Glibby McQuipster's Notable Quotables

Pictured: McQuipster, seen here
thinking up clever turns of phrase.

Somebody once said:

"If you're not paying for it, you're not a customer, you're the product."

-Somebody

Who said that? I don't know. In fact, nobody seems to be able to agree about who it was and it doesn't really matter. The important thing to keep in mind is that it-huh? Why do you care who said it? I mean, it's just a-you're not going to let it go are you? Ok fine, let's say it was noted 19th century wit Glibby McQuipster whose bon-mots are legendary. Satisfied?

Moving on. Whoever said it, it's often applied to Google's business model in which you don't pay for any of the company's products, but rather advertisers pay Google to put their algorithmically tailored ads 'Click Here' adds in front of our eyes when we're trying to do things online. Then we, like fools, buy stuff.

"Take it! Taaake iiiit!"

-Us, when presented

with ads for anything

Above: our grim future.

And that's how Google makes $100 billion dollars a year without producing anything and it's also one of the reasons we're on a trajectory towards a bloody revolution against the corporate aristocracy whose greed and excess are slowly suffocating us, but that's for another day...say, June? Anyway, they may soon have another way new way to get their advertisers' dumb products in our faces. In a tweet yesterday they demanded that we all watch some announcement next Tuesday which everyone seems to think will be about streaming games. 

Yup, Google is about to get into the gaming industry and shift some paradigms or disrupt it or you know, whatever it is corporations do.

Make San Francisco unliveable?

Assuming you have a decent connection.
Which you don't, no one does.

So what the hell even is a streaming game? Well, since you ask, it'd be either a dedicated video game console or maybe even some kind of browser-based platform (or both) over which Google would offer video games, probably as a subscription service. Which is cool, but the neat thing is that while you play these games on your console or phone or whatever, they're actually running on a server somewhere, so as the technology improves, you don't have to upgrade your device for the next big thing that comes along.

The question on everyone's mind
however, is can Google succeed
where Soulja Boy could not? 

So Google's never really been a games company and it seems like, super arrogant to simply announce that they're be jumping into the gaming industry the same way you or I might take up crochet, but they do have, as I mentioned a couple of times before, billions of dollars so who knows? They did have some luck recently getting Assassin's Creed Odyssey to run in a browser window which is genuinely impressive and suggests that if they are announcing something to compete with Xbox and Playstation it won't be some shitty Android box.

That was just an example.
Do not watch Bruce Almighty.

But I don't know, streaming video games as a concept doesn't sit well with me. Maybe I'm just old (definitely) and stuck in the days where you'd go buy a game tape from your local Babbage's, but I've just never been fully comfortable with the move away from discs and cartridges and towards digital downloads for games. Like, when you buy a game digitally, you're not really buying it so much as you're licensing it. So if the online storefront you bought it on ever disappears, that's it, you can't download it again. And streaming seems even more ephemeral. Google's whatever will probably be something like Netflix but for games and like a streaming service, things can be pulled at any time. If Netflix taught us anything it's that you'd better watch Bruce Almighty while you have the chance.

Super legit you guys...

Wai-wai-wait, is she saying that we should stop giving liars a platform? And whose killing babies now? Who am I talking about? I'm glad I pretended you asked, because in a rare appearance by the White House Press Secretary at an even rarer press conference, Sarah Huckabee Sande-huh? Oh, it's a sort of question and answer thing Press Secretaries used to hold with journalists.

Pictured: A White House Press conference seen here frolicking near a pond.

So obviously the big questions we all want answered are things like, how guilty is the President of all those crimes Micheal Cohen told Congress about and when can we expect him to resign.

Yes, she's right, we should stop
giving liars a platform...

Here's what Sarah Huckabee Sanders said instead:

"We know that he's lied at least twice in that hearing. I think it's time to stop giving him a platform, uh, let him serve his time and let's move forward with matters of the country."

-Press Secretary Huckabee
Sanders while standing
on a literal platform

I mean, did CNN's Jim Acosta honestly
think he was going to get a real answer?
Or did he know from the get go that she
was going to call the DNC baby-killers?

Do we know that though? That he lied? Anyway, then, because Trump the conversation turned to questions about whether or not Huckabee Sanders believes that he (Trump) believes that Democrats hate Jews which...holy shit, here we are. After making critical comments about America's support for Israel, Democratic Representative Ilhan Omar was accused of anti-Semitism and Democrats were accused of not coming down hard enough on her but what this isn't about was abortion which is why it's weird that Huckabee Sanders brought up abortion when asked if maybe it isn't time to tone down the rhetoric.

Pictured: Nancy Pelosi and House
Democrats just thinking about killing babies.

"I think that the real uh...shame in all of this is that Democrats are perfectly capable of coming together and agreeing on the fact that they're comfortable with ripping babies straight from the mother's womb or killing a baby after birth but they have a hard time condemning the type of comments from congresswoman Omar."

-Sarah Huckabee Sanders...on how

Democrats love killing babies

I'm familiar with it and
I'm just some guy.

Holy shit, right? So after accusing the entire Democratic party being anti-Semetic baby-murderers, she was asked about the checks Donald Trump signed and Micheal Cohen offered as evidence that the President reimbursed him for paying off Stormy Daniels. She said she was unaware of them. Like, if you watch the press conference she's apparently not aware of a lot of things. But I mean, shouldn't she be? Aware of the checks? So I guess the question is, is she lying, bad at her job or both?

"He's so not guilty of campaign
violations you guys, he even said so."

I know she hasn't press secretary'd in like a month and a half so maybe she's out of practice? Next she went on to assure us that there's totally no crime here, because the President said so:

"The President's been clear that there wasn't a campaign violation."

-Huckabee Sanders,
without a hint of irony

Cool, so the Press Secretary who moments earlier claimed to be unfamiliar with the Cohen hearing and the checks with Trump's signature on them-which we all totally saw-is now asking us to take the President at his word that there wasn't a campaign finance violation. Sounds super legit. And like, why would he lie? It's not like he's ever going to prison.

Because he's rich and white. Not because he isn't guilty. Huh? Whose that?
Oh, that's just Cindy Yang. She's a massage parlor owner whose been selling
access to the President at his private golf club to Chinese executives. Enjoy.

To be clear: I am pro-future

Look, I'm not against the future. In fact, I think I'm pretty pro-future. But I'm going to go ahead and say that these will never be a thing people drive. What thing? See? I tricked you that time. Here's the link, but since you're not really going to click on it, I'll just press on.

Behold the future of...uh...bathroom hand dryers?

The creepy, subtly Aryan, future as
envisioned in the 1950's is here!

Flying cars. Get ready because the future is here! Well, not here, because that's just a concept for a new tire and not a thing that exists. This tire, while vertically oriented, functions like, you know, a tire. But when pivoted into a horizontal position becomes a rotor for the flying cars of the future! Goodyear, the company famous for blimps and I guess tires, revealed their new invention at the Geneva Motor Show in Switzerland last week and the world will never be the same.

So...it's bullshit and
they know its bullshit? Cool.

I mean that in the strictest sense. As in the world is constantly changing, but it has nothing to do with Goodyear's preposterous flying car tire which, and this is where I want to emphasize how pro-future I am, will never be a thing that exists. And that's not just the well-earned pessimism of someone who's watching the world slowly spiral into chaos and Twitter fights between grown-ass adults. According to the designers, the tire isn't really intended as something that will even make it to market.

Did you though? Imagine it, I mean. Or
did you just watch Back to the Future II?

"With mobility companies looking to the sky for the answer to the challenges of urban transport and congestion, our work on advanced tire architectures and materials led us to imagine a wheel that could serve both as a traditional tire on the road and as a propulsion system in the sky..."

-Chris Hessel, Goodyear's

chief-wait, you mean car companies?

I mean, who says 'mobility company?'

"If you can think of a better use for
$90 million, I'd like to hear it."

-Elon Musk, evidently

And are they looking to the sky? Is that a thing? I thought mobility companies were coming up with self-driving cars and pneumatic tube trains and things like that. The closest anyone's getting to looking at the sky was when that legitimately crazy, yet somehow incredibly rich guy who named his electric car company after a eugenicist, launched a car at Mars. I appreciate the importance of innovation and trying to come up with solutions no one has ever tried before but are we really thinking flying cars all the way through?

Look, I don't want to poo-poo Hessel or Goodyear's dumb-sorry-innovative idea, but everyone kind of drives like idiots. Is introducing the Z-axis into this really the best move?

Pictured: Goodyear's grim, yet innovative future where even
minor  fender-benders send glass and broken tail lights raining
 down on unsuspecting pedestrians at terminal velocities. 

This is why no one likes these guys:

Hey, do you know who sucks? These guys. But since you never click on these links, I'm going to go ahead and explain who these guys are. They're Republican members of the New Hampshire House of Representatives' Criminal Justice and Public Safety Committee. You're probably wondering why I have such a strong opinion about people in another state whom I've never met and whose actions don't directly affect me in any way.

Because what's the internet if not a forum for us
to express outrage about things we're not involved in?

"Gun gun gun, gun guuuuns."

-Wayne LaPeirre, of the NRA

Well? Are you wondering that? Because if you're not then this is going to be a short post. Anyway, I'm calling them garbage people because-huh? Didn't I? Well, they are garbage people. I say this because they wore pearls to mock members of Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America who were testifying yesterday before lawmakers in support of a bill that would make it more difficult for people judged to be a danger to themselves or others to get guns. Turns out guns are like crazy easy to get, no matter how dangerous some one is.

Pictured: Dennis Miller. See?

The women testifying were telling stories about how they lost family members including children and are hoping that lawmakers might be willing to, you know, do something? But the five Republicans wearing pearls were evidently suggesting that these women were 'clutching their pearls' a phrase meaning to worry over nothing of consequence. Get it? Pearls? Yeah, I don't get it either, I guess that's why all the funny comedians are liberals.

Then some rando called Kimberly Morin from a group called the Women's Defense League, a women's anti-gun control group, chimed in on Twitter to explain that the legislators were actually wearing them in support of women. Specifically women who love guns.

"Typical liberals, always hating women and hoping we get shot."

-Women's Defense League

Which song? I don't know, probably one
about guns and how awesome they are.

Ok, sure, even if wearing pearls was some kind of pro-women who are pro-gun statement which it's not, of course it's not, we're not idiots, but even if it was like the WDL says, it's still hugely disrespectful towards the Moms Demand Action people. Like they were there to talk about the people they've lost to gun violence and you know, demand action. It's right there in their name. And the Republicans with their idiotic prop comic pearls might as well have been sticking their fingers in their ears and humming Ted Nugent songs.

Above: the official hat of asshats.

It's just...if you're a state legislator isn't it literally your job to listen to the public's concerns? Even if you don't like what they have to say and even if you have no intention of acting on their completely reasonable request that we maybe make it slightly more difficult for dangerous people to arm themselves to the teeth with military grade automatic weapons? I mean, would it have been so hard for them to just sit there and not mock a group of grieving mothers like a pack of asshats?

It was a dick move and they only compounded their dickery with that nonsense about how pearls are actually secret code for supporting pro-gun women. And remember when Hillary Clinton dismissed huge swaths of conservatives as deplorable and then had to say that she regretted it because it's only 'telling it like it is' when Republicans do it? This is what she was taking about: garbage people doing garbage things.

"That's women for you, always clutching their pearls and getting hysterical
just because their children might get gunned down at any moment thanks 
to our preposterously lax gun laws. Pfft...Women. Amiright fellas?"

-Let's say Representative Wallace

with the dumb haircut and 'stache

The New Adventures of Old Picard

Hey, did you see this stuff about the Picard show? It's a couple of different-huh? Yeah, I know I said we wouldn't just be talking about TV shows, and yes I know I said that as recently as earlier today, but I mean, do you really want me to drone on about how much of a goon the President is? No? Great, then nerd stuff it is.

Yikes, he probably should have hung
around the Ba'Ku planet a while longer.

If you don't know what I'm talking about, there's going to be a new Star Trek show about whatever Picard gets up to after all the captaining. Yeah, Sir Patrick Stewart is slipping on the spandex again to reprise the role that made him famous. Huh? What? No, not Dune. Stay with me. Anyway, now, he's older and possibly not a captain anymore, and no one from TNG is coming back, and according to this, he'll be hanging out with a rag-tag crew of ne're-do-wells. Or should I say nerd-do-wells? No. No I should never say that. I'm better than that.*

Which is weird considering how
few ships he's brought back intact.

If you clicked on the link, you'd have seen a story about the unconfirmed and possibly bullshit character breakdowns supposedly from the production outlining the characters from the new show. The breakdown for one of the characters suggests that she's a sort of space charter pilot and that Picard hires her to take him to some kind of artifact, which jibes with some of the rumors about the show, specifically that Jean-Luc isn't working for Starfleet anymore otherwise you know, they'd probably give him a ship to use.

Here, for no reason, a
shot of the cast of Firefly. 

The other characters include a thief, a former intelligence agent, a holographic doctor-yes, another holographic doctor, an positronic brain specialist and a teenage Romulan martial artist. All of whom have troubled pasts and baggage and while we don't know who they're playing at least two of the actors have been cast: Michelle Hurd from Law and Order SVU and Santiago Cabrera who was on Heroes before it was terrible. So let's see, that's some mercenaries, a spy and a ninja.

Yup, could be ten episodes of
Picard tending his vines in France
and just admit it, you'd watch. 

I don't know, I'm reserving judgement. It doesn't sound very Star Trek-y, but then that's kind of the point. Producer Alex Kurtzman has been super-clear that the show will be something new and that the tone will be like, super grounded you guys. How grounded? No idea. I mean, I'm imagining that since one of the characters owns and operates her own spaceship and another is an alien the story will at some point involve space but who knows? For all we know, the show could be an exhaustively realistic look at Picard's retirement.

What, you can't do character driven plots and
apocalyptic cyborg invasion at the same time?

Speaking of unfounded rumors about things of limited importance in the grand scheme of our lives, there's also a possible title floating around: Star Trek: Destiny. That title also happens to be a series of Trek novels by David Mack set after Star Trek: Nemesis, which is roughly when the Picard show takes place. But despite the title they're probably not connected to the new show. The books center around the Borg invading the Federation and fucking everything up and that doesn't line up too well with Kurtzman's description of a more grounded story.

Anyway, filming starts next month, so I guess that only gives me a few weeks to organize a massive social media campaign designed to land me a roll on the new show. I'm probably (definitely) a little (way) too old to play the Romulan teen ninja, but maybe the holographic doctor or android brain scientist? Either way, Alex Kurtzman doesn't seem to have a public twitter account, so if anyone knows where I can send headshots or an edible bouquet or something drop me a line?

Oh! I found a place that does beef jerky bouquets.
I could have it delivered, but would it be too much
if I showed up at his door with meat flowers?

*No, I'm not. 

My money's on the shut-in thing.

What is up with The Orville? Huh? Yes, I know we just talked about Star Trek yesterday and no, we're not going to just talk about TV shows from here on out. Fine, next time we'll talk about something that isn't politics, sci-fi or video games. I don't know, sports?

Did you us see the big sports game?
Yeah, me neither. Let's move on.

Seriously, Netflix, Hulu, we don't want
to die like this. I mean, we accept that we
will, but we'd rather not think about it.

So again, what's up with The Orville and why do I keep watching it? Oh, and I should probably explain. To catch you up if you have a rich, full social life or maybe if you just follow one of the other five or six hundred thousand streaming TV shows out there, and holy shit, incidentally, there are way too many TV shows right now. Dear streaming companies, please make fewer TV shows so we can catch up. Anyway, The Orville is a Star Trek-ish sci-fi/comedy TV show created by and starring Seth McFarlane. Yes, that Seth McFarlane.

Funny jokes, not at all similar to,
but distinct from the ones on TNG.

It started out as a more or less straight forward parody or spoof of Star Trek with the crew of a starship that's similar to, but distinct from The Enterprise, which is part of an organization that is similar to, but distinct from Starfleet and they go on space adventures that are similar to but-wait, no, actually they're just similar to the ones from Star Trek: The Next Generation. In fact, almost any episode of The Orville could have been a TNG episode but with jokes. Often funny jokes. I'm not always into McFarlane's humor, but this show is funny. Except when it's not.

And I don't mean a joke or a script that doesn't land, although that does sometimes happen. Like, a couple of weeks ago, Bortis, the Mr. Worf stand-in, broke the ship with malware from his porn holodeck program. It was...awkward.

Although in fairness, the holodeck on TNG
was 100% used for having sex with holograms.

The moral being that only idiots leave
important decisions up to random chance.

I mean that sometimes the show gets super serious. Which would be fine, like TNG got heavy a lot, almost all the time. But It's just a little jarring when we go from a blob voiced by Norm McDonald hitting on the ship's Doctor (played by Penny 'Cassidy Yates Johnson', who's great) to an episode about an entire species deciding how to choose which children to leave behind when their sun consumes their planet. Spoiler alert: they basically drew names from a hat. So yeah, like I said, heavy shit.

Some loser wasting time better spent
watching TV and then commenting
about it on the internet. Pfft...

For whatever reason though, it works, it shouldn't, but it does. I don't know if it's because the cast is likable or because the writing is good, but somehow the off-putting mix of Family Guy and Trek-inspired moralizing is oddly compelling. But then last week's episode happened, in which-hang on, spoilers. If you don't want this silly space comedy about holo-porn and unrequited blob-love ruined by foreknowledge of things to come, better skip the rest of this. Huh? I don't know, go outside, get some fresh air or something.

Although that might explain why
Judy wasn't in Season 5...

Still there? Great. Fresh air is for chumps. Ok, so last week the ship's robot crew member betrays everyone and he and his robot brethren take over the ship, phaser half the crew, blow up another starship and then they make Seth McFarlane watch as they chuck some poor schlub ensign out an airlock. I mean, Je-sus. This is followed by a 'splosion-filled space battle right out of Deep Space Nine or Star Wars with, one presumes, a surprisingly high body count for a comedy. Tonally it would be like if Urkel Bot went nuts and started murdering the Winslows.

Pictured: Dr. Finn having blob sex with
the snot monster. See what I mean?

Ok, maybe that's not the best analogy ever but it's weird, you know? One minute Norm McDonald's snot monster is cracking wise and the next minute the camera is panning through the burnt out hulks of spaceships and frozen corpses of spaced crew members in the show's equivalent of the Battle of Wolf-359. And then, in typical TNG fashion, the characters stare out into space and contemplate the mysteries and contradictions of what the hew-mons call love or whatever.

I don't know if the comedy is sometimes undercutting the drama or if it's the opposite. Like, is The Orville a serious sci-fi show with a sense of humor? Or is it a comedy with atypically high, often extinction-level stakes? Is it Star Trek with dick jokes? Is it good? Do I even like it? I don't know. And why am I watching it?

Because I'm a TV-addled shut-in and it beats getting up?

Today in sci-fi nonsense:

Can we talk about Star Trek? Because we're like seven episodes into season two and we haven't talked about it yet. Cool? Great. Oh, and if this is two nerdy for you, bail out now. Huh? I don't know, read a book, go outside, do I have to think of everything?

Have you considered philately?

You heard me.

Ok, still there? Ok, now, once more into the nerdy breach! So Disco season two. Yeah, Disco, that's what the cool kids call Star Trek: Discovery. I've been loving the shit out of it so far. We're only half way through, but the new season has been even more fun and more Star Trek-y than the first. Yes, the show plays fast and loose with some Trek canon stuff, updating the technology, giving the Klingons two wing-wangs, but you know what? I don't care. I know it's Trekkie-blasphemy, but it's really good so screw canon.

Pictured: Director and ex-Riker
Jonathan Frakes, un-slowing his roll.

That said, it's not perfect. I don't know if this is just how we make TV shows in the late twenty-teens or if this is the influence of the J. J. Abrams Beastie-Boys addled Star Trek movies, but the show makes excessive use of jump cuts and constantly moving camera pans that make it feel a little too, I don't know, what's the word? Red-Bull? Too Red-Bull for me for me sometimes. Like everyone behind the camera is just hopped up on caffeine sugar water and can't, I think the phrase is 'slow their roll' long enough for us to catch our breath. But these are minor qualms.

"Let them die!"

-Captain Kirk, no really

One and a half seasons in, Disco's been a worthy Trek show that does a great job backfilling canon without ruining any of the characters by say, turning them into whiney child-murders. I especially enjoyed the Klingon arc in season one which made the lumpy-headed space Vikings seem threatening again after being softened on TNG and DS9. Now the uncomfortable anti-Klingon space-racism in Star Trek VI is a little less out of the blue now that we know that the Klingons went nuts a few decades before and nearly conquered the shit out of the Federation.

Last time we saw her she was played by
Winona Ryder and fell off a cliff 20 minutes
in so in many ways this is an improvement.

And with season two, the Burnham/Spock family arc is coloring in some Trek lore in a fun way. We're seeing more of their parents and how their dynamic works and Amanda (Burnam and Spock's mother) finally gets some cool shit to do including some bad ass mother-cubbing involving hacking into classified files and harboring a fugitive. What's not to love? Sure, it's a little weird that we never heard about Spock's sister before now, but again, if it's interesting and adds richness to what we've seen before, what's the problem? Of course, then there's the Culber thing. Can we talk about the Culber thing? Let's talk about the Culber thing.

For those who don't recall or don't care about spoilers, I'll explain. Hugh Culber, played by Wilson Cruz was one of the ship's doctors in season one, and Paul Stamets' (Anthony Rapp) husband/partner (it's a little unclear). Cool, so finally, not one but two queer characters on a Star Trek show. Holy shit Star Trek, welcome to the twentieth century. But then, and this is the spoiler, Culber is randomly murdered by a Klingon sleeper agent. Booooo.

Which I suppose is a legitimate job hazard
on a Starship, but c'mon people...

Goddamnit Game of Thrones,
this is all your fault...

Then came the fan outcry. Not just because he was a likable character, in fact he had comparatively little screen time before him before getting his neck snapped. But because after more than five decades and six series of this supposedly progressive future there were finally queer characters on Star Trek and then 50% of them got unceremoniously killed off for shock value. But whatever, the backlash forced the writers to promise that Cruz would totally be coming back in season two and this was totally part of their plan all along. Swearsies.

And they were as good as their word as-further spoilers-Dr. Culber made a miraculous return a couple episodes ago...

...as a half-crazed, sub-space mushroom duplicate because Star Trek.

Pictured: That time Captain Janeway and
 Lt. Paris evolved into alligators and mated.

And that's great. I'm glad he's back on the show and am interested to see where they'll go with him and Stamets next. I feel like getting murdered can put a strain on a relationship. It's just that, well, even for Star Trek, Culber's resurrection was preposterous. Like, I'm not kidding with that caption. Somehow Stamets' tears transferred Culber's DNA into the mycelial network (basically the upside-down) and Culber was re-constituted as a clone or something. It was some omega-level nonsense, but it definitely wasn't the most cockamamie rubber science bullshit thing Trek has ever pulled. Not by a long shot.

But like I said, I'm glad to see they course-corrected their dumb-ass, 'get us: we're juts like Game of Thrones' move and brought Wilson Cruz back, no matter how bananas the explanation. More Tilly, Spock, and Klingons with hair. All in all, a really solid season two so far. I say so far, because who knows? They could do the alligator thing again.

Plus ten nerd points for putting hair on the Klingons again.
Minus fifteen for the top knot and neck beard on Ash Tyler. Like, I
know he murdered Culber, but this, this is the reason I dislike him.