At worst it's a weekend at the lake...

I don't want to yuck anyone's yum here, but I mean, give it up. The Loch Ness monster, I mean. Again, sorry to be a jerk here, but it's not a thing. 

Pictured: Loch Ness. Note the absence of any prehistoric marine reptiles.

So this, but somewhat more...alive.

I bring this up because this weekend, a rag tag team of cryptid enthusiasts are mounting what NPR is calling the largest search in fifty years for the elusive--wait, elusive isn't quite the word. For the non-existant loch-dwelling creature, which believers suggest is some kind of a throwback or a living fossil plesiosaur, while everyone else is pretty sure it's a trick of the light, or a fish, or a clump of debris, or maybe, and I hope you're sitting down for this: a hoax. And I'm not just being cynical or contrary here, but it's a hoax. 

Like, the most famous photograph of the thing was faked by an actor preposterously named Marmaduke Wetherell as part of a weird revenge scheme against The Daily Mail.

I'm more interested in the mystery of what kind
of parents would name their child Marmaduke. 

"Still nothing..."

-what you'll be hearing 

a lot this weekend

But for some reason, this lazily researched blog post by someone with no stake whatsoever in the success or failure of any monster-finding expedition, is likely to do nothing to dissuade Loch Ness Centre founder Alan McKenna and potentially hundreds of volunteers from around the world who are expected to descend upon the loch this weekend with sonar, drones, underwater microphones, and even their eyes. Yeah, a great number of these people are going to be assigned "stare at the lake in case monster" duty. 

Did you read it with a Scottish
accent? Because I definitely did.

If all this sounds boring, pointless, and a little nutty, that's because it probably is. But I'm wondering just how seriously anyone is actually taking this. Check out this quote from founder Alan McKenna's (right, under the hat) Facebook invite:

"If you believe that the Loch Ness Monster exists then we invite you to join the search, we equally invite you to support the story of the Loch and the natural behaviour of the elements that may be the root cause of these strange reports from Loch Ness."

-Alan McKenna, leaving a surprising 

amount of wiggle room for a crackpot

"God? I don't know, maybe? It all
seems kind of out there if you ask me."

-some priest

Wai-wai-wait. "If you believe?" "Strange elements that may be the cause of these strange reports?" Shouldn't he sound a little more, I don't know, convinced that Nessie exists? I mean, he is the founder of an entire Centre dedicated it. I don't know about you, but after reading that, one might get the impression that Alan McKenna isn't 100% sold on the idea. Or at least that he's open to the possibility, nay, the likely possibility that there is a non-monstery explanation for the alleged sightings. 

But who knows? It could be that they'll all just pack a lunch, hang out at the lake--sorry, loch--for a few hours, have a good time, and call it a day. Maybe it's enough that they enjoy the possibility that there could be a Jurassic marine reptile living in cold Scottish lake.

Meet Diane Duyser. She noticed that her grilled cheese sandwich looked
kinda like the Virgin Mary, and sold it on eBay for $28,000. Is it a miracle?
Who can say? But she did get twenty-eight grand for it so...

Plumber emariotus *

"Nintendo" is Japanese for betrayal! Ok, that's not true, it's Japanese for "do your best and leave luck to heaven" or something, but behold:

Above: the grim white on red of a Nintendo announcement.

Also, Chris Pratt is probably hugely expensive
and nobody wants a $90 Nintendo game.

Yup. It was announced today that Charles Martinet, the voice of Mario and Luigi for the past thirty years, is the Mario Bros. no mos. Sorry, like, "no mo?" Rhymes with bro? No? Ok fine. I didn't notice this myself, but evidently the recently released trailer for the next Mario game, Wonder, featured someone else doing Mario's voice. They've not yet announced who's taking on the role, but the good news is that it's probably not Chris Pratt, who voiced Mario in the Super Mario movie. He did a fine job in the film, but they probably need someone who's willing to do mostly this for another thirty years.

And who could forget Kane & Lynch?
Well, everyone, but I'm sure Martinet was great.

Anyway, to be clear, it's not like they fired Martinet, he's just retiring from voicing Mario, and presumably the other character he does for Nintendo. He also voiced Wario, Waluigi, Wart, and a ton of additional voices over hundreds of games for the company, but he also works for other game publishers from time to time. He did a Rachet and Clank game for Insomniac, one of the Lord of the Rings games for EA, and most notably, and something he seems to bring up a lot in interviews, he was a dragon called Paarthurnax in Skyrim. 

Anyway, he will be now be the Mario Ambassador, which is--and I'm no expert in international geopolitics--not an official ambassadorial role. He'll be more like a spokesperson for the company, and that's ok. Still though, it's going to be weird hearing someone else doing all the the "wa-hoo's," "okie-dokey's" and "mama's mia."

Farewell Mr. Ambassador, we hardly knew ye. Well, that's a lie, he's done
like hundreds of interviews. He's a delight, launching into voices like Linda Blaire
possessed by the Nintendo localization team...but best of luck to him all the same.

*like emeritus, but with Mario? I'll...I'll stop now.

It's sort of an EDM tulip bubble.

If you ever wanted to go to Burning Man but were put off by the complicated and crapshoot-y ticket process, this might be your year. If you were put off by the intense heat, high winds, the alkali dust that gets everywhere, the lack of running water, and the rich people in RVs with culturally appropriative feather headdresses, I can't help you. 

Nothing can help you.

There was also a time when it was just some
guy burning an effigy of the guy his girlfriend
left him for. So the origin story's a little ick.

Every year it's always something that's going to ruin Burning Man. Weather, bugs, glampers. This year it's ticketpocalypse. Oh, and also maybe a hurricane? I think it's down to a tropical storm which is, as I write this, battering Southern California on its path to northern Nevada, but one thing at a time. There was a time, in ages past, where you would just roll up to the desert with a handful of cash which you would exchange for a ticket. Actually there was a time before that when Burning Man was free, but that was way before my time.

Look out Comcast and whatever we're
supposed to call Twitter now,* Ticketmaster
is coming for the most hated company title. 

Anyway, now it routinely sells out, often in seconds. Actual seconds, leaving many would be campers to rage against the injustice of ticketing websites like so many Taylor Swift fans. But this year there's this new phenomenon of everybody trying to off-load their tickets. Facebook is awash with burners hawking their tickets. At first some people were asking for more than face value, which is frowned upon but now as the even draws ever nigh, they're hoping to get whatever they can. 

Ok, fine, some people like
the porta potties.

Which for an event dedicated to anti-commodification, is kind of a bummer. Well, an event dedicated to anti-commodification selling $575 tickets is kind of a bummer too, but if you like porta potties, that's just the way it is. Huh? Well, sure, nobody like the porta--oh, you meant the price. Yeah, five hundred seventy-five dollars. Of money. You can apply for low-income tickets, and there're something called FOMO tickets that cost between $1,500 and $2,750. 

At what point can a traffic jam considered
 a war crime? Because, I mean...

Which is ludicrous, but the idea is that more well-off burners can help subsidize the low income tickets. And this actually brings me to my theory about why this is happening this year. Well, ok, two theories. One is last year, the weather was brutal. Like, a hundred and seventeen degrees. Of temperature. And the nine-hour goat rodeo that was the line to get out. Which is whatever. Fine. Its was legitimately the worst. But my real theory is speculators. 

Somehow this all feels like the
fault of the 17th century Dutch. 

I think some folks bought tickets with the intent to resell them and while shady, in previous years this probably wouldn't have been difficult. And while I should be feeling some schadenfreude at the prospect of would-be scalers getting comeuppance, I suspect that there're plenty of burners who, for whatever reason, find themselves unable to go and are now stuck with tickets they can't even give away. Thanks capitalism. Wait, can I blame capitalism for this one? 

I mean, probably, but scalping is a particularly shitty version of it. At it's best--ok, it's least exploitative and gross form, I think of capitalism as based on the idea that someone recognizes a need, or a market and then through ingenuity or inventiveness, fulfills it and is rewarded. But recognizing that some think will be scarce, buying it up, and then trying to sell it at a mark-up is, I don't know, parasitism? 

"Not sure we quite see where you're going with this..."

-day traders

*I know it's X. I'm not going to say it. It's dumb.

They realize it's a board game, right?

Federation Internatinale d'Esches.
It's French, you're not having a stroke.

In possibly one of the most ignorant, pointless, and aggressively dumb moves ever undertaken by an international sports organization, the International Chess Federation (FIDE, no really, that's the acronym) is banning trans people from participating. Yes, in chess. The people in charge of goddamn chess, are hoping aboard the anti-trans hate train in what I can only imagine is an ill-conceived attempt to make the news and remind the world that there's such a thing as an International Chess Federation. Because why not?

Pictured: a lot of what's wrong with
everything in our world today.

And first, since this is the internet and knowledge about a subject has never peen a prerequisite for opining about it, please allow me to chime in on something that I've always thought was kind of dumb: separate divisions for sports based on sex. I'm not a sports person, so maybe there's some rationale I just don't get, but making men and women play in separate (but rarely equally-funded) sports divisions just seems outmoded and reinforces the idea that gender and sex are both the same thing, and a binary. But chess? 

Why are there men's and women's chess in the first place? With something like the Best Actor/Best Actress categories at the Oscar's there's at least some idea that men and women are offered different types of roles and therefore should be judged separately. Don't get me wrong, I think it's idiotic, but it's something like a reason. 

Above: Meryl Streep, seen here winning the Oscar for
Best Actor with a Vagina for excellence in lady acting.

If you had the International Chess Federation
weighing in on trans issues on your bingo card...

But I reiterate: chess? It involves sitting in a chair and moving little pieces around. Strategizing and skill are required sure, but what possible difference could gender identity play here? Are they suggesting that men and women have some kind of fundamentally disparate chess ability? And that a trans woman underwent transitioning for the sole purpose of playing women's chess? Because it's easier? Surely that can't be the case right? 

Except no, it's exactly the case. The organization went even further, stripping titles away from trans men who've previously competed in the women's division, and trans men. So I think we all can agree that Le FIDE can fuck all the way off? 

"I'm sorry, could you show me your genitals again? That move seemed a
little, you know, assigned female at birth if you know what I mean."

-Literally no one in the history of chess

Wrong again Bradford Exchange!

No really, what even is this? It's $79.99,
and pink. That's all we know about it.

Why do they even bother? The Bradford Exchange marketing department that is. Or is Facebook to blame? I mean, Facebook is to blame for a lot of things but--huh? Oh, let me explain. The Bradford Exchange is a company that proudly bills its goods as limited collectibles. Which I think is a more friendly-sounding way of saying that they like to cultivate an air of scarcity. Like, there's not a reason they can't simply manufacture more of the creepy dolls, Thomas Kinkade dioramas, and whatever the hell that thing on the right is, they simply choose not to in the hopes that the prospect of not getting one will convince you to buy because holy shit, they might run out!

The Home Shopping Network:
Preying on the compromised since 1982!

Well, not you maybe. They're not going to try and convince you. The algorithm that determines the ads you see on social media has read the tea leaves that are your internet footprint and has determined that you're not hoarder or a Home Shopping Network addict (and yes, it still exists. I looked it up). I on the other hand and left with the uncomfortable notion that the algorithm despises me--probably for all those terrible things I say about it--and deliberately misidentifies my shopping needs.

I wonder how many of the people who
bought these are doing time for storming
the Capitol? I suspect its most of them.

To be clear, I don't want to buy anything. Ever. I want to live in a socialist utopia where everything we need is replicated and the very of money is an unpleasant memory of a barbarous past. Why then the Bradford Exchange or Facebook's ad software has previously tried to sell me first the Donald Trump light up HO-scale train set and later miniatures (also light-up) of houses, like actual houses where murders have happened. Like, actual murder houses. People alive today can buy tiny recreations of the houses where their loved ones were brutally murdered. I wonder if they get a discount? Seems only fair if you're going to be profiting off of human misery.

Anyway, this time it's cats--wait for it--in a nativity scene. Behold:

At the time of this writing, whoever wrote the sentence:
Experience a PURR-fect Christmas Pageant is still at large.

Above: "The Gift of the MEOW-gi."
You're welcome, Bradford Exchange.

Have I ever in all the years, no, decades of interacting with the internet searched for or posted anything that would lead the algorithm to suspect that I had any interest in cats, nativity sets, or filling my home with cat versions of Mary, baby Jesus, Joseph, and the three wise men? Or as they're known here in a somewhat inconsistent theme: Mama, Kitten, Adoring Dad, and brace yourself: King Yarn, King Catnipmouse, and King Kittytreats. No. Not even if they are--as the website describes them "impressively sized" and made of "artists resin for heirloom value." At four and a half inches, I'd say their customers are easily impressed and isn't artists resin just, you know, resin? 

Doesn't matter I guess, I'm not the intended audience. The thought of the sheer magnitude of the crap our civilization manufactures only for it to end up in landfills and in the ocean, actually keeps me up at night and yet still the algorithm bombards with ads like this. I'm beginning to suspect that it has it in for me.

Even rendered in "artists resin" and a cat, this Jesus still somehow manages to be coded white.

Today in dumb things I have opinions about:

Look, I don't want to tell industrial designers how to industrial design, but ugh...

Above: ugh...

I've done my part, if you're still
reading this, that's on you.

Ok, maybe I do want to tell industrial designers how to industrial design. What you're looking at there is a leaked image of a supposed PlayStation 5 slim console which--huh? Yeah, I'm going to opine about the aesthetics of a video game console redesign that may or may not be real, so if that's as tedious to you as it's sounding to me now that I type it out loud, you can bail. I won't mind. In fact, I won't even know. I can't see you. Are you still with me? Yeah, I can't hear you either, but let's say you are.

I can practically hear the particle board
straining under the immense weight.

Like I was saying, a twitter user (in other, similarly strong opinions, I'm still not calling it X) posted some video and pictures of what they claim is the shell of a new, slimmer version of the PlayStation 5 to be called, creatively, the PS5 Slim. And that's super, the original PS5 is unbelievably big and heavy and has almost certainly bowed many an Ikea flat pack TV stand shelf. But from the shots, it still maintains the general design which was, I'm sure you'll recall, compared to a gigantic late 2000's router. 

I mean, look at this tower of nonsense.

Obviously a game console's external appearance isn't necessarily important. It is, as with people, what's on the inside that counts. But unlike people, a video game console has no feelings to injure, so I think we can all agree that the PS5 ranks among the ugliest designs ever. Like, ever. Some would point to the PlayStation 3's resemblance to a George Foreman Grill as the worst design, others might point to the Atari Jaguar with a CD drive and its similarity to a toilet as the worst. Still others call out the US Super Nintendo as an eyesore, but they would be objectively wrong, and heartless. 

Above: butt.

It takes a special kind of person to have strong opinions about what a game console looks like, but I suspect that you too might be such a person, and as such will agree with me that the PS5 is an offense to the eye. Or, in the common parlance, butt. So why then this redesign would carry on the weird, wavy, flared aesthetic that made the original such an object of derision is beyond knowing. Assuming, that is, that this is real. I have some doubts. Lots of people do.

People doing dumb things to get
attention? On the internet? Impossible!

Well, ok, one doubt. While I do believe that PlayStation would double down on its weird and terrible design, the source of the alleged leak is, according to press-start.com, an Australian independent Playstation software developer who was given the empty shell from a "factory source." And it just seems a little suspect that someone who hopes to develop software for Sony would publicize something like this and risk the tech company's ire. It does seem more likely to me that this is just some rando that wants re-tweets or r-ex's or whatever. 

Today in a tale banned by an idiot:

Sunshine State is just easier to fit on the
sign than peninsular fascist garbage fire.

Remember last year when that peninsular fascist garbage fire known as Florida passed their Don't Say Gay law? They called it the Parental Rights in Education bill, but that's objective nonsense. Anyway, the latest victim of Florida's insane lurch towards into the world of pandering to the dumbest common denominator is William Shakespeare. Ah--you say--but he's dead, what more could possibly happen to him? Ron DeSantis is happening to him, and to all of us, really, but more specifically Florida schools are now cutting Shakespeare.

The Florida GOP basically
operates under the Tarkin doctrine.

Hillsborough County schools are limiting Shakespeare taught in class to excerpts. And not because it's full of gay stuff--it is, but the people who wrote the bill aren't going to know that--but because the Don't Say Gay bill is deliberately broad and everyone is terrified of running afoul of it accidentally. Which I think was the point all along. Why write a clear, easy to understand law when you can write a vague, interpretable law and keep everyone in line through fear? 

There are dick jokes, oral sex jokes and in
A Midsummer Night's Dream, a guy named
Bottom is turned into an ass. I mean, c'mon.

Shakespeare, as you may or may not be aware, contains adult content. It was popular entertainment four hundred years ago and Tudor England was horny as hell. Shakespeare's plays, despite the stolid reputation they acquired from centuries of being forced on students, is full of sexual references and dirty jokes. Sexual references and dirty jokes any decent educator would use to get kids interested in Shakespeare, but instead, they're being cut from the curriculum because some people are afraid that they've make their kids gay. Or something. These people don't exactly have clear objectives. 

It's important we that give kids the tools
they need to look smug when they catch
 a reference to Shakespeare on TV.

Look, I'm not a parent and you couldn't pay me to live in Ron DeSantis's experiment in Orwellian overreach. And obviously I have no idea what's being taught in Florida schools, but I can guarantee you no one was reading Titus Andronicus to kindergartners. Or any Shakespeare for that matter. It's usually a middle or high school subject because they kids are old enough to understand it. And even then it's usually taught as literature, which I actually don't love because it was written to be performed, but whatever, it should be a part of the curriculum somehow. 

And I don't know, I'm just sick of hearing about educators giving in to bullies. And I can't imagine what it must be like to actually live in Florida. It's like what High school teacher Joseph Cool told the Tampa Bay Times: "I think the rest of the nation -- no, the world, is laughing at us." He's not wrong. We are laughing, but it's more of a laugh cry situation, because this hurts people.

Interestingly, Florida and Tudor England have some things in common:
they both ban books, they're both afraid of people who speak Spanish,
and they both seem to think slavery isn't all that bad. 

Today in offensive amounts of wealth:

Can't they just donate the money? Huh? Who? Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg and this nonsense about a cage fight and what even have we become? As a civilization, I mean.

Oh...right. Hey, how'd that turn out?

Pictured: Jeff Bezos's dick rocket.

For those just catching up (myself included because I've cultivated the part of my brain that tries to filter out some of the dumber aspects of our culture), this started when Zuckerberg announced Threads. Which is basically Twitter. Then Musk challenged Zuckerberg to a cage match for some reason, and he accepted. It probably has something to do with fragile male egos and a need for multi-billionaires to assert their masculinity through ostentation.

Musk isn't exactly known for preparing
for things. Or getting permits. Or making
great choices. Wait, how is he rich again?

But what do I know? I'm no psychologist. Or a gambler, although I do know which one you should bet on. Evidently Mark Zuckerberg has a martial arts background and trains with Ultimate Fighting Championship fighters and recently competed in a jiu jitsu tournament. So he's like, prepared. Elon Musk on the other hand, is not. In fact, his own father once famously shamed him for being out of shape. And that's just unfair, there are so many other reasons to shame him. Besides, who has time to exercise when they're busy running Twitter into the ground?  

I mean, basically, right?

Anyway, this whole thing has been an on again, off again/will they or won't they thing for the better part of a month. What brought it up again is that they may (or may not) have set a date to work out all of their weird, billionaire-bro aggression: August 26th. To be clear, I don't care. I don't particularly want to see them fight each other, and it kind of seems like if they actually gave a shit about donating the proceeds to veterans, they could just cut out the cage match and, you know, donate money to veterans. 

Or, better yet, donate money to veterans, and cancer research, and initiatives to fight climate changes--really all the causes. They have a combined worth of $340 billion. That's billion with a B. And the best they can come up with is watch us punch each other? Why not fund some school lunch programs?

Although they are two of America's more punchable faces...

Yeah, but did anyone get a PS5?

So I don't think anyone's saying that the scene in New York's Union Square wasn't a disaster. If you haven't heard, a YouTuber called Kai Cenat announced that he'd be giving away PlayStation 5's, thousands of teens showed up, and a riot ensued. There were injuries, arrests, and charges for Cenat. What a mess. 

The real crime is underestimating what kids will do for a free PlayStation.

Can I just honk police accountably
or do people with signs not do nuance?

But have you seen this video of cops grabbing some kid and putting his head through the rear window of a cab? It's been circulating on social media and it's alarming. Not because this is the kind of thing doesn't happen all the time, like, I think it does, it's just not always captured on video. It's alarming because of everyone who leaps to the defense of the cops in this case, or really any instance where police suddenly ignore their training and due process and beat the shit out of someone. Are our only choices defund the police or accept violent, jackbooted, fascist goonery? 

Breaking News: white buy with a blog
suddenly realizes police brutality is a thing.

The victim here was among other teens who were smacking the van, but he wasn't himself damaging it, at least not on video. And then he ran, which doesn't look good, admittedly. But next, the police officers come around the cab, grab the kid, seemingly at random, and then assault him. Brutally. Which, I mean, even if he did damage the cab (which again, we don't know that he did), and the cops saw him do it (which, who knows what they saw?), is what they did in any way a proportional response? 

No? Not going to talk about the hole
in the window? Of the kid's face? Huh...

Check out this screenshot of the New York Times coverage of the riot. They're using a picture of the teen in question bleeding and being handcuffed, but bizarrely caption it with:

"The police say they had made several arrests and said some in the crowd had shoved officers and refused to follow directions."

-The New York Ti-wait, did 

they not look at the picture?

"Teens are spending far too much time
watching the MTV and swearing!"

-The New York Times

Maybe this just an oversight? These are the same people that ran that crossword puzzle that looks like a swastika. Did someone grab a picture from a story about unwarranted police brutality and accidentally caption it with a story of how unruly teens need to learn some respect and disciple? Apart from a single, passive voice acknowledgement from police chief Jeffrey Maddrey about how "...a lot of young people got hurt," the story seems to be entirely about the damage caused and "the power of social media and the danger of social media."

Well what did you think 
was going to happen?

Look, to be clear, I'm not pro-riot. Kai Cenat promoted an event without a permit and told everyone he'd be giving away free PS5's or whatever. I think marine biologists call this chumming the water. It was a dumb move and of course it got out of hand and everyone who messed up city property should be charged.  You'd think the smart thing to do when a riot breaks out would be to leave, but people--particularly teens--don't always make the best decisions. 

But then they're not trained law enforcement. Trained law enforcement officers have training and tools available to them to help cope with crazy situations, like, say a riot. But none of those tools are a taxi window and then when they resort to 80's action movie nonsense, they don't need people on twitter (not calling it X) backing them up.

An Omnicorp executive who refused to obey a malfunctioning police
robot was subdued earlier today. A company spokesperson assures us that
the executive's family will be billed for the rounds fired and cleaning fees.

-The New York Times