Capitalism, amiright?

Above: Milton Friedman, the guy
who is a large part of the reason we use
cancer terminology to describe capitalism.

I'm a renter, and have been my entire adult life. And last night I was sitting here in my rented apartment when one of the vertical blinds just sort of fell off. Like, broke and fell off. And this isn't a woe is me post. I mean, I live in Santa Cruz California, and everyday on my way to work I pass by people who have it far, far worse than I. That is, they don't even have crappy plastic vertical blinds to disappoint them in the first place. What this is is a bemoaning of the general shittiness of twenty-first century, end-stage capitalistic America.

This is in fact the third set of these blinds I've lived with over the years, and over several apartments, and in all three cases they simply fell apart. They're cheap, and rather than replace them with something that lasts, the building management just replaces them with the same thing. Because cheap. Because profit margin. I don't know, I'm not a business guy.

This is not a picture of my apartment, but it might as well be.

Pictured: consumerism. We do this to
ourselves on purpose, if you can believe it.

But I'm not here to complain about blinds, but I am here to complain. For the umpteenth time, I opened my laptop and found the battery nearly dead despite being freshly charged. I thought enough is enough, drove to the store and participated in the only human activity actively rewarded by our civilization: consumerism. I pointed to the very computer I am now typing this on, said "that one!" and handed over my credit card. Done. Right? Capitalism: achieved. 

It's been used as a verb since the
sixteenth century and is perfectly
correct, but I don't have to like it.

A few days later, I got an email explaining to me that my credit score had been "impacted." Setting aside any questions I might have had about using "impact" as a verb I logged into the site I use to track such things, and sure enough I was ten points down. The horror! Ten points? What did I do? How have I disappointed the credit bureaus? It turns out I had committed the grievous error of actually using my credit card, and while I carried that balance for exactly three days (only two of which were business days), I have been forever marked as a credit risk. Well, at lest for a few months or whatever.

I suppose I should have
seen that coming. 

But how did this come to pass? Evidently, I spent a greater percentage of my limit than they were comfortable with, so ten points. There's no appeals process, I have no recourse. The credit lords have spoken. Woe is me. But for real, what even do they want from us? They who? I don't know, whoever stands to gain from a system that's increasingly stacked against those making fewer than six figures? Whoever stands to gain from preventing us from ever being able to get ahead. Whoever stands to gain from--oh, right, rich people.

I mean, it's probably not an actual table. They
probably all get on a zoom call or something.

And it's not like I think there's some secret cabal of rich, shadowy figures who sit around a conference table thinking up ways to screw over the rest of us. It's just a system that over time has gone from being indifferent to the best interests of most of us, to openly hostile. I'm not an economist or a political scientist, but I don't think I'm going out on a limb by suggesting that allowing money to mix with politics has some pretty foreseeable consequences we rarely seem to be able to foresee. 

And look, I know it's just a dumb credit score, and I'm far, far from the biggest victim of this system. Like I said, I have a place to live (albeit one with cheap vertical blinds), which is more than an alarming number of Americans can say. But at some point this becomes unsustainable, right? Like, if something doesn't change, at some point we're all going to get tired of being judged by Equifax, and grab some pitchforks and torches?

"Bad consumer! Bad! You're doing it wrong. I deduct ten points."

-Whomever's in charge of credit, as a thing

Fifteenth Century Digital Boy

Hey, have you ever wondered what a fifteenth century child-murdering usurper sounded like? Sorry, alleged. Huh? No, alleged child-murderer, he's definitely from the fifteenth centu--oh, Richard III. Yes, the now is the winter of our discontent guy. 

Above: Richard III, seen here about to soliloquize about crimes he plans to commit.

And if that somewhere happens to be
on top of a sociopathic despot, so be it.

You might recall that Richard III's body was recently--uh--well, 2012, but again, dude's been dead since 1485, so recent is relative. Anyway, his body was recently discovered by writer and number one Richard III fan Philippa Langley five hundred and twenty-seven years after it was hastily buried under a parking lot. Or, more accurately hastily buried in a church yard that was later paved over. That might sound a little sacrilegious, but I mean, people have to park somewhere, amiright? 

Pictured: some incredibly inconvenient
and easily murderable nephews seen here
cowering in fear in the Tower of London.

Langley, feeling the King had gotten a bad rep as a result of Shakespeare's play, Richard III, and that time he murdered his nephews so he could seize--what? He definitely did. Look, I'm not an historian, but Edward IV died, and his twelve year old son became king because monarchy is objectively absurd. Since Edward was a minor, Richard appointed himself his and his younger brother's guardian, locked them both in the Tower of London, and then no one ever saw them alive again. Then, Richard had himself crowned king in their place. Pretty cut and dry, right? Yes. 

But Langley insisted that he was the victim of a smear campaign. In fact, after digging him up, she organized a state funeral.

Pictured: no, really. Like, a horse-drawn carriage, flowers, mourners.
Benedict Cumberbatch even showed up and read a poem. 

She's essentially the Nick Fury of
historical, forensic, voice reconstruction.

Weird hobby? Sure, it is. But archeology is cool, so, I'll allow it. Also, literally nobody involved asked my opinion. Doesn't matter. What does matter is that despite being dead for five centuries (and a murdering usurper), Richard III has just made the news again. This time, because someone called Yvonne Morley-Chisholm, an actor and voice-coach with similarly weird hobbies, has devised a way to recreate Richard's voice by putting a team of specialists together to try and figure out just what he might have sounded like.

Weird that a country would let an obvious
criminal assume its highest office...

Her group included specialists in various medical and forensic fields as well as history and acting. The idea being that it's not enough to approximate the sound of Richard's voice, but also the way he spoke. Like, the dialect appropriate to the region he came from as well as the era. Morley-Chisholm then sought out an actor with a similar facial proportions to the King--which I guess makes a difference--and had him study up on the accent and personal history. Then she had him record an actual speech the King once gave, and the footage was then combined with a reconstruction of his face to create a digital Richard III.

Is it weird? Absolutely. He looks like something out of Shrek, or like one of the player avatars in Civilization VI, but it sounds cool. And it's wild that this voice coach might have created a reasonably accurate recreation of a medieval person. Even if he did definitely murder children on his way to the throne.

"Now is the winter of our discontent made unnerving..."

Some welcome...

Traditionally one welcomes a new colleague with flowers, or maybe a card. At the very least a hearty handshake. But a transphobic rule governing who can and can't use the women's restroom aimed at one specific person? That's a choice. 

Shame on her. All the shame. And then, when you think no, that's
enough shame? More shame. Because I mean for real. Huh? Shame on who?

South Carolina: famous for uh...seceding
from the Union? Oh and now, transphobia.

That's South Carolina congresswoman Nancy Mace who, in anticipation of newly elected Delaware representative Sarah McBride, introduced a measure to ban trans women (like McBride) from using the women's bathrooms at the U.S. Capitol. Mace, a Republican--sorry, I didn't mean to insult your intelligence. Of course she's a Republican--is presenting the measure as some kind of protection for women and yes, is openly saying it's because of McBride's recent election. So, yeah. Cool welcome.

Above: an unrelated picture of
two men discussing forcing
themselves into women's spaces. 

"This is a biological man trying to force himself into women's spaces, and I'm not going to tolerate it."

-Mace, evidently unclear

on what "trans" means

But, trans women are women. That's the whole point. And I don't want to tell her how to TERF, but is Mace's statement kind of weird coming from a supporter of Donald Trump.

Huh, I never knew there were that many
billionaires in the country. Wait, unless...

Having lost the argument when it comes to gays, the GOP have now turned their transparent scapegoating to trans people (immigrants as well, but that's nothing new) in hopes that they can scare enough low information voters into supporting them against their interests. You may you recall the darkest day in recent history (like, two weeks ago), when they won control of the House, the Senate, and the White House in a narrow victory which they are now claiming is a mandate to to tear down decades of progress.

Anyway, you might think this is a petty, politically motivated move motivated by ignorance and/or a desire to engage in the kind of performative harassment the new, crazy, Trump-drunk American Right wing is famous for. 

"No, you see when I do it, it's not creepy."

-Rep. Mace

And you'd be right, but Mace is presenting this in the TERF-y "I'm actually protecting" women argument:

"I'm absolutely, 100 percent, going to stand in the way of any man who wants to be in a women's restroom, in our locker rooms, in our changing rooms, I will be there fighting you every step of the way."

-Mace, promising to 

lurk outside bathrooms

Her opposition to off-shore drilling
is basically her Harry Potter: good, but
forever tainted by her TERF-ness.

In the interests of fairness, I did some research--that is to say I looked Mace up on wikipedia--and as Trumpy Republicans go, she sounds not as egregious as a lot of them? She opposes offshore drilling, wrote a prison reform bill, and even condemned the January 6th attack. It doesn't change the fact that she's a transphobic jerk. But I want to at least acknowledge that those on the right aren't universally redeemable monsters. They're just like, 90% monster. 

We've twice now tried to make this a
women's space, but, well, here we are.

And look, you know this, I know this, we all know this, and I've already said it above, but I'm going to say it again anyway, so bear with me: trans women are women. No one is going to argue that women's spaces aren't under threat, but they're under threat from men, specifically sexual predators and not, you know women and certainly not congresswomen. McBride, for her part, is calling this out for what it is: a distraction. Does Mace believe her own nonsense or is this just a means to an end? I don't know. And I'm not even sure I know which is worse. 

The Right won this last election by running on a platform of fear, hatred, and ignorance and they know, like they know that they're full of shit. They know it. And they just need it to work long enough to get them what they want. 

Huh? Oh, a hyper-capitalist, misogynistic, theocratic dystopia.
But eggs will be cheaper somehow? I guess? I'm unclear on that part. 

It's Thunderdome, but without the charm...

Were I a gladiator, my name
would be Pedanticus Maximus.

So according to the Associated Press, the Colosseum--like, capital "C" colosseum because it's the famous one in Rome--is set to be the sight of gladiator fights again. Because synergy. So, couple of things. The Associated Press article refers to the gladiatorial combat as staged, which I assume is their way of saying that they'll be fake, and not planned or organized in advance. I'm not an historian or anything, but that's dumb. A fight that isn't organized in advance is just a fight. So in a sense, all gladiatorial fights would have been staged. They just mean that these aren't actual death matches.

One would think that they wouldn't need to make that distinction, but with each passing day I find myself increasingly less confident that A: people are smart enough to know that and B: there wouldn't be an audience for such a thing.

Sixty-five million households watched a boxer pushing sixty get punched
by a Youtuber famous for spending $3.5 million on a fake Pokemon card.

Airbnb:
"How can we ruin your city?"

But that doesn't mean that this is some kind of historical reenactment thing like Colonial Williamsburg only interesting. Instead this is a corporate collab--which is how marketing people abreve collaboration--between Airbnb, Parco archeological del Colosseo (The Colosseum Archeological Park, the organization that manages the site), the movie Gladiator II--get to that in a sec--and Airbnb of all things. Yeah, the app that helps keep housing unaffordable by giving landlords a reason to keep apartments tenant-less so they can be rented out to short term vacationers. 

"Somehow, Maximus's son returned."

-Oscar Isaac in his brief

Gladiator II cameo

And because we live in a dystopian, hyper-capitalistic hellscape that threatens to crush us all, this is also somehow going to promote the sequel to the 2000 film Gladiator, which if you recall, ended with the death of the main character in a gladiator match which raises some questions. First: how can this movie center around the son of the character from the first movie? Like, the premise of Gladiator I was that Maximus becomes a gladiator after finding his wife and son murdered and--eh, who cares...

The second, more important question is who would want to be this? Well, rich finance bros, obviously. The promotion will have a lottery for Airbnb users, and the winners--no, let's call them, participants--will get to put on fake gladiator garb, brandish some equally fake weapons, and pretend to murder one another for sport on the sight of actual bloodsports. Tasteless? Sure is. But don't worry, Airbnb has a "commitment to heritage" and will donate some money or something, and that will defiantly make up for the housing crisis...right?

On the other hand, if wealthy tech and finance types want to beat each other 
with swords, who am I to complain? Maybe throw in a lions or two, and 
this could actually be the solution to a lot of the world's problems...

Evidently, I'm something of a narcissist.

Sorry, a narcissist with a felony conviction.

I feel that I've been unfairly branded a narcissist. By a video game. And while I realize that being a narcissist is evidently no barrier to success, and is evidently what seventy million voters look for in a Presidential candidate, I take issue with being called one. Who called me a narcissist? Great question. I'm glad I pretended you asked. A video game called me a narcissist, but I don't think that in any way diminishes my right to have a problem with this. Wait, come back! Where are you going? 

No really, stop remembering the 60's
fondly. They were terrible for everyone
who wasn't straight, white, and male.

Here, let me explain. The video game/judge of moral character in question is the remake of Dragon Quest III. And if you don't know what that is, I congratulate you on being a fully functional adult who doesn't dwell on the video games they were into in their tweens. There are those of us however whose taste in such things solidified in the 16-bit era of gaming. For us, the industry peaked in the mid nineties, and everything else pales by comparison. In a way, I suppose it's similar to how men of a certain age won't shut up about how great the sixties were. Although they definitely should.

"Two roads diverged in a yellow wood, and
you'd better take the one we tell you to. Or else."

-Dragon Quest III 

Anyway, Dragon Quest III starts with a mysterious voice asking you series of questions to gauge the your--the player's--personality. At least, that's the idea. In reality the game is just rolling your characters stats and distributing skill points. Next, you're sent to this cave with signposts telling you what to do. The very first sign post said go west--universally agreed in video game logic to mean left. I started to go west, but then decided to turn around and check out east. You know, in case there was loot or something. 

Instead, I fell down a chasm and was bounced back to the mysterious voice who summed me up thusly:

"Aaron...It seems you are something of a narcissist..."

-the video game, putting me on blast

Pictured: Link doing video game stuff
without being called a narcissist.

What even? Video games have trained us to explore the areas of the map we're not supposed to go. That's where all the good stuff is. What I'm saying is all I did was try and explore a little. I played the original version of this game thirty years ago, so I was aware that I was being tested, although I couldn't remember which responses trigged which stat boosts. So I just figured that if I showed some initiative, maybe it would increase my fortitude or luck or something. Instead: narcissist. But that's not even the end of it:

I grew up in the 80's and 90's, of course
my enthusiasm dies as quickly as it is kindled.

"Your broad and varied interests prove that you are not wholly closed minded, but your enthusiasm dies as quickly as it is kindled..."

-Dragon Quest III, on how not 

wholly closed minded I am

Um. Wow. Like, I'm not saying that that's entirely inaccurate, but goddamn. I've never been psychoanalyzed by a JRPG before and I have to say, I'm not a fan, thank you very much.

And then came the coup de grace: "You are often a burden to others, but miraculously, they do not seem to dislike you for it." No, really. It says this. And then it finally sums me up with: "Selfish, yet likable...This is you in a nutshell..." Look, all I did was go right instead of left.

Brutal? Yes. But still better than in game micro transactions.

Today in milking the bantha:

In other attempts to talk about literally anything else, have you seen this thing about a new Star Wars Trilogy? Huh? No, not the Rogue Squadron thing, it's a--huh? No, it's not New Jedi Order. This is something--ok, yeah, no, it's not the--look, I'll just get to the point: it's another other Star Wars thing.

Pictured: Lucas Film President Kathleen Kennedy, seen here four years ago
announcing a bunch of new projects. A few never happened, but some turned out to
be pretty good, while others turned out to be Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny.

I gather he's the film industry's
equivalent of the cursed frogurt. 

Still with me? Super. So this is something Simon Kinberg is writing and producing. You might remember him (I didn't, but that's what IMDB is for) as the writer and/or producer behind some of the best and the worst movies in the X-Men/Deadpool/non-Disney Marvel-verse. So X-Men 3: The Last Stand and X-Men Apocalypse were his fault, but then so are X-Men Days of Future Past, and Logan. He created Star Wars Rebels, but on the whole, he doesn't have perhaps the highest success rate.

You heard me: Last Jedi was the best of the
sequel trilogy and I am eager to explain why.

But then that's Star Wars, right? For every Andor a Book of Boba Fett. For every The Last Jedi, a Rise of Skywalker. If we're being honest, everything after the original trilogy is a mixed bag, and that's fine. If you didn't like the Obi-Wan series, watch The Bad Batch. Asoka not your cup of tea? Watch Solo. If you didn't like The Acolyte it's because you're a fragile snowflake man-baby winging on about how Star Wars is woke now. My point is there's a lot of Star Wars. A lot. And if Disney wants to hand Simon Kinberg the keys, what's three more movies?

Banthas. Blue milk comes from banthas.
I looked it up, so you're welcome.

Or not. Who even knows? Disney had been really good about announcing new entries in the Star Wars series, but not so great on the follow through. Sometimes there're creative differences with the writers or directors, and sometimes Gina Carano decides she'd rather make shitty jokes about trans folks than work. I'm always up for a new Star Wars thing, but I think we've all learned to temper expectations. And besides, there is the inescapable feeling that this is just another attempt to squeeze the yet more blue space milk out of the--uh--whatever blue space milk comes from. 

Is more Star Wars a good thing? I don't know, I'm kind of torn on that point, but I suppose it doesn't matter. Disney didn't buy Star Wars to sit on it, they bought it to exploit it until it ceases to create value for share holders. It's a business first, and one based on leveraging our nostalgia for previous entires in the series. We can roll our eyes all we want at another announcement, but if Kinberg's films do make it to theaters, we're going to go see them. If nothing else, it'll be an escape from the unrelenting horror of the next four years. 

It's just gotten so commercial. Not like the good old days
when George Lucas was just making art for art's sake. 

Disaragorror

All that way just to get there and
find yourself in Sacramento.

Hey there. How're you doing? Like, with everything? Huh? Yeah, me too. In fact, I'm just going to put it out there that perhaps we, as a civilization--or half of one anyway--should all just agree that when we ask each other how we're doing, that we mean that in a relative sense. Sort of like when we say something is far away, say, Sacramento. Sacramento is far (from me anyway). It's like a three hour drive which, I think most would agree, can be characterized as far.

But The Magellanic Clouds--two dwarf galaxies that orbit the Milky Way are also far. That is, we use the same word, "far" to describe something one hundred and fifty-eight light years away as we do Sacramento. See? Relative.

Pictured: the Magellanic Clouds which, for all
we know, are no more exciting than Sacramento.

The lesson here I suppose is that
consequences are for poors.

I bring this up because we're all--ok, not all, half of us--are likely in more or less the same place: suffocating under a mixture of disappointment, rage, and horror. Let's call it disaragorror. I think we were all somewhat prepared for the possibility that things would turn out badly. After all, we'd been bombarded with polls saying how close it would be for months now. Which is weird because one of the two candidates is a felon, like an actual felon and is supposed to be in prison right now, but my point is this was always a possibility. 

But that doesn't make it feel better. This feels awful. And ominous. And crushing. January is barreling towards us and it seems like we can do nothing about it except analyze and finger point, but that's not terribly productive. We can however keep checking in with one another and ask how we're doing, bearing in mind the galactic-scale disaragorror we're all experiencing and scaling our responses to match.

"How am I? Well darling, the ship is sinking and there're only enough life boats
for half of us, but that aside, I suppose I'm alright. A bit hungry if I'm being honest."

Today in Urban Assault Collectibles:

Here he is punching Commissioner
Gordon. Do with that what you will.

I want to be absolutely clear on this point: I am not anti-Batman. Far from it. In fact, I'd say I'm a Batman fan, but I realize there are many, very valid criticisms of Batman as a character: He's a billionaire who inherited his wealth. He spends quite a bit of time beating up poor people. Vigilante justice is, no matter how well intended or positive the results, still a crime. Also, much of his rogues' gallery suffer from mental illness. His track record with how he treats women is questionable at best. And I mean, if he's so rich, why doesn't Bruce Wayne fund social programs to reduce crime instead of just punching the symptoms? But despite all that, he's still my favorite DC character. 

Anyway, I mention all this so you know that as we discuss this story about a three million dollar, screen-accurate version of the Tumbler, please know that my criticisms are coming from a place of affection for the character, and deep loathing for this kind of ostentatious rich-bro nonsense. Also, I always kind of thought the Tumbler was dumb.

At the risk of lapsing into toxic fandom, this is simply not my Batmobile.

No offense to actor Christian Bale, but his
Batman is also, mathematically the worst.

The Tumbler, for those unfamiliar, was the incarnation of the Batmobile seen in the Christopher Nolan Batman films. That is, instead of a sleek bat-themed car, the Tumbler is a weird future tank Nolan's ostensibly more grounded take on the Dark Knight crushes around in. How literally no one in the film wondered how Batman has the resources to afford a Wayne Industries prototype urban assault vehicle without himself actually being Bruce Wayne strains credulity, but ok, cool, whatever. 

Isn't Bruce Wayne famously anti-gun?
You know, for some reason?

Anyway, doesn't matter, what I'm here to complain about is not a nearly twenty (!) year-old movie, but rather the collab (ugh) between the corporate Voltron that is Warner Bros. Discovery Global Consumer Products, and the almost equally absurdly named PR company, Relevance International to sell ten, yes ten replica Tumblers. The not exactly street legal murder wagon is made of Kevlar, Carbon Fiber and Fiberglass, can deploy a smoke screen, and features gun turrets. Non-functional gun-turrets, but still...

The world's richest man trying to form
the letter 'X' with his body while shilling for
another rich guy who's running for dictator.

The Tumbler can be ordered through Relevance International's ludicrous website: The Bruce Wayne Experience at brucewaynex.com. It's a website which, in addition to perpetuating the notion that simply adding the letter X to something makes it interesting or cool, offers rich people the chance to prove precisely why they shouldn't be rich by selling them offensively expensive goods all themed--in some cases, very loosely themed--around Batman. Or at least Bruce Wayne. I don't know, the point of all this is rather murky. 

There're overpriced home goods to furnish Wayne Manor, not particularly Batman-y beyond they idea that they're expensive. They've got exercise equipment (so you can train up to punch some doors), vacations at various resorts and manors houses, luggage, electronics. They even sell jewelry including--I kid you not--Martha Wayne's pearl necklace.

You remember, the one she was murdered for? Well, now it can
be yours for just forty-two thousand dollars. Of money.

Pictured: arguably a better use.

My issue with all this is two-fold. Fold one: Batman's whole thing is that he tortured by his parents' murder and dedicates the rest of his life to fighting crime. Billionaire playboy is simply a facade he must maintain to carry out his more noble purpose in life (which again, often takes the form of punching criminals, but I think my greater point still stands). Fold two: who the actual spends enough money on this Sharper Image nonsense to justify existence of The Wayne Industries Experience? And, follow-up question: can we seize this wealth and put it to better use?

I don't want to tell rich people how to rich, but there will come a day when the rest of us will be finally fed up with the constantly widening wealth gap (hopefully this will happen before Tuesday), and break out the pitchforks and torches and it's stuff like this we will point to when the ga-jillionaires ask "why?"

I guess what I'm saying is don't be surprised when an angry mob
wheels a guillotine up to your screen-accurate stately Wayne Manor.