Goon Patrol

No, look at this nonsense and then tell me
why we shouldn't sell Florida back to Spain.

They're uh...they're going to fall for this, aren't they? I mean, I know Florida may well be one of our dumbest states, but are they really going to let Rick DeGoddamnedSantis have direct control over an armed force? At a press conference the-Huh? No, I mean an armed force other than the MAGA-hat wearing lunatics with military hardware and white-people persecution complexes who are already roaming the Sunshine State. Anyway, I ask because he's proposed re-instituting the Florida State Guard, a volunteer military unit. 

It's not new. I guess the last time they formed this thing it was during World War II and they needed someone to fill in for the National Guard who were off fighting fascists. So I suppose it's a bit of an historical irony that this new one would be working directly for a fascist. 

"Whoa whoa whoa, would a fascist propose giving himself control of a private militia?
Would a fascist sign a bill requiring universities to report faculty and students who espouse 
beliefs contrary to the Conservative worldview? Would a-sorry, what was the question?"

-Rick DeSantis, noted fascist

"Florida-specific emergencies like hurricanes,
wildfires or Democrats winning elections."

-Rick DeSantis, President of Florida

The Governor-huh? Yeah, yeah he is. Anyway, the Florida State Guard wouldn't, in DeSantis's words: "be encumbered by the Federal Government and don't require Federal Government." Which, coming from the leader of a State that once seceded from the Union because they were keen on owning Black people and making them work for no money, is, you know, alarming. DeSantis went on to say that this new force will be able to assist the National Guard in state-specific emergencies. 

Pictured: another victim of the left's
information campaign, seen here being brutally
forced to get a life-saving vaccine.

So not to keep harping on the Confederacy but standing behind a podium with the phrase "Let us alone" printed on it isn't helping anyone give him the benefit of the doubt here. Sure, this Florida State Guard would be limited to just two hundred goons (what?), but since when is Rick DeSantis interested in addressing crises? Florida (as is the rest of the country) is in the middle of a pandemic which DeSantis has chosen to combat by not only doing nothing, but actively fighting against basic life-saving measures like vaccines and masks. 

"What? Sure I can! 'Merica, Whooo!"

-Gun owners. What? 

I'm not wrong...

So what would this force be for? The Florida National Guard has about twelve thousand members. Two hundred is like one sixtieth of that. Not really enough to do much in the face of one of the disastrous tropical storms the State is routinely pummeled with. And if they're for combating natural disasters why do they need guns? Contrary to what most gun owners in America might think, you can't just shoot your problems away. So I ask again: what even is the point? And maybe this is where I veer into the very same tin-foil hat territory that I so routinely accuse people on the right of living in, but here goes: 

During the last election Donald Trump encouraged supporters to monitor polling places which, translated through the right-wing nutty filter, means "git yer gun and try to scare off the Demey-crats." And really, just a few Florida State Guardsmen (let's be real here, this will be mostly dudes) at key polling places is all it would take to intimidate voters under the guise of "monitoring." Which, between the coup attempt, the naked gerrymandering, and the lionization of Kyle "actually a murder" Rittenhouse, am I actually being paranoid?

I'm not saying the the jury system doesn't work but I mean he drove to another
state, waved a gun at some peaceful protestors, shot three people and
then Kavanaugh'd his way into a self-defense aquital. I mean...

Who had frog robot apocalypse in the pool?

I mean, I know which one I'd prefer...

Scientists took a bold step towards covering the surface of the earth with a carpet of all-consuming grey goo this week with the invention of self-replicating robots. And really, in many ways I suppose I'd prefer this to the many other causes of our own annihilation we're currently the architects of. We can either embrace the robot apocalypse, or we can resign ourselves to an extinction brought upon by our unwillingness to recycle and take public transport.  

"Frogs are literally made of robots."

-Science

But, this is science, so now's the time to walk it back a bit. First of all, when I say "robot" you probably have something very specific in mind. Like, say, a robot. When in reality the "xenobots" (which comes from the frog's taxonomic name, Canopus laevis and not, as it would suggest, space), developed by a team of researchers and described in their just published paper: "Kinematic self-replication in reconfigurable organisms", are organic and not so much robots as they are stem cells harvested from African clawed frog embryos which the team "programed." 

No, I mean the robots are reproducing.
Dumb people have been reproducing for
ages, although they will also be our doom.

"Ok"--you might reasonably ask--"then how are they robots?" Good question. No idea. To me it kind of sounds like the researchers are just screwing around with frog cells, because science is a horror show that loves to poke things. But according to this NewScientist article from earlier this year, these stem cells can be programed to work together and complete tasks. I know, sounds batty, but unlike dumb people, I'm going to trust that the scientists know what they're talking about and don't make up shit like frog-cell robots. Cool. Except now they're reproducing and we're all doomed.

Huh? Oh, it's one of the technical
ones they give out like three weeks early.

So clearly, organic robots made from frog stem cells are weird, and weirder still are organic robots made from frog stem cells that self-replicate. But the Oscar for Best Whatthefuck-ery in a Scientific Breakthrough definitely goes to "organic robots made from stem cells that self-replicate by clumping together instead of cell division like every other organism on earth." Because when the Xenobots shoved loose cells into one another in a Petri dish, the loose cells adhered to one another and then turned into more Xenobots. 

Yeah, these things invented their own method of reproduction. There will soon be no stopping them. Life found a way, and now it's only a matter of time before these mindless, robot frog clumps break free from our control and spread out across the globe assimilating everyone and everything into their hive mind. All will be frog bot. 

Remember that time we all laughed at Asimo? Well whose laughing now?
Not robots, obviously. They have no need of our squishy human emotions.

And suddenly I care about nurdles.

To the long list of things to worry about, fascism, climate change, and the increasingly menacing greek alphabet letter names for COVID, we can now add nurdles. Yeah, goddamn nurdles which, despite sounding like the stars of an 80's Saturday morning cartoon are actually tiny plastic pellets that are slowly killing us.

Ok, these are Snorks, but you could have told me they were called Nurdles,
and I wouldn't have questioned you. Also, they too live in the sea.

Each hat is another, irreversible
environmental catastrophe.

Huh? No, nurdles aren't the tiny plastic balls that come in facial scrubs, although those too are ruining the planet. Nurdles are the form of plastic that's manufactured and then shipped to factories that then melt them down and make things out of them. And according to this article on The Guardian, when a container ship caught fire and sank in the Indian Ocean, 1,680 tonnes--that's metric for ton--spilled out causing a disaster on top of an already heinous disaster. It's like a hat on a hat...of terribleness.

Pictured: the stupid-looking hat
underneath all those other hats.

In addition to picking up toxins, these nurdles are also swallowed by fish and other sea life which think they're food. And who can blame them? Fish aren't terribly smart and besides, not even millions of years of evolution can be expected to prepare them for our addiction to the cheap plastic nonsense we pile on massive, oil-filled, ocean going cargo ships. So in many ways, the real culprit here is us. Consumers. But that requires a level of introspection I'm just not prepared to deal with, so let's blame Amazon, and specifically Jeff Bezos. Like, personally.

Ok, fine, it's not Jeff Bezos fault...exactly. I mean, it is, but it's also Walmart, Target, and Ikea according to a new study put out by Stand.earth and Pacific Environment, two non-profit environmental groups who say that the four companies together generated twenty million tonnes of harmful emission between 2018 and 2020. 

Admittedly, I have no context for twenty million tonnes, 
but like, there's no way that can possibly be a good thing.

People have actually started saying
Happy Black Friday, which is like the turkey
wishing you a Happy Thanksgiving.

The pandemic, the study says, has only made things worse. Well, obviously, but I mean for the environment. The shipping backup leaves container ships idling in ports already choked by their fumes, and being locked up all day has created even greater demand for online shopping. Yup, that's us again. The consumers. Ever year at this time, we eat way too much and then pile into our cars to race to box stores to trample each other to death because retailers have convinced us Black Friday is a holiday. Which it's not. At all.

"I don't get it, we've tried nothing,
how come it's not working?"

-Far too many of us

If anything, it's kind of a scam. One we walk into willingly because we like Roombas and iPhones, but still, a scam, although we tend to call it capitalism to make us feel better. Which it doesn't, but my point is that in a country where a decent chunk of the population thinks vaccinations are a conspiracy, I think it says something that many of the very same people line up year after year because goddamn Walmart or whatever has tricked them into thinking buying shit at midnight on Thanksgiving is a tradition. Or that it can go on like this forever. 

Because between the nurdles and the shipping carbon footprint of shipping nurdles to factories that themselves generate pollution to manufacture products out of nurdles, which are then shipped again across the already garbage filled ocean to ports and from there to distribution centers and stores, we're locked in a pretty unsustainable, possibly unbreakable cycle that will only end when we stop buying so much junk. So...never?

"Yeah, but I mean, 4K...that's like four times the k's..."

-us

Collateral spoiler alert about Fry's dog?

John Cho is perfect, and they even nailed
his hair which, when you think about it,
Spike's character is 90% the hair.

Can I--did you watch the live action Cowboy Bebop? I ask because I'm going to talk about it and I'll probably be spoiling elements of it and, I don't know, maybe you want to watch it? Just, be warned. Also, I don't write reviews of things. I mean, the last thing anyone needs is more recommendations for things to stream and what if you hate it? Then it's on me. So just know that I'm not saying you should watch this, I'm just saying holy shit, what's up with live-action Spike? But we'll get to that. 

If you were never into the anime upon which the new show is based, just know that it's an acquired taste. It's probably one of those things where you had to be just the right age when it aired on Adult Swim in the early aughts. That is, too old for Pokémon, but young enough to have had a Fight Club poster on the wall of your dorm. I don't know, look, if you cried when Fry's dog died on Futurama, then you probably get this.

It's the xennial of anime.

Although Spock shouting "Khaaaan!" in
Into Darkness was, inarguably, hot garbage.

Anyway, I liked it for the most part. I've tried to temper my nerdish instincts when it comes to revivals of things I enjoyed in my younger days. Like, I spent way too much time back in the early twenty-tens losing my mind over the Star Trek reboots and how the new thing was different from the old thing and therefore hot garbage. Which, it wasn't. It was just different, and that's fine. I've matured. There's nothing wrong with taking creative liberties.

Right? Yes, I'm talking to you, live-action Cowboy Bebop. This version replicates many of the costumes, designs, plots, and even shots exactly that you'd be forgiven for thinking it was a straight up recreation of the anime. Like, it looks and sounds like the cartoon and it all works pretty well even if there is something a little cosplay-y about it.

Above: evidently a shot from season 2 where
the Bebop crew attends ComiCon on Ganymede.

Although given that we're basically relying
on lunatic billionaires for space exploration now,
 another couple hundred years wouldn't have hurt.

The show's aesthetic faithfully duplicates the cool-but-weird space noire of the anime without feeling like a Blade Runner knock-off. The sci-fi elements like the space stations and the Bebop itself are more or less unchanged although the timeline's been bumped a bit further into the future. The anime was set like, fifty years from now (seventy from when it first aired), which never seemed like enough time to populate the solar system. This show however is more like a hundred and fifty years into the future, so it's a bit more plausi--ok, a bit less implausible. 

Above: series antagonist Vicious, seen here
in a still from the live-action adaptation.

But these are three dimensional real people playing these characters now, and each episode is more like forty-five minutes compared to the original's twenty-two, so the creators of the new show decided to flesh everyone out a bit more. Some of these changes work, like Jet having a family, and Ana (Annie in the cartoon) and Gren going from unrelated side characters to important series regulars. And some changes don't, like Vicious going from a cold sadistic nemesis for Spike to an incompetent goon with both rage and daddy issues. But oh no Spike, oh no...

While far from the worst thing Joss Whedon
is guilty of, I think the blame for characters'
constant quipping can be laid squarely at his feet.

So again, John Cho is great. His version of Spike varies from the cartoon in that he's a lot more talkative and that's fine. Anime Spike spent a lot of time brooding or grunting monosyllabically between long drags of his cigarette where as live-action Spike engages more with the other characters particularly Jet. It's a choice that better fits both the actor and the contemporary trend towards quippier writing. What's a little harder to watch is the flash back to his Syndicate days in which he massacres a rival gang. Like, we watch Spike shoot everyone. Everyone. I think he even kills a kid.

And in fairness that was always his backstory, but goddamn. It's brutal, and seeing the always lovable John Cho murder it out in live action and HD it made it a lot harder to root for the character from then on out. Anyway, like I said, I support creative liberties in adaptations like this, but yikes, interesting choice turning your lead character into a sociopath nine episodes in to a ten episode series.

Wait, maybe the chain-smoking ex-hitman turned
bounty-hunter maybe isn't supposed to be a role model?

I suppose low standards are still standards...

Pictured: Me, upon realizing that
GTA III was twenty yeas ago.

Ok, confession time: despite all my recent talk about how I find violence in video games and movies gross, I've actually really been a GTA fan for like twenty years which--huh? Yeah, Grand Theft Auto III came out twenty goddamn years ago. So, obviously I'm a big huge hypocrite. I'd be lying if I said it wasn't fun from time to time to put in a bunch of cheat codes and go on a rampage with a jet pack and a missile launcher, but for the most part, I'm there for the parody and the open-world stuff.

Obnoxious, egotistical behavior stemming
from the assumption they can do no wrong?
Why, they sully the very name Rockstar...

Anyway, I mention all this because I was kind of looking forward to the remastered versions of these 3-D murder simulators. Again, for the biting commentary. But then it came out and it became clear that the games were riddled with bugs and weird, terrible design choices and were based on the shitty mobile versions instead of being remasters of the better console versions. Because business. Then, an another tone-deaf move, Rockstar, the publisher, then further pissed off fans by removing the non-busted original versions from e-shops and basically just made everything worse. 

Sure, they've since issued a statement apologizing for how terrible the--sorry, apologizing to anyone who encountered issues playing these games, which is, evidently anyone who tried playing these games. And lamented that they "did not launch in a state that meets our own standards of quality, or the standards our fans have come to expect." Far from the worst corporate apology, like, they actually used the word "apology" even if there was a bit of the usual passive voice. The games "didn't launch in a state" rather than "we launched them in a state that...etc." It just sort of of happened. Somehow. 

"We don't know what to tell you, we were just sitting around when suddenly
our game just released. I think...I think it might have become sentient."

-Rockstar, on how this is probably Skynet's fault

Above: Internet trolls seen here discussing
the best way to cook and eat game
developers who have disappointed them.

Rockstar did promise updates to fix the problems and that they'd re-list the non-remastered versions in the meantime. That's cool. But looking at the video compilations of the glitches, and my own limited time with San Andreas--it's the one on Game Pass. What? I'm not paying for the full version--anyway, one has to wonder exactly what Rockstars standards of quality are that these could release so broken. Like, did anyone at the company try them first? Unfortunately a botched job like this one combined with the consequence-free anonymity of the internet makes for an even shittier situation: that of disproportionate online backlash. 

The company, in the same statement as the passive voice apology also mentioned that members of the development team have been getting harassed and they ask that people, you know, cut that shit out. That's never ok, no matter how bungled this whole thing was. I mean, it's not like anyone was harmed by a buggy release. No one died here. Just...just what is wrong with people?

They probably played too many violent video games...

Murder: totally legal now*

*some restrictions apply. Murderers must be white men and feel threatened by some nameless and/or vague menace to be eligible. Cannot be combined with other offers. 

Pictured: the real victim here.

Above: Rittenhouse, seen here strolling
down the streets with nothing to defend
himself with but an AR-15 rifle.

I mean, did any of us really think it wasn't going to go this way? Like, the goat rodeo that was the trial and that lunatic that was the judge not withstanding, this kid was never, never going to see consequences for his actions--at least not legal ones. Why would he? If the last few hundred years of human history have taught us anything, it's that white dudes simply don't do consequences for their actions. Hey, wait, I'm a white dude...does this mean I can get away with murder? Look, I'm not saying I want to kill anyone, I just guess want to know my options.

This protestor has a small child on his shoulders 
and was saying police should stop murdering
Black people, so you can see why the officer
felt the need to point a weapon at them. 

Because there's no explanation for today's verdict. Obviously I wasn't on the jury or even following it that closely, but as I understand it, Rittenhouse, a minor (he was seventeen at the time) and a huge militia fan, drove across state lines-- with a gun he wasn't legally allowed to carry--to assist the police--who didn't ask for help--during the protests in Kenosha--where he doesn't live. Like, police go through training to be police and even then there's a shocking and terrifying number of them who should never have been given badges in the first place. So where this kid gets off playing junior deputy is beyond me, as is why the cops were cool with it.

While we're no the topic, I love
Batman and all, but if he were real,
he'd be a tremendous psychopath. 

I mean, if you want to be law enforcement, go get a job with law enforcement. If you want to play with guns, do not, whatever you do, get a job with law enforcement. Go play paintball. Guns don't make you an officer of the law any more than owning a cape makes you Batman. I mean, what is it with white dudes thinking that gun ownership empowers them to be de facto police? Or say, to overthrow democracy because their wheezing, shitheel reality TV show host lost the election? Where do they--right, sorry, we--get the idea that any of this is ok?

Oh, right, because of shit like what happened today. Every time a Kyle Rittenhouse weeps on the stand about how scared he was when the liberals tried to take the gun he was threatening them with away, we just give another shitty white dude with a persecution complex and a passion for gun ownership permission to self-deputize himself. So like, see you next time this happens again. Which will be in what? Three months? Four?

Pictured: a bunch of people who live their entire lives in
abject fear of some vague, baseless threat. They are, in short,
a bunch of wusses. Well-armed, sure, but wusses nonetheless.

What is spicy? What!?

I ask because of this dumb ad that keeps popping up on YouTube. It's Kumail Nanjiani driving a car through some city streets and weaving around flaming wreckage. At the end, he remarks "Ok, that's spicy." And then the ad ends. That's it. And it's driving me (absolutely no pun intended) out of my mind. 

To be clear, nothing against Kumail Nanjiani.
He is a--are we still saying snack?

Dear Lexus, I'm not buying a Lexus 
because you interrupted my YouTube watching.
Oh, and also because I can't afford a Lexus. 

Now, let me stop you right there. No. The ad has not done its job. I realize it's living--as the expression goes--rent free in my head, but I am not now, nor will I ever buy a Lexus. Because that's what they're selling. As much as I love Kumail Nanjiani, and I do, this ad is dumb and frustrating and I hate it. I'm sorry, you know what? Hate's a strong word...let's say resent. I strongly resent all advertising, like in general, but particularly the commercials on YouTube which interrupt whatever you're watching, sometimes mid-sentence, to sell some nonsense you don't care about. Mid-sentence! Can you beli-

The Eternals is a film that forces us to ask
the questions what the fuck are the Eternals?

I'm left with so many, many questions. Questions like, what's going on here? Why are things on fire? And crucially, what does he find so spicy? My understanding is that he's using it in the colloquial sense rather than the literal, but doesn't spicy mean sassy or rude? Is the destruction all around him a result of sassiness? At no point am I thinking to myself: why not buy a Lexus? And then, afterwards, go see The Eternals. There's-huh? Oh, forgot to mention, this is an ad for The Eternals. 

Because synergy. I guess the thought here is that we're going to be so intrigued by the mystery created by Kumail Nanjiani's assertion that spiciness is afoot that we'll go to the site, watch the full ad and be persuaded to buy both a ticket to the movie and a forty thousand dollar luxury sedan. But mostly all its succeeded in doing is make me shout at the screen "What? What is so spicy?" 

Above: Actor/writer Kumail Nanjiani remarking on the spiciness of the situation.