Bet you wish you'd saved the box...

Pictured: America.
Not pictured: Hillary's emails

In these uncertain times, it's good to-huh? Yeah, I'm sick of that phrase too. How about: in these times of unrelenting calamity needlessly and exponentially worsened by incompetent leadership, selfishness and willful ignorance. Right? Anyway, in these times, it's good to know that the ultra-rich are still finding socially conscious ways to use their immense wealth. Ways like spending one hundred and fourteen thousand dollars on a copy of Super Mario Bros. Yes. A hundred and fourteen thousand. Dollars. Of money.

Super Mario Bros. for those of you maybe born after the eighties or for those with lives, isn't the first game to feature Nintendo's mascot, but it was probably the most famous one. It's also one of the most ubiquitous.

So ubiquitous, it might just be easier to lay your hands on a hundred thousand copies
 of the game and then sell them for a dollar each. That's just good business sense.

Your childhood game collection
could be worth tens of dollars!

According to Nintendo, there are something like forty million copies of Super Mario Bros. out there in the world, not counting rereleases and digital downloads. There are probably at least two copies sitting in that box of junk you left at your parents house right now. Go ahead. Call them. I'll wait...what's that? Three copies? Thought so. Why someone would pay the list price of a decent house in most of the country (or two months rent in San Francisco-zing!) bears some explanation and even when I tell you, probably more explanation.

And here we all went and
worked jobs for all these years...

A loose copy, that is no box or manual, is like ten bucks on eBay, or just a dollar or two at a flea market or garage sale. You could tile your backsplash with them. This particular copy however, like the one that sold last year (for $100,150, no, you not losing your mind, this has happened before), is unopened. Meaning it was owned either by some child in 1986 with the uncanny foresight to stick this in a drawer and let it appreciate rather than open it up and play it or it was misplaced in a warehouse or something.

Which, whatever, never-been-opened NES games aren't that impossible to find and Super Mario Bros. new-in-box sells for about seven or eight thousand, which is still a preposterous sum for a game Nintendo just gives away with its online service, so what gives?

In some ways, you're just paying $113,999.00 for an acrylic case.

We can only hope that knowing this didn't
replace some other, more useful piece of
information, like how to tie your shoes.

Well, this copy-bace yourself-has a cardboard hangtag. That feeling you're having right now? That eye-rolling disdain for the insane logic of the collector mentality? That's perfectly normal. Who even cares about the little cardboard flap retailers used to stick these things on pegs in the 80's? Evidently some anonymous bidder, that's who. The fact that the hangtag is a part of the cardboard box, and not a plastic one stuck on the shrink wrap makes this copy of the game particularly rare and now you know that fact and can't un-know it.

Look, I get that one of the selling points of our economic system that's working so splendidly is that anyone, anyone, is allowed to amass (or inherit) as much money as they possibly can and then blow it on whatever they want, no matter how useless and no matter how many kids can't afford school lunches, but one hundred fourteen thousand dollars for a video game? I hope rich people remember this when we finally have our Bastille Day.

"But what did we ever do to-oh...right..."

-America's embarrassingly wealthy

But it'll still have the Bat-nipples, right?

Just to be clear, I don't have any particular problem with late film maker Joel Schumacher but a director's cut of Batman Forever? Does anyone really want that? Anyone at all?

"Uh...no?"

                                                             -Batman, correctly solving my riddle

"For all sad words of tongue or pen, the
the saddest are these: it might have been."

-John Greenleaf Wittier,

on recasting Two-Face  

Evidently someone does, or at least a writer at Variety needed to crank out an article because now the "Schumacher cut" is a thing people are talking about. For people with lives I should explain. Batman Forever is the third Batman movie released and probably the second worst. Val Kilmer's performance is kind of wooden and vacant, but I think he narrowly edges out Christian Bale, who is mathematically speaking, the worst Batman. Yeah, you heard me. In any event, it's a forgettable if innocuous entry in the series whose greatest sin was recasting Billy Dee Williams with Timmy Lee Jones.

Yeah, I'm sick of me too, but it's not
 like I'm not right about this. Search
your feelings, you know it to be true.

But why then are we even talking about this? Two reasons that I can see: One, Joel Schumacher died a couple weeks ago so I suppose people are suddenly interested in his version of the movie. And two: because we live in a terrifying age where all fans have to do is hashtag a thing and it becomes so. Sometimes it works out. The movie version of Sonic the Hedgehog was nightmare fuel until fans demanded the studio do something about his creepy human teeth. On the other hand, The Rise of Skywalker was basically written and directed by toxic fan tweets so...

Doing this saves lives, but sure,
Batman Forever's important too...

And now we nerds turn our awesome powers of social media pressure to getting a longer-30 minutes longer-darker version of a twenty-five year old mediocre Bat-outing which may, or may not exist. Apparently the studio is being cagey about whether or not enough of the original footage is even still around. Anyway, it seems like we could use our powers to demand something more meaningful. Like, mask wearing ordinances or justice for victims of police brutality, but sure, let's push for a new cut of Batman Forever.

Ok, fine, if we're going to waste the monkey's paw that is internet pressure on something Batman, could we at least waste it on something more important? Like persuading HBO to rethink its just announced Batman spin-off show about the Gotham City Police? I guess they looked at Gotham, Pennyworth, the entire Arrow-verse and that Joker movie and said, hey, why not one more thing about people who know, but who are not themselves Batman? I mean, just make a Batman TV show already.

Because if there was ever a better time for a TV show about a
corrupt police force who lets an anonymous and completely
unaccountable vigilante brutalize poor people, it's 2020.

Turns out not everything is legal in New Jersey

Can you sue a state's governor for being cautious? I ask because AMC, Cinemark, and Regal which are movie theatre chains that have-huh? Oh, it's a big room where people gather to watch a movie they can't pause together.

They used to have them in the before time.

"Those chumps sure are falling for it..."

-Democrats, according

 to Republicans

Where was I? Oh, right, so the movie theatre chains are upset, riled you might say, because Governor Phillip Murphy of New Jersey isn't allowing movie theaters to reopen, you know, because of the pandemic? Which, smart move, right? Lots of people crowded into an enclosed space for long periods of time. I mean, if this whole COVID-19 thing wasn't just an elaborate hoax to make the President look bad, force everybody to accept universal health insurance and destroy America, I'd say that's a smart move. 

Arcades: evidently still a thing.

The major chains, as well as some smaller ones, contend that they are being unfairly left out of stage two of the Governor's reopening plan which allows a number of outdoor activities and businesses to resume along with some indoor things like museums and even mall retail stores, but specifies that movie theatre and arcades must remain closed until stage three. Keeping them closed, they argue, not only poses a huge financial challenge but also violates their First Amendment rights. According to their complaint:

I guess you could stream it.
Like, if you hate yourself.

"...the government-mandated total closure of movie theaters is neither fair nor reasonable, and is instead a violation of Plaintiff's First Amendment rights of freedom of speech and freedom of expression...and is a Taking of property without just compensation."

-Movie theatre chains arguing that

preventing them from showing the 

Trolls movie is basically fascism 

Look closely and you'll see the guy in the
middle not wearing a mask making everyone
else's mask useless. Because freedom.

So leaving aside the fact that streaming video renders movie theaters even less essential then they were before the pandemic, and forgetting for a moment that stuffing three hundred people in a room together is exactly how you kill grandma, they kind of, almost have a point. Personal care business like hair stylists and barber shops are reopening, and these put people in closer contact than movie theaters. Even casinos will be allowed to open this month and those are universally swimming with disease, so yeah, maybe New Jersey is picking on movie chains.

On the other hand, even if they win and movie theaters re-open, the fact that it wasn't fair for the Governor to keep them closed doesn't make them safe. If anything, the movie chains should be suing to get Murphy to close the barber shops and museums. I don't know, an expression leaps to mind here and I think it goes something like: pick your hill to die on, slowly of asphyxiation because you reopened your movie theatre too soon. 

"Hey, let's all breath on one another for two hours!"

-The kind of people that are going to 

go to movie theaters when they reopen

I'm not saying I hate this holiday, but...

Could we cool it? With the fireworks I mean? I ask because for the last, I don't know, four weeks? Yeah, about four weeks, people have been setting off fireworks in my neighborhood.

I think they think it looks like this,

but really it's more like this, and often followed by a trip
to the emergency room to sew some thumbs back on.

Above: mid-October for some
unfathomable reason.

You know how stores-remember those? How stores start in with the Thanksgiving stuff on October 30th? Like, Halloween's not even cold yet and already with the Thanksgiving decorations, and then not long after we're on to the Christmas nonsense. This is like that except instead of insipid holiday music and flocked wreathes, this is amateurs setting off explosives. I assume they're amateurs, unless by some statistical quirk I happen to live in on a street that's like, forty percent pyrotechnic effects specialists. Speaking of...

Pyrotechnician is a job, like an actual job that in most states requires that someone be trained and licensed. It's not something you can just-huh? No, of course Florida isn't one of those states. Of course it isn't.

Pictured: a team of licensed, professional
pyrotechnicians carefully setting up a fireworks display.
Not pictured: a beer can in anybody's hand. Not one.

Above: Federal agents seizing explo-
oh, wait, that's just some randos
shopping for bombs. My mistake. 

Anyway, what I'm getting at is how come it's ok to just set off goddamn bombs in your front yard? I mean, that is weird right? Like objectively speaking, the availability and cultural acceptance of actual explosives for celebratory purposes is insane, right? Especially in a country where buying fertilizer can land you on a watch list. Yet some of us just stroll into a store or in some cases drive across state lines and pick up explosives which they then set off for the hell of it, often while they and their families are standing right next to them. Oh, and also they've had a few. I mean, it's a picnic.

"Hit the fucking deck!"

-Your dog, towards

whom I'm indifferent

Also, as we've discussed, I don't care about your dog. It's not personal, I just probably have never met your dog and even if I have, I'm just not a dog person. What? Don't look at me like that, I'm going somewhere with this. Like I was saying, I don't care about your dog, but I also don't want it to have to suffer through a cacophony of loud booms. They don't know what fireworks are, they just know that for four weeks out of the year are absolutely terrifying. And not for nothing, but fireworks can freak out humans as well.

Look, I don't hate America or anything. I'm pretty sick of a certain red-be-hatted demographic, but I don't hate America and I don't want to ruin people's good time. But if we have to demonstrate how patriotic we are by recklessly detonating caches of store-bought bombs, could we at least all agree to limit the random loud explosion noises at all hours to the actual Fourth of July holiday and not this vaguely defined Fourth of July season?

Because seriously, I can really only handle a single say of this.

Like a human centipede...of business

"It's like your 'ol pal Mickey
always says: resistance is futile!"

I'm not, as I may have mentioned before, a business person. I'd like to think I'm reasonably intelligent, but when it comes to the vagaries of the world of mergers and takeovers and acquisitions, I tend to shut down. The how's and the why's and the who cares? of one massive, faceless company absorbing another massive, faceless company just don't interest me. Usually. But this time, I actually kind of want to know, so could someone please explain to me why Marvel Comics acquiring the comic book publishing rights to Alien and Predator is news and not a foregone consequence of the corporate grey goo that is Disney assimilating our pop cultural landscape.

It's not that I care so much as it is I want to understand. Well, ok, I care a little. One gigantic corporation has sucked up virtually every intellectual property in America and like any stranglehold, that's bound to have an impact on creativity sooner or later.

Above: sooner it is.

Pictured: Marvel comics.

Anyway, like I mentioned, Marvel Comics, one of the companies Disney seized and then cocooned like some unfortunate resident of LV-426, bought the rights to publish new-and by new I mean by definition derivative works set in the shared Aliens/Predator universe owned by 20th Century Studios-huh? Yeah, they used to be called 20th Century Fox, but I think they wanted to distance themselves from Fox news and, you know, all the white supremacy that comes with the name.

"You'll be hearing from our mutual lawyers."

-20th Century Studios

But if Disney owns Marvel and 20th Century Studios, why then did one have to buy anything from the other? Aren't they kind of the same thing? Like, can't Marvel's writers just hop the fence and knock on 20th Century Studio's door and ask to borrow a cup of Space Marine? Or better yet, can't they just keep writing stories about the Giger-esque, extra-terrestrial. insectoid Brood-Marvel's similar to, yet legally distinct from Alien's aliens? Hey, you don't suppose they only announced the merger to soak up some free media attention?

Pictured: that time
DC did this exact thing.

Nah, I'm sure it's about getting fans stoked for all the creative avenues sequels and crossovers set in two well-trod narrative universes opens up. Let's hear from someone who uses the word "franchise" without irony:

"The incredible legacies of both franchises offer some of the most compelling and exciting world building in all of science fiction. It is a thrill and an honor to be able to add to that mythology and continuity with all-new stories set within those universes."

-Marvel Editor Jake Thomas,

clearly struggling against a natural

inclination to use the word "iconic" 

Or they could kill off
Captain America again.

Hey, sorry if I went down a super negative rabbit hole about something that hasn't even been written yet. Maybe it'll be great. Maybe it's just the thing Marvel comics needs to shake itself out of its rut of doing massive, confusing, status-quo shaking multi-series crossovers that are completely undone a few months later. And really I just wanted to understand why Marvel felt they needed to throw themselves a press release over what probably could have been an inter-office memo.

But it does bring up again the larger question of whether or not all these movies, comics, or whatevers being held in the same white-gloved rodent hand is a good thing. Sure, it means Iron Man can get his helmet ripped off by outerspace Ted Nugent, but is that creativity or fan service or worse, marketing decisions writing comic books?

What? He's basically one of those assholes
who flies to Namibia to shoot a white rhino.

Consequences, or something like them.

Have you ever wondered exactly how racist you can be on social media before they kick you off? If you have, what's wrong with you? But if you must know, the answer is very. Especially if you're Donald Trump. But Twitch suspended him today, so chalk one up, right?

"Twitch: Slightly less tolerant of racism
than most other social media platforms."

-Twitch's new slogan

A statement from the President expressing
his outrage at experiencing consequences
for his actions, is expected shortly.

The streaming platform temporarily suspended the President's account today for rebroadcasting some of his greatest hits-that is, some of the rallies he's held over the years wherein he accuses Mexicans, like as a people, of being drug dealers, rapists and murders. No, really. Ok, so why now? Well, Twitch announced a few days ago that they'd be stepping up efforts to shut down hate speech on their platform and when Trump joined Twitch they said he wasn't going to get any special treatment so, it's not like they didn't warn him.

Remember that one? With all the
empty seats? Must have been embarrassing.

One of the examples Twitch specifically pointed to as motivating the suspension was the recent and poorly attended Tulsa rally wherein the President painted a picture of a post 911 world that-no, not post 9/11, post 911. Republicans love to deliberately mischaracterize calls to defund and reform policing as an end to all law enforcement, so Trump made up some bullshit about non-white people murdering your defenseless white wife while you're away on business. You can't make this shit up. Well, he can. Here's an excerpt:

Pictured: a profession that
totally still exists.

"Hey, it's one o'clock in the morning and a very tough, I've used this word on occasion hombre, a very tough hombre is breaking into the window of a young woman whose husband is away as a traveling salesman or whatever he may do. And you call 911, and they say: I'm sorry, this number is no longer working."

-Donald Trump, painting a grim

picture of things to come

But is his story racist? It is. Super-racist in fact. The not so subtle suggestion here is: Thanks to Democrats, this white lady was murdered by brown people. The "very tough hombre" he's been evoking his entire presidency is a sort of white boomer boogey man used to frighten ignorant people into voting for him. But is the fictional woman in this story white? Sure she is. How do I know? I've seen the audience at a Trump rally.

"Goodness! An intruder? But with my husband away traveling
salesman-ing, or whatever he may do, and with all police abolished
by Democrats, who will shoot this very tough hombre?" 

Pictured: some racist shouting
"white power" at a campaign event
validating my broad generalizations.

What? Don't look at me like that. Huh? Am I reading more into this that what's there because it fits my personal narrative of Trump and Republicans being a pack of ignorant racist goons? Could it be that I'm so blinded by my preconceptions and prejudices that I think everything he does and says is motivated out by a desire to pander to the worst elements of the American right? I don't know, maybe? But in my defense, a lot of racists sure seem to show up at his rallies wearing MAGA hats, shouting things like "white power," and kung flu? Just...kung flu.

Ok, well, I'm sure we're all waiting with bated breath for the White House response which will almost certainly accuse Twitch of censorship-which this is not, and violating the First Amendment-which this move doesn't. Until then, let's all bask in the schadenfreude that comes with seeing someone so used to getting away with everything, not get away with something. For once. For a little while anyway.

"Is the President racist? Or is he so un-racist that haters can't even handle it?"

-Kayleigh McEnany 

blowing our minds

Today in wistful skyward gazing:

So I was whiling away precious hours of my life watching videos on Youtube about nerds remembering video games from thirty years ago, when I came across this ad. You didn't click on it and I think we both know you never will, so I'll explain: it's a recruitment video for the United States Space Force.

So far they have a logo and this video,
so yeah, Space Force is really coming along.

The pandemic, white supremacists,
and four years of insane Tweets but I'm
 sure Space Force will be his legacy... 

No, not the critically shrugged at Steve Carell comedy series whose funniest moment was evidently when it beat the U.S. government to the trademark for the sixth branch of the military, but the actual sixth branch of the military. The one Donald Trump made up a couple of years ago in yet another fit of self-aggrandizement. Yeah, move over John Adams and your U.S. Marine Corps, the former host of The Apprentice just founded the Spaaaaaace Fooorrrce. Yes. You do have to say it that way. It's in the charter.

The video opens on a clean-cut all-American standard white male, standing on a beach at dusk gazing wistfully not only at the stars but also towards the future.

Pictured: a future American Space hero contemplating tomorrow
whilst almost certainly humming Faith of the Heart to himself.

Above: noted voice actor Morgan Freeman,
seen here being too expensive to narrate
a Space Force recruitment video.

Then a narrator with a pleasant, but not quite Freeman-level narrating voice says:

"Some people look to the stars and ask: what if? Our job is to have an answer. We have to imagine what will be imagined. Plan for what's possible while it's still impossible. Maybe you weren't put here just to ask the questions. Maybe you were put here to be the answer."

-the so-so narrator sprung for

by the U.S. Space Force

I mean, space isn't green, is it? Also is
wistful skyward gazing a job requirement?

Huh...maybe I was...but I have some questions. First of all, I don't want to be a jerk, but does the Space Force have actual rockets yet or just the low-texture polygonal ones? I know they're just getting started and I mean, the CG would be ok if this were a video game cut seen from 2015 but they'll eventually have real rockets, right? And why do the actors cast as Space Force personal wear camouflage? It seems like 99.9 percent of being in the Space Force is going to be on the ground in those sci-fi control rooms we see in the ad.

Speaking of the sci-fi control rooms we see in the ad, what's with that big room with the girders and blue squidgy lights even for? I get that this is supposed to be speculative, like what being in the Space Force might be like someday, but it's a bunch of people looking up (wistfully, one assumes) at a wall covered in holograms or something and I can't even begin to imagine what they're supposed to be doing.

What is this even for? A rave? A secret Stargate program? What?

"My mission statement is to attain
experience in the field of experience."

-Some college kid

Well, I guess that's the point then, imagination. Space Force is basically imaginary right now. It might be a real thing someday, but not anytime soon. It doesn't help that no one's really sure what it will do. The website says it's "...a military service that organizes, trains and equips space forces in order to protect U.S. allied interests in space and to provide space capabilities to the joint force." So the space force trains space forces? It kind of sounds like a college student trying to come up with something for a mission statement on a resumé. 

Even the ad doesn't know what the hell it is. The Space Force's job is to have an answer to "what if?" And to imagine what will be imagined? Is this a branch of the armed forces or the score from Man of La Mancha? Look, Donald Trump has pissed away plenty of our money (and international credibility) on racist border fences and golf trips for himself, but goddamn, shouldn't we be focusing on a vaccine or something? 

Is the vaccine in space? Because if it's not, this
kind of seems like a colossal waste of resources...