Today in the patently unlikely:

Pictured: you, I assume.

While the reporting around this makes it clear that this is just a patent and not something that's actually going to happen, a Switch 2 is coming next year and so it's natural for us to--huh? Not "us" just me? Ok, fine. But, I mean, you clicked on my blog, so surely you're at least a little intersted in my ill-researched opinions about videogames, right? Since this is a one-way mode of communication, I'm just going to assume you're agreeing with me and press on. 

I read that Nintendo took out a patent last year for a handheld gaming device with three screens. Yeah, three, which if you recall, is one more than than the all-time record of two screens for the DS series of handhelds. Why three screens? No idea. Why are razor manufacturers constantly trying to add more blades?

Like, if the first blade did it's job...

Come on Nintendo, you're really
be doing the eBay people a solid.

But nerds have a theory: if this is the next iteration of the Switch, a second screen seems to suggest that maybe it could play DS/3DS games. Maybe even the actual cartridges. Which would be great. It doesn't explain the third screen--located on the exterior of the handheld according to the patent application--but it does seem to open the possibility of DS compatibility, the games for which require (at minimum) two screens. There are millions of DS games floating out there, so why not sell us a console that can play them? Just because Nintendo doesn't make money off of used game sales?

"No, it's not a handheld, it's a--no, it's not an
add-on for the Wii, look, it's...nevermind."

-Nintendo, trying to explain the WiiU

Oh, right. They don't. Actually, there're a lot of problems with this theory, not the least of which is that a patent doesn't necessarily mean a product. Sometimes companies take out patents just to beat competitors to the punch. And not for nothing, but the Switch was a simple, easy to understand and market idea: a handheld that also connects to a TV. A Switch that also unfolds into a DS and also also has a third screen might be confusing and without a really clear vision, they could have another WiiU on their hands. 

But I don't mean to dash nerdy hopes. I really do hope it's a new Switch and I love the extra screens and as an old, it would be great to be able to pop in a DS game without having to dig the thing out, but I'm realistic. Between the lack of financial motivation to revisit old hardware and the five-blades of shaving comfort vibes the patent gives off, this feels like more like a patent land-grab to me than the next Switch.

"Yeah, remember the DS with the two screens? What if that but three screens?"

-Someone at Nintendo R&D, shortly 

before being shown the door

Today in shutting up about Leviticus:

Embarrassing for them, for us it was
this (see above) mixed with the sinking
realization that this is the new normal

I'm sure I don't even need to say it, but the Republican Party of 2023 is a rabid-foam, morally bankrupt, thug-driven shell of its former Party of Lincoln self. I don't need to say it, but I'm going to, you know, keep saying it anyway because seriously? I know that there was no scenario during the long, embarrassing goat-rodeo that was the fight over the House Speaker job in which a few of them were going to put politics aside and say vote for Hakeem Jeffries just have a functional government.

But still, watching half of America's political landscape trying to out do each other over which one is the most Jesus-y, the least woke, and hates trans people the hardest left me with the impression that there's no way forward with these people. Like, how do you have a good faith argument with someone who's only retort is "read your Bible?" 

"I just don't get it, I said the election was rigged, I threatened
my colleagues' families...what more do they want from me?"

-rejected Speaker candidate Jim Jordan

"Everything's an abomination with you..."

-the guy writing the Bible 

Which is what newly and grudgingly settled upon Speaker Mike Johnson told Sean Hannity when asked about his views. And I have some questions: which version of the Bible? What translation? Old Testament? New Testament? The part about abortion? Because spoiler alert, that's not in there. How about gay stuff? Because Jesus never says anything about it. The Old Testament does, but the Old Testament says a lot of things. A lot of things and since Mike appears to be wearing two different kinds of cloth at the same time, he can shut right up about Leviticus.

Pictured: Southern Baptist:
the cool ranch of Christianity.

(source: observation)

And look, the problem isn't elected officials having religious beliefs. Presidents Obama and Biden were vocal about their Protestant and Catholic beliefs respectively. Trump was vocal about being a goon. The point is we're not electing pastors or bishops or whatever, and read your Bible isn't an answer. Being Christian isn't a stance because it means something different to everybody. Most Americans identify as some flavor of Christian, sure, but most Americans also support gun control, abortion rights, and same-sex marriage so...what's up?

"The Constitution, like the Bible,
says whatever I want it to say."

-Johnson, evidently

"Read your Bible" is a dodge and we have to stop letting people use their deeply held beliefs and faith as an excuse for their shitty behavior. And by we, I suppose I mean actual journalists and not whatever Sean Hannity is. Like, none of these people are running for Pope or whatever, they're running for public office. And they all seem to forget the separation of church and state imperative of the First Amendment, whilst simultaneously squinting some sort of right to an unlimited personal arsenal out of the Second Amendment. 

And look, I'm no theologian and would probably describe myself as some sort of secular agnostic Vulcantologist, but I went to Sunday school as a kid, and this kind of Right-wing shit-heelery dressed up as performative religion doesn't bear much of a resemblance to anything they tried to teach us.

"Ted, I'd like you to meet Republican Jesus. We were just talking
about all the different kinds of people we hate. The poors, queermos,
women. You should hear the things that come out of this guys mouth!"

-Republican

Anyone else miss the Dark Ages?

Those sure were the good'ol days, amiright?

Looking for a sign that civilization is headed in the wrong direction? Then look no further than Guédelon Castle in Burgundy, France, where fans of the Middle Ages are building a castle, like, an actual Thirteenth century castle. And to be clear, I'm not saying that this group of medieval enthusiasts are a sign of civilizational decline. I actually think they're pretty rad for doing this. I'm saying that the twenty-first century is such an unforgivable trash fire that I completely understand why people miss the Dark Ages. 

Ready for my uncontroversial opinion:
The Castle Lego sets were, and still
are, objectively the best Lego sets.

Ok, maybe it's not just that the people involved miss the Dark Ages. Guédelon Castle is about archeology and the past and learning how to exist without electricity and modern convinces. Which, I mean, give us a few more years going the way we're going, and those skills will become very much in demand. But bleak outlook aside, according to this, craftspeople who are working on the castle and the techniques they developed (or rediscovered) at Guédelon are being used to rebuild Notre Dame, so it has real-world applications in addition to being wish fulfilment for anyone who ever had legos as a kid. 

Above: Michel Guyot, seen here
inviting us to party like it's 1299.

The project was started back in 1997 when a French entrepreneur called Michel Guyot discovered the ruins of a medieval castle on some land he owned--because I guess in Europe, you can't go ten feet without tripping over the ruins of something--and thought, hey, why not build a new old castle? The European Union gave him some Euro funbacks for funding and he was off to the races. Or the tilts. Or whatever it was medieval people did. Crusades? 

Anyway, the design is based on the nearby ruins and the construction project employs craftspeople who use 13th century techniques, including period appropriate cranes and hoists to try and be as authentic as possible.

This suggests that someone, somewhere, is a 13th century French hoist expert.
Like, that's their area of expertise. They probably wrote a dissertation on them.

Also, I suspect that there probably weren't
a ton of craftspeople skilled in medieval
French building techniques living in Arkansas

Oh, and get this, the whole thing is open to the public. It kind of sounds like a Ren Faire writ large or Colonial Williamsburg without being painfully boring and I definitely want to go. Obviously it's a bit of a hike to go to France, although Guyot also started a similar project in the US. Called the Ozark Medieval Fortress, it weirdly set out to build a medieval French Castle in Arkansas, although I guess in some sense a castle is as out of place in the twenty-first century as it is in Arkansas. Either way, the project ran out of money and was left unfinished and closed indefinitely.

Anyway, I get it. In many ways, things suck right now and maybe it's human nature to long for what we don't have, but there are days where I think I'd rather just pack it in and go live in the Middle Ages. Sure, there were plagues, near constant warfare, religious zealotry and--oh...Well, everyone was eating organically grown produce, and there was no social media, so it still wins over now. 

"Ugh...bo-ring... if only I had a way to hear everyone's uninformed and
often hostile opinions about politics and culture twenty-four hours a day."

-Some medieval peasant

Today in reasonable angry mobs:

Bald billionaire whose immense wealth makes him think he has any business slipping the surly bonds of Earth? Sound familiar? 

No, the other bald, space born rich, Tim Nash.

"What the actual?"

-scientists

Yeah, I'd never heard of him either until he took some ancient bones into space with him, but let me just say that it is somewhat reassuring to know that America isn't the only country producing unaccountable billionaires who delight in grand, stupefyingly reckless gestures. Nash, a South African, took a ride on a Virgin Galactic spaceship back in September and brought with him some bones from two different specimens of ancient hominids: Australopithecus sebida and Homo naledi, to the widespread condemnation of scientists worldwide.

Which, I mean, scientists are almost certainly already on edge what with their decades of warnings about climate change going completely unheeded, misinformation about the pandemic, and the fact that adults, grown ass adults are allowed to go around teaching kids that dinosaurs co-existed with humans six thousand years ago and that they only died out because there wasn't room on Noah's ark. 

Above: no.

A just society would never allow
Cybertruck past the design stage.

And in the face of those things, some rich asshat risking precious fossils on some weird publicity stunt may seem somewhat less important. And it is. But it's also true that it's a symptom of a bigger issues of the toxically wealthy bringing allowed to do whatever they want. South Africa has rules about borrowing fossils, and a richy rich playing astronaut with a couple of irreplaceable examples of early humans rattling around in his pocket--yeah, his pocket--is against them. And yet, here we are. So how does something like this happen?

So...it is kind of like he showed
his rich guy ID and helped himself...

Well, according to the article, a paleontologist called Lee Berger (who was part of the team that discovered one of the fossils in the first place) lent them to Nash, and secured all the necessary permissions. So it's not like Nash just showed his rich guy ID and helped himself to the bones. But it's also true that you or I or really any of the other 7.8 billion humans on Earth, including actual research scientists who might actually have reason to study the remains can gain access to them, mush less take them on a risky trip into Earth orbit. 

Oh! And vuvuzela's, so sixth,
paleontology is a distant sixth.

Nash claimed that in taking the bones, it was his intent "to represent South Africa and all of humankind" and that's super and possibly true. I don't know about you, but when I think of South Africa what comes to mind is, in order: decades of apartheid, the brutality of colonialism, blood diamonds, and then maybe that Matt Damon movie. Ancient human paleontology is like a distant fifth. So maybe Nash was coming from a place of national pride, but mostly he just reenforced the idea that if you're rich, you can get away with anything. Goddamned anything. 

But what's to be done? I'm mean, obviously there won't be any consequences. It's not like there weren't rules in place to prevent this sort of thing, Nash just riched his way around them. I don't have any ideas myself, but I would like to point out that there are something like three thousand billionaires in the world and like I said earlier, 7.8 billion of us so if nothing else, we can take'em, right?

Yeah, I know my answer to all the world's problems can't be "angry mob,"
but when it comes to like a handful of jerks doing whatever they want
without accountability or oversight, angry mob feels pretty reasonable.

Today in making this awkward:

Sorry, I've been super buys recently and haven't had a chance to update this--huh? You hadn't noticed? Wow. Ok, cool. Well, anyway, I've been busy working on a musical. 

Move over Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark!

Governor Ron DeSantis, seen here looking
sad because everything's so woke, and
pronouns are hard, and nobody likes him.

A sci-fi musical, because of course it is. And you can go see it now! Well, not now, tonight and next weekend, and I'm sorry, I don't mean to advertise at you, but it's taken up most of my free time these past few weeks and months, and I guess I feel bad for neglecting this blog and depriving my ones of readers of my opinions about the aesthetics of video game consoles, or which red state governor is the worst human (it's still DeSantis), and I just felt the need to explain my absence. I usually post like ten times a month, and I think this one makes five.

Look at these folks! Now, imagine 
what we could do with a budget.

It feels like I didn't do a school assignment or something, and now I'm making excuses about how our space musical ate my homework. And to make matters worse, I've thrown an awkward sales pitch into the mix. And for that I am truly sorry. See it, don't see it. I don't care. Wait, that's a lie, I actually do care because we could really use the ticket sales...ugh...I hate this self-promotion thing, so maybe come see it? If it helps, the show is a fund raiser for a local non-profit arts organization that provides support and a venue for performing artists in Santa Cruz.

Also, the plot, such as it is, is about an evil corporation that tries to exploit an alien life form for profit and--huh? Um...yeah, it is kind of similar to the movie Aliens. But did the characters in Aliens sing? Ok, look, it's like the old adage: amateurs borrow, other amateurs steal. And don't worry, I wrote none of the music. We have an actual composer for that. 

In Aliens the evil businessman is called Carter, while our evil
businessman is called Carson. See? Totally original.

Netflick and Mortar

Hey, did you hear? Netflix is planning to open brick and mortar venues.

Picture: everybody upon hearing this.

Blockbuster's decline was just the
first bubo on the peasant.

Yes, Netflix. The streaming service. And I have questions. Chief among them being why? If the last twenty years have shown us anything it's that people would prefer not to leave the house, thank you very much. The fact that we have to refer to physical locations as "brick and mortar" to distinguish them from metaphorical online locations is evidence of this. I'm not saying this is a good thing. This combined with the anonymity the internet offers has made us an increasingly anti-social society, and may ultimately lead to our destruction.  

If you're going to kill it, you'd
better be prepared to eat it.

Confusingly, the initiative will be called "Netflix House," which is just more mixed signaling. Do you want us to leave our homes or not, Netflix? But fine whatever, let's say these Netflix Houses start cropping up. I mean, there is certainly plenty of disused retail space. I'm sure they can simply crawl into the empty shells of some dead franchises, like Bed Bath and Beyond, or a Borders. Or better yet, something killed by streaming services like an AMC. I suppose the symmetry is appealing on some level.

Pictured: Josh Simon, seen here making
more money than either of us will ever see.

But then what? What do they...sell? According to the NPR article which quoted a paywalled Bloomberg story that, in turn, quoted a guy called Josh Simon, Netflix's vice president of consumer products who said that they "will feature a mix of retail, dining and live experiences." And I mean for one thing, how is he a vice president of consumer products for a company that's only now announced a consumer product? And for another, what do any of these things have to do with streaming Stranger Things? Are people really clamoring to go eat at Netflix?

Above: an Ancient Greek knock-off
of Netflix's new brick and mortar venture.

If it sounds like I'm being cynical and hypercritical, it's because I am. But please understand that that's not because I hate new ideas or anything. I just that I don't like it when giant corporations that try to worm their way into other businesses. Dining and live entertainment aren't new ideas, they're just things Netflix isn't currently making money off of because it's a streaming service. Which, cool. Just be that. Restaurants, theatres, and concerts have dining and live entertainment covered. 

Oh, also, wasn't a big part of their messaging during the writers' and actors' strikes about how they couldn't afford to pay their artists more? And that when this is all over they'll have to raise the prices for their streaming service? I ask because it seems kind of weird that they suddenly have money for this, doesn't it? Unless...hey, you don't suppose they were just saying that in order to...oh...

Pictured: Netflix crying poverty while at the same time
planning Squid Game dinner theatre or whatever...

More teeth!

I guess what I'm saying is that they had a chance to make the PS5 Slim look better than the launch edition, but instead, this:

I ask you...

Or, more accurately, they released
it to the scalpers and their bots. 

If you're someone who cares about such things, I urge you to reprioritize. But if you're like me, and simply can't help but dwell on the ill-advised design choices of a mid-life design refresh of a game console, I hope you'll join me in asking: "what the actual?" If you don't know what I'm on about, cast your mind back to the lockdown days of the pandemic, when, despite being woefully ill-equipped to manufacture enough consoles, Sony went ahead and released the PS5 to gaming public, all of whom salivated at the prospect of an incremental at best improvement in graphics over the PS4.

"We wanted something that would make
gamers say 'really? You went with that?'"

-Sony

But even if one was able to secure one, at a substantial mark-up, one was met with the difficult decision of where to put it. It was, after all, too large and too heavy for the average flat-pack TV stand. A pain? Absolutely. But one we could live with. After all, all that weight and volume just meant more bits, right? What was not forgivable, was the utterly baffling design choice. The exterior of a game console doesn't really matter in the grand scheme, but the idea that someone laid a bunch of design options in front of a Sony exec and this is the one they chose defies all explanation.

"What are you going to do? Buy an 
Xbox? Pfft...that's what I thought..."

-Playstation President Jim Ryan

Of course, many of us swallowed our aesthetic misgivings and bought one--hopefully not from a scalper--secure in the knowledge that Sony routinely walked back their weird designs with the inevitable "Slim" version. It happened with the PS2, the PS3 (twice) and the PS4. But with the reveal of a PS5 Slim that defiantly retains the weird, flared top, curved surfaces, and fins of the original, the company's has said in a clear voice that it doesn't in any way care what anyone on Twitter or whatever thinks.

And I can respect that. There's a nobility to it. It would be like that time we saw the pre-release footage of the Sonic the Hedgehog movie and everyone freaked out, but instead of re-doing the CGI, the effects team just leaned into it.

"Everyone hates it? You know what? More. Teeth. More."

-Sonic the Hedgehog's animators

Hope you sent out your Prime Day cards!

I'm sorry, but are there two separate Amazon holidays now? I ask because there's another one next week and didn't we just have one, like in July?

Yeah, we did.

"That's just unfair. We hardly ever make
our employees poop in bags anymore."

-a billionaire we sent to space

You may have already noticed that I'm not a fan of Amazon. Sure, they can get virtually anything to your porch within hours and usually for less than it would cost for you to go to a store. But at what cost? Huh? Right, less cost, fine. I meant that metaphorically. At what cost? Yes if you need a lycra body suit or suction cups by tomorrow, they got you covered. But they also employ predatory business practices, make their staff poop in bags, and now brink and mortar retail is nearly dead in this country.

Above: A Bitcoin dispenser, seen here
defying it's own reason to exist.

I went to a mall the other day and it was perhaps the most depressing place I've ever been and I've been to Grimsby.* Three quarters of the storefronts were empty, coin operated massage chairs were everywhere, and they even had a Bitcoin dispenser. And it was out of order. Which I mean, admittedly, I don't know anything about Bitcoin, but isn't the whole point of Bitcoin that it's digital? And if it's digital can't you just use your phone? And isn't it just crime money to begin with?

What about the olds? Won't somebody 
please think of the olds?

And it's not that I care about malls per se. As someone who grew up with malls being a thing, it's possible that I'm more inclined to notice their increasingly rapid decline than later generations who never knew the unsupervised retail teen Thunderdome that was the mall. But we should all care about things like local economies and jobs and places for old people to walk early in the morning. The very things Amazon's not really free shipping and artificially low prices have strangled to death. 

Pictured: the moment an actor with a chart made
sure my generation would be renters forever.

It's gotten so bad that the Federal Trade Commission is suing and I mean, do they even do that anymore? I'm not like a business person, but it seems like it was the AT&T breakup and then nothing for like forty years of unfettered capitalism drunk on the ludicrous, Reaganonic promises of deregulation and trickle-down prosperity (which, that trickle's going to happen soon, right?). But now the FTC has awoken, bleary-eyed, and groping for its coffee, declaring in a stern voice that someone should probably do something about Amazon. Maybe.

Unless the company's strategy of pretend sales on equally pretend holidays pays off. After all, the larger the Amazon liturgical calendar, the less we'll all notice that they control stifling forty to sixty percent (depending on who you ask) of all online commerce. 

It's a monopoly, but the part of the game where one person has all the hotels and
most of the money and the rest of us are just waiting to go bankrupt.

*hopefully someday, someone somewhere who's been to Grimsby, England will read this and find that mildly amusing.

At worst he's a schlemiel.

"Pfft...as if we needed help sabotaging
America. Nice try Democrats!"

-Kevin McCarthy

So, I'll admit, when I first read that Representative Jamaal Bowman, a Democrat from New York, pulled a fire alarm in order to disrupt the vote on a stop gap measure to keep the government from shutting down I was pissed. After all, the last thing anyone needs is the story to be "Democrats use underhanded means to sabotage America" instead of "Republican shitshow threatens to send the country into an economic death spiral." And then this idiot goes and pulls a stunt like this. But then when it turns out, nuh-uh, no he didn't I was relived.

It turns out he ran into a locked door on his way to the vote and thought that the fire alarm was a release. An idiotic move? Absolutely. Nefarious? Of course not. And yet the headline is almost invariably something like: "Democratic Representative pulls fire alarm during vote to keep the government open." And that's just nonsense.

Above: footage of Bowman pulling the alarm, which, if the situation were
reversed and a Republican did this, we'd be hearing about how it's all a deep-fake
hoax perpetrated by George Soros and the President of Antifa.

At worst Bowman is a schlemiel.

Well, ok, it is factual. Jamaal Bowman is a member of the Democratic Party. He did pull a fire alarm, and he did so during the vote. We're supposed to infer that he was trying to delay, but he pulled the alarm in a whole other building which wouldn't have delayed the vote even even that were his intent. And he voted for the bill. but who's going to click on: "In a rush to keep the government open, well-meaning Democratic Rep. pulls the wrong lever and sets off an alarm?"

Pictured: Rep. Matt Gaetz, the eminently 
punchable face of the Batshit Rabid-Foam
wing of the Republican Party.

But instead it's just something for the GOP to shriek about in their unending quest to try and draw a moral equivalency between a party whose entire platform is homophobic scare-mongering and race-bating dogwhistlery, and one that just wants everyone to have healthcare and books. And it's also worth noting that while Bowman wasn't trying to delay the vote, McCarthy didn't give anyone time to read the bill. Yes, the deadline was approaching, but only because of the rift between the party's Hard-Right and Batshit Rabid-Foam factions.

And not for nothing, but their outrage would come off as a lot less disingenuous if those calling for investigations and charges weren't the same people who cheered on the angry mob that tried to install a real-estate developer as dictator. 

Pictured: that time the Right surrendered the high-ground forever.