say, "find a poke restaurant near me." Simple, concise keywords designed to yield a certain response. But if you've ever watched someone not super-tech savvy say, a parent, search for something online, it tends to go something like: "I would like pokey, can you find me a pokey restaurant? Near me. And one that has forks. I can't use chopsticks." It's exhausting because you know you're going to have to step in eventually, but a smarter search engine would be able to parse that rambling nonsense. 

Although if we're being honest, a
civilization where tweeting in the persona
of Appleby's is a job, isn't a healthy one.

And that's super, whatever. I suppose it's a more worthwhile use of the technology than trying to algorithmically devise social media posts which it can also do. In fact, creating content for and representing corporations on social media is probably going to end up as this thing's key application. No longer will corporations have to pay a social media coordinator to be the voice of their company, they'll simply use ChatGPT or whatever to churn out posts and targeted advertisements. Which on the one hand is a bleak portent of humans being replaced by machines.

But I suppose it's all a matter of perspective. I'd argue that anything that takes us out of the social media equation is probably a worthy cause. A future where the internet writes and reads its own bullshit and leaves the rest of us alone is one worth looking forward to. 

A future where things like Twitter are an entirely automated, closed loop of
AI generated opinions. A Human Centipede of tweets no living person ever has to read.

Today in my march toward curmudgeonhood:

It is, impossibly, 2023, which, I know you know that. If you're anything like me, you've been scribbling over the last "2" in 2022 every time you need to write the date, but I bring it up because it's also my birthday.

Pictured: Me, today.

Chauffeur's do that right? You see,
I wouldn't know. I'm not a rich.

Yeah, again. And I am continually stunned by the increasing speed at which time now goes by. They tell you this when you're a child. That the older you get, the faster the years seem to go past. The reason being something like how rich people work. If you only have say, a few hundred dollars in your bank account, a simple car repair bill can be financially devastating. Meanwhile, the wealthy think nothing of it and just have their chauffeur change the oil or replace the air filter or whatever.

Instead of walking and doing
your own goddamn laundry.

And the fact that the ever-present possibility of an overly burdensome repair bill is my go-to analogy for getting older is just further evidence of my own, crushing adultivity. No one in their twenties thinks this way (or at all, if you're twenty-year-old me) and I'm not sure why. Is it that in our twenties, we just sort of assume that by the time we hit our forties we'll be financially stable? Because I think that's the personal equivalent of thinking that the future is going to be all jetpacks and robot butlers. 

"Student debt? College only cost $300
a year. Get to work ya lazy millennial!"

-an old

But it's not all doom and laundry, I mean, there are good things about getting old I suppose. I haven't hit any yet, but I'm sure they're coming. For one thing, olds are famous for loosing their ability to give a shit about what other people think. One need look no further than the clothes or the appalling disregard so many members of the seventy-plus crowd have for the struggles of the subsequent generations. Only someone born in the 50's could come up with the idea that rent should be no more than 30% of our income. It'd be great, but are they unfamiliar with capitalism? Which is kind of also their fault?

So there's that to look forward to. I wonder what unreasonable criticism people from my generation will lay on those who come after? Who can say? But with the rapidity with which old-age is setting in, I suppose I won't have to wait too long to find out.

"Rising sea levels? Boo-hoo. Maybe if you damn kids would
 stop buying so much avocado toast, you could afford a boat."

-future me, presumably while flying 

around on a high-emissions jetpack

 

Fred le Marmotte: we hardly knew ye...

In yet another shocking Canadian Groundhog Day scandal, Fred le Marmotte, Val-d'Espoir, Quebec's weather prognosticating rodent, is dead. 

Fred le Marmotte, 2014-2023, Repose en Paix...

The gathered crowd then burst into a rendition
of Qué Será Será as is required by law in most
 French-speaking municipalities.

The animal's death was announced to the crowd of over two hundred and fifty stunned Quebeqoius by Val-d'Espoir's Groundhog Day event organizer, Roberto Bloudin, who took the opportunity to prepare children for the crippling uncertainty that comes along with life in the twenty-first century:

"This year, things are going to happen a little different. There's a famous saying that goes, 'In life, there's only one certainty: nothing's certain. Well, this year, that has come true. It's true. It's unfortunate. I'm here to announce Fred's death."

-Bloudin, waxing poetic 

The internet: where literally anyone
can publish literally anything.

Which, alright...I'll just say it: it's a little weird that Fred le Marmotte, is this town's groundhog. Marmotte is, unsurprisingly for a town in Quebec, French for marmot and not, as one might expect, groundhog. I looked this up--because research--and Marmots and Groundhogs are similar, but different species to one another. The late Fred le Marmotte has his own wikipedia page which refers to him as a groundhog, so I don't know what to believe in anymore. Both because of the confusing contradiction, but also because a marmot has a wikipedia page. 

The dumbness of Groundhog Day seems
surpassed only by the dumbness of the hats
people wear when participating in it.

Bloudin explained that when he tried to wake Fred from hibernation he found that he'd been dead for some time. Possibly months--gross--which raises further questions. Like: does no one check on the day of the celebration to see if exactly this has happened before two hundred and fifty people show up? Also: didn't it, you know, smell? And lastly, and this is the key point: why, in the year of our Lord twenty twenty-three is anyone still harassing groundhogs because of this dumb tradition?

Pivoting in a master stroke of improvisation, Bloudin invited a child from the crowd wearing a groundhog hat to come on stage and make the prediction. Which, super. Sad day, but saved in the end by Roberto Boudin's quick thinking. Great. But I mean, if a kid in groundhog cosplay is just as good as an actual groundhog, can we just all, as a civilization, retire the animal cruelty altogether? We have weather apps on like, all our phones.

I guarantee you that the predation of some rando kid will be as accurate
 as any rodent torn from hibernation and thrust blinking and disoriented into the 
terrifying lights and noise of a Groundhog Day celebration. Which is to say 50/50.