We long for the normalcy of face-holes!

What's even the point of this? Huh? This what? Oh, right, you can't see what I'm looking at. You'd think after like ten years of this, I'd know that. Anyway, this this:

What do you mean drink it? I...I'm talking about the dumb face
shield, not the latté. Although I see now that I was being unclear.

Although, even I have to admit, that is
easily the most innovative neck mount
I've seen all day. I mean, look at it.

While I go out of my way to not encounter commercials, I encountered one for something called the Zshield and couldn't look away. And no, it's not just because of its innovative neck mount, it's because what's even the point of this? You mount this plastic nonsense around your neck and raise the blast shield to keep yourself from spewing disease all over the person ordering the pumpkin spiced whatever and that's it. It's exactly like a regular face shield, but it hinges from below and is supposed to protect other people from your uh...droplets. 

Cool, that's super, God knows the last thing I want is other people's droplets, but does it? Protect other people from your sputum I mean? Sorry, but that's the word. Anyway, you still have to wear a real mask, right? Like I'm not like a doctor or anything, but my understanding is that while droplets are gross, viruses still spread through the air, so won't they just go around your ridiculous upside-down welding mask?

"Whaaaat? No...we wouldn't do that to you..."

-Some virus, probably lying

Pictured: the white, nigh impossible
to read text that stands between
Zverse® and a class action lawsuit. 

Yes, of course they will, because viruses are no respecters of as seen on TV products, no matter how innovative the neck mount is. And if you watch the ad there's some barely legible text at the very bottom of the screen saying that it's "not intended or approved as a replacement for other PPE, including but not limited to masks." Which is great except for the fact that this disclaimer is written over a bunch of scenes of people walking around living their best super spreader life with just the Zshield and no masks. So what gives? You don't suppose they're misrepresenting their products, do you?

Oh, wait, I always get this
wrong, deception is the basis
of advertising, isn't it?

Deception? In advertising? It seems impossible, I know, but here we are. Sure, Zverse, the company that makes this thing, says it can't replace mask wearing, but one of the selling points is that other people can see your face through it and read your expressions without the use of eyebrows or overly enthusiastic hand gestures. So they're definitely marketing it as something that is safe to wear in lieu of masks which it isn't. At all. And look, I want things to go back to normal as much as anyone and what's more normal than watching other people's face-holes emote and form words? But it seems like the only thing more terrifying than COVID-19 is misinformation about COVID-19. And lying about the ability of your neck-mounted spit catcher to stop the spread of the disease is exactly that.

Today in "hey, isn't that treason?":

Yup, he's blowing the whistle again.

Well I have to go again shower now. Like, because of this video I just watched, not like as part of my usual routine. Which video? You're going to be sorry I pretend you asked, because it's a campaign video for Trump. Normally when I see these things pop up, I report them as offensive, which they are, but the name of this one gave me pause. And by pause I mean a cold chill. When I went back to find it for this post, it was entitled "Say what you will about America." But when I first saw it it was called "We will never surrender America." Which, holy shit...

"What? I just told an armed militia to stand by
in case I need to overturn the election results."

-The President of the 

United States, somehow

This isn't like a Berenstain Bears Mandala effect thing either, because that phrase appears in the video itself. I didn't make it up. And there's been this weird question out in the zeitgeist about what to do if Trump loses and refused to you know, not be President anymore. And he's made some unsettling comments about negotiating for a third term-which isn't a thing, but between statements like that and his dog-whistle to the Proud Boys during the debate where he-in front of everybody-called for an armed insurrection to keep him in power, I'm a little concerned.

Hey look, it's Jackie Robinson. Guess
we were wrong about Trump this whole time.

-Gullible people

Ok, A lot concerned. Here, let's look at some of the things said in the ad. You can click on this if you want to see it for yourself, but I've already fallen on that particular sword so you don't have to. But watch it if you want, and then go wash. I'll wait. Back? Great, now if you didn't subject yourself to that, imagine this narration spoken over a slide show of great American triumphs with a heavy emphasis on prominent Black Americans. Because I guess that totally proves that Tump isn't a white supremacist. 

"Shut up and choke it down. This
is how we do turkey in America!"

"Say what you will about America, but don't bet against us. We fight, we move forward, we pay any price. Impossible? That word is motivation. If it's worth doing, it's worth overdoing." Ok, first things first. Ok, don't bet against us. Cool. We fight we move forward-yeah yeah, motivation. Fine, but then: "If it's worth doing, it's worth overdoing." No it's not. That's nonsense. Overdoing is a bad thing. Overcooked, overtired, oversimplify. I'm not trying to help out the wanna be president for life here, but maybe his ad people should, you know, be better at it?

We don't just get COVID-19,
we over-get COVID-19.

It goes on: "We think big and we work big. We leave no doubt. Because we're Americans. Daring. Courageous. Loyal. Our reach always exceeds our grasp, but we get the job done." Our reach always exceeds our grasp? Again, that's a bad thing. It literally means failure, but fine, I guess maybe it's poetic license? But who cares, because we get the job done. Which wait...which job would that be? Probably not getting the pandemic under control. Because that's still, you know, raging. Also, Trump himself has it. Also he's giving it to other people. 

"What can I say? We just hate America."

-Nancy Pelosi, according to Republicans 

Next is some more generic uplifting phrases about how great America is, but then we get to the folks. Yeah, the folks. "Some folks want to shut us down. They don't believe in America. They want to destroy our traditions. Terrorize our communities. But we'll never surrender America." I uh...I guess that's us. You know, the majority of Americans who didn't vote for Trump, won't vote for Trump and who support Black Lives Matter and want health care. Because we just hate America so much! But don't worry, real Americans won't surrender. 

Real Americans like those psychopaths in gigantic pick-up trucks with Trump 2020 flags hanging off of them, who tried to run over protesters. Or the gun-toting white supremacists who took over a couple state houses. Or maybe the cops who high-fived some kid on his way to murder protesters. 

What is it with Trumpies and giant trucks? I mean, they can't all be contractors,
right? Wait, you don't suppose they base their masculine identity on how big
their trucks are do you? Shit, now I almost kind of feel bad for them. Almost.

Huh, evidently no lives matter.
Hey, way to turn the tables...

And then the ad finishes off by suggesting that the America-haters are trying to keep them-again, the real Americans-from returning to their normal lives, seeing their loved ones and going to church. Which, cool, this coming from Typhoid MAGA who, as I write this, is busy whipping off his mask and spreading COVID-19 to anyone and everyone around him while-through a steroid-induced haze-calling the two-hundred thousand Americans who died from the pandemic, weak for not fighting it off like he did.

Anyway, I guess what I'm asking is could we all please stop wondering about what we should do if Trump loses and doesn't concede? Like, not stepping down isn't an option. I'm not a constitutional scholar or anything, but, I think it might actually be treason.

"Should the president fail to win enough electoral votes, he shall step down
in a peaceful transition of power. Unless of course he doesn't feel like it."

-James Madison, author of the Constitution 

(source: Donald Trump's grossly

inaccurate understanding of his office)

Today in not part of the job description:

They also may be called upon to take a fake
hundred for the President at any moment.

Ok, COVID-19's not a bullet. Well, ok, obviously, but what I mean is that ever since Lincoln's trip to the theatre, Secret Service agents take an oath to protect the President even at the cost of their own lives. So like, they may be called upon to leap in front of the President and take a bullet for them regardless of who it is. Also they're in charge of investigating counterfeit money. Which, weird combo, I know, but the agency was created at the same time as the Lincoln assassination, so they just tacked body guard onto their job description. 

Anyway, I bring this up because getting locked in the presidential limo with a guy with a raging case of coronavirus isn't part of the job. Especially when it's for-wait for it-a goddamn photo op. Yup, we're doing this agin.

Pictured: that time Trump had people teargassed and
beaten so he could wave a Bible in front of a church.
Not pictured: any sign that he appreciated the irony.

What we should have done with him
on day one. Huh? No, of his presidency.

Yeah, in an effort to reassure everybody that he's totally fine, the President, who has been admitted to Walter Reed Military Hospital, grabbed his security detail and piled into his limo to take a trip around the block. Holy shit. I'm not a medical expert, but mask or no, he just exposed a limo's worth of Secret Service agents to a deadly disease so that he can can wave at supporters. Um...this is going to kill people right? At the very least, they're probably looking at quarantine and possibly serious illness.

But hey, like I said, I'm no medical expert. I wonder what a medical expert would say? Oh look, here's a tweet from Dr. James P. Phillips, attending physician at Walter Reed:

Whoa...maybe I am a medical expert.

Check, check and double check.

Dr. Phillips gave the New York Times a phone interview later that day in which he raised the question of medical ethics, wondering if his doctors were ordered to disregard medical sense and let this happen. Because it beggars logic to suggest that physicians, if they were being listened to, would ever let healthy people get in a car with someone with COVID-19. Because it's insane and no one in their right minds would think it's ok to recklessly endanger others. Because it's the act of a megalomaniac who cares more about their image than people's lives.

In this example, politics are the space
parasite, which I think most would agree with.

Like, there's a reason the doctor on Star Trek is the only person on the Enterprise who can give an order to the captain. It's because you can't have the person in charge, a person upon whom lives may depend, making compromised decisions. Maybe there's a neuro-parasite or a Ferengi with a mind-control device or something. You just can't be sure. So when the president is making politically motivated decisions that puts other people's lives at risk, the doctors need to be able to step in and stop him. 

What I'm saying is that we might not be able to tell 
the incoherent messaging and lack of leadership
that comes with the President being incapacitated
from the administration's usual goat-rodeo.

The White House said the doctors ok'd this, but of course they didn't. Or at least, they were ordered to ok it which isn't the same thing and undermines everyone's safety. So like, what else are we being lied to about? He apparently lied to Sean Hannity on Thursday, telling him that he was awaiting results when in fact he had had a positive test. He was put on oxygen on Friday, but his doctor refused to confirm this until Sunday. So was he able to fulfill the obligations of his office? I mean, sure, has he ever, but it's something we should know about, right?

The golf industry alone must be reeling.

The global economy rises and falls on whether or not the U.S. president is, you know, in charge of his faculties, so politics aside, lying to us about it is a serious problem and one that in any other reality would have serious consequences for the Republicans. I mean, you know the GOP would be loosing their shit right now if this was a Democratic president hiding their condition and ordering doctors to tow a party line.  

Look, whatever I may think of him, no one deserves a slow death by asphyxiation. I continue to wish him and everyone else a safe recovery. But for real, at this point we just need him to get better so he'll stop spreading this disease everywhere he goes like some kind of reckless lawn sprinkler full of respiratory disease.

Pictured: an apt metaphor. 

Magnanimity!

Ok, it knows some bounds, I
did just say I hope they all go to jail.

I wish them all a safe and speedy recovery. Yeah, I genuinely mean that. Don't get me wrong, I am revolted by the President's greed, narcism, misogyny, racism, pettiness, fecklessness, open courting of white supremacists, divisiveness, deliberate sabotage of our government and our democratic institutions and general criminality, and it is my fervent hope that the entire administration will find itself out of a job in January, and where appropriate, facing charges. But I hope they recover from COVID. Yes, my magnanimity knows no bounds.

But for real, I wouldn't wish this disease on anyone, not even the President, not even his advisors. Anyway, wishing even your worst enemy well is what Jesus said to do, right? I mean, when he wasn't railing against gays and extolling the virtues of unfettered capitalism?

Wait, did he rail against gays and extoll the virtues of unfettered capitalism?
Or am I confusing him with the skewed, self-serving version America's political
right uses to convince their base that they have their best interests at heart when
really they're just playing them like an all-fiddle orchestra of ignorance?

What? It's how I cope.

I'm down to my last nerve,
so I'm trying to be careful with it.

Hey, what's up with Spider-Man? Did you see the new-huh? Yeah, I know I've been on kind of a video game thing the last few posts. I've been trying to avoid things that are, as the kids say, triggering. Do they still say that? What I mean is that even glancing at news sends me into a spiral of outrage and anxiety that's just unhealthy. And, it turns out, my going apoplectic over every horrible, racist thing the President of the United States says and does, doesn't actually make him stop saying and doing horrible and racist things. 

Pictured: The President committing
what I'm pretty sure is actual treason. 
Not pictured: consequences.

I mean, I didn't watch the debate, but the next day I saw the thing about how when asked to condemn the Proud Boys he used this as an opportunity to ask them to carry out an armed insurrection if he loses the election. Which is a crime, right? And-holy shit, I'm doing it again. But all this to say, if gaming isn't your thing and you're just here for my screeds, skip this one, sit tight, I'm sure my resolve will break and I'll be back to unhealthy obsessing about world events outside my control any day now. 

Look, the shitshow that is 2020 isn't
going anywhere today, so we might as well
 talk about nonsense for a minute or two.

But back to Spider-Man. Did you see Peter Parker's re-design? Yeah, how's that for whiplash? But hey, these are the times we live in. Anyway, if you don't follow this sort of thing, the PS4 Spider-Man game that was such a big deal a couple years ago is being re-mastered for PlayStation 5 to coincide with the release of the Miles Morales sequel/DLC. Which, great, they want to make sure it looks it's best on the new console and that it compares favorably with the new campaign. Except... 

Yeah, except they for some reason they replaced the character model for the twenty-three year-old Peter Parker and with a child. Like, a child. Ok, I say "for some reason" and Sony did give an explanation, although it was in some kind of meaning-neutral marketing speak, so who the hell knows?

Above: Peter Parker
Below: Yikes, what?

Above: Ben Jordan capturing the true 
essence of Yuri Lowenthal as Spider-Man.

So what's up with Spider-Man? Well, according to the PlayStation blog:

 "...to get a better match to Peter Parker/Spider-Man actor Yuri Lowenthal's facial capture, we have cast Ben Jordan to be the face model for Peter Parker on the PS5 console."

-Spokeaperson James Stevenson from 

Insomniac Games, giving a business answer

Yeah, but, why does he need to look like Yuri Lowenthal? Like, the thing about voice actors is that they don't necessarily need to look like the character model. Take the titular character Archer on Archer for instance. Archer looks like Jon Hamm because that's what you'd expect a douche spy to look like. H. Jon Benjamin, the voice actor who plays him on the other hand, looks nothing like Jon Hamm.

"Again, because it's a cartoon and genetics. Now does anyone have
 a question for me that isn't why don't you look like Archer?"

-Benjamin at every Comic Con panel

What? Don't look at me like
that, you are older than me.

Also, he doesn't look like Yuri Lowenthal. Like, at all. Also, also, Yuri Lowenthal is older than I am-which is you know, old, making Insomniac's explanation weird and unsatisfactory. But weird and unsatisfactory explanation aside, why is the new character model, Ben Jordan, so much younger than original actor John Bubniak? I mean there's sort of a trope in video games-especially Japanese RPG's, of protagonist characters being super young. Like, heroes are fifteen, seasoned warriors are seventeen and anyone twenty-two or older is a wizened sage or dead. But the Peter Parker in the game has been Spider-man for like eight eight years already and serves as kind of a mentor for Miles Morales. They kind of look the same age now.

Final Fantasy III was our Citizen Kane.

And doesn't seem like it word work from a story perspective. I mean, I generally haven't cared about video game story lines since the 16-bit era, which is admittedly weird because current games are closer than ever to being interactive movies whereas games of the 90's asked us to take chibi anime soap-operas like Final Fantasy and Chrono Trigger seriously. But Spider-Man's story was surprisingly good and relied heavily-as good Spider-Man stories do-on Peter Parker struggling with balancing his super hero job with the responsibilities of his early adulthood. Recasting him as a kid again strains credulity.

Strains credulity in a video game about a photographer with radioactive spider powers. Ok, there's obviously worse things going on in the world right now, but I guess I'm just fascinated by the motivation behind such an unnecessary recast. Although recasting Spider-Man with increasingly younger actors seems to be a tradition. 

Pictured: Remember Toby McGuire? He played Spider-Man
way back in 2002. I think with Hedy Lamarr as Mary Jane.

Today in "why in my day..."

Not content with sticking their tentacles into every aspect of our lives like some kind of Lovecraftian elder monopoly, Amazon is now trying to be a gaming platform as well. Yeah, not only is this post going to be about video games-yes, again-and it's also going to be me weighing in on streaming services, so if you want to skip, I get it. Still there? Super.

Pictured: An artist's rendition of Amazon's business model.

After that Monster Energy thing,
they might want to lawyer up.

Anyway, they've announced a streaming video game platform called Luna. Yes, like the gendered granola bars-doesn't matter, Luna is a streaming video ga-huh? No, you're thinking of Google Stadia. I guess Amazon looked at that and said what if we did something like that, except it's exactly like that. Which is an interesting move given that Stadia has been something of a failure and Google's kind of gone radio silent about its future. In any case, Luna, like Stadia before it, is trying to make cloud-based streaming video games a thing. 

Of course, If they'd tried some experimental
new design, I'm sure I'd be calling them out
for that too, so no, they can't win here.

The idea is that you pay Amazon whatever money they haven't already extracted from you with Prime drone delivery, to stream video games directly to a device like a smart TV or a dongle. No game console or physical media required, although you can buy their controller which is infringe-ily similar to the Xbox gamepad and the Switch Pro Controller. According to their website, lengthy updates and downloads will be a thing of the past and you can "Experience gaming anywhere there's high-speed wifi."  

"What? America has the greatest
health care system in the world."

-The guy that runs Pfizer

And that brings me to my first issue here: high speed wifi. If you're anything like me, you live in the United States where high-speed wifi isn't always available or when it is it isn't necessarily consistent. Our wifi is only slightly better than our health care system which is to say, expensive and almost certainly not there when you need it. Mine goes out at least twice a day and the response from my internet provider-the only one available in my area-is basically "yup, that'll happen. Bill's due on the 24th." And while it's not quite the same thing as being unable to afford surgery, having your wifi go out mid-game sucks.

Ok, all that stands between you and old games
is finding a copy, and then removing decades of
corrosion from people blowing on the contcacts.

Maybe I'm just inherently suspicious of digital only gaming. Admittedly I'm someone who has hung on to and alphabetizes thirty year-old game cartridges, but still, there's something impermanent about streaming games and I just can't get behind it as a thing. And it's not just a hoarder mentality. Which again, not the end of the world, but we seem to be moving to a model where the streaming platform has complete control over access to gaming content and it just feels icky. Which physical games, all that stands between you and playing an old game is finding a used cartridge or a disc. But with Luna, if Amazon decides to de-list a game, it's just gone. 

Ok, second worst just behind
making Jeff Bezos even richer.

So I made a lot out of how Luna takes ownership out of the hands of the gamer and how dodgy wifi can be, but I also pointed out how similar it is to Stadia and it is, but there's also a couple differences. Stadia has sort of a combination "Netflix-like of gaming" set-up whereby you pay a subscription and have access to a selection of games or you can straight up buy them. With Luna I guess you're subscribing to channels. And while I'm not a fan of either model, it seems like this takes the worst part of their video streaming service and imports it to their gaming platform.

Truly those were barbarous times...

You know how you pay Amazon whatever per month for Amazon Prime, but sometimes you click on something you want to watch and it tells you you have to subscribe to goddamn Stars? That's what this is. You get the basic channel with the subscription, but then pay extra for other publisher's channels. So you're paying a subscription fee that grants you access to paying them additional subscription fees. It's kind of like how cable packages used to work, and is one of the many, many reasons people don't have cable packages anymore. 

Look, a lot of this is probably my crotchety, why in my day... attitude towards anything that attempts to upset the way gaming has worked since I first got in to it. Maybe this is the future of video games and it's just not for me. I felt the same way about MMORPG's and mobile gaming and look how those turned out. I mean, they're objective garbage, yes, but people seem to enjoy them, so what do I know?

Pictured: when I first got into gaming.

Thirty thousand dollars. Of Money.

Who are these people, where do they get all this money and can I have some? Yup, in another example of everything wrong with the hyper-capitalist hellscape in which we live, someone just paid what the average American earns in a year for an old video game.

Seriously though, how do the one-percenters think this ends? I'm asking.

Although if you're going to gut a
cartridge, Kid Icarus is a good choice.

They say that something has value only if someone is willing to pay for it and in this case, pay someone did. Last week, Heritage Auctions, whose whole thing is selling objectively valueless objects to collectors who value them, auctioned off a prototype copy of Super Mario Bros. 3. It's one of the most ubiquitous NES games ever, but this isn't really about the game, it's about the rarity of the-huh? Yeah, you're looking at the broken piece of jank in the plastic WATA case over there, aren't you? That's it. The prototype was built out of a repurposed Kid Icarus cartridge somebody apparently laid into with a Dremel and then wrote on with a marker, but it was for internal use only, so I guess they didn't care what it looked like. I mean, it's not like they saw someone paying thirty grand for it someday.

You can however judge me for taking
a photo of the ending to post online
to prove that I finished it.

You heard me, thirty thousand dollars. Of money. For that. And don't get me wrong. I'm a grown-ass adultwho still plays the same video games he played when he was ten. In fact, I've played through Mario 3 recently. Don't judge me. My point is I get it. What I don't get is why someone paid thirty thousand dollars for it. And I'm not just talking about how it's a grotesque extravagance at a time when people are being crushed by student debt and have to do gofundme's to pay for surgery. What I'm asking is why someone paid all that money for that specific prototype. My issue is one of snobbery. 

The key difference being that
your copy didn't sell for 30K.

Look, I will never have thirty thousand dollars to blow on a video game. Or surgery. That said, it kind of feels like this person got taken. Sure, this is a prototype, but it's a prototype of the US release of the game. I'm not like an expert or anything, but SMB3 came out in Japan in 1988, while the exposed chips on this one are all labeled 1990. The game came out here in February of 1990, so this was presumably put together just before that release, meaning that it's probably identical or almost identical to the version sitting in a box in your attic or wherever. 

I know, neeeerrrrd. But I'm just pointing out that it's not like this cartridge would contain anything we've never seen before or have a bunch of cut content or anything. The value here is that it was handled by underpaid and overworked Nintendo of America staff back in 1990 who probably play tested it and gave it the green light or whatever they do and-ok, that is a little cool. But still, not cost of private four-year college's tuition cool. 

I don't now what you do for a living, but I'm willing to bet that neither
you nor I could clear out our desks and come up with something collectors
would pay tens of thousands of dollars for. Unlike mullet boy here.