Ecco the Dolphin was always terrible.

"So then the other person got the ball And they
ran with it? How interesting. Please, do go on..."

-Me, sarcastically

Yeah, but does anyone actually want Ecco the Dolphin? The answer, of course, is no, but Nintendo sure thinks that it, and a couple dozen other thirty-year old games justify a thirty dollar price increase for their online service. Don't worry, I'll nerdsplain, but if you're not a retro game person then this will be incredibly uninteresting for you. Like, sports or stories about other people's kids and or pets are to me. Anyway, brace yourself, a grown up with a job and everything is about to offer unsolicited opinions about a video game thing. 

Where is that pill supposed to go,
and wait--is he even licensed? 

Nintendo Switch, like the other game consoles, has an online service. And like those services, Nintendo Switch Online let's you play games with friends, save progress in the cloud, and even includes access to some NES and Super NES games. Which is great, except after a few months or steadily releasing classics like Zelda and Mario, the flow became an irregular trickle of obscure and often mediocre titles that they should really see a doctor about. I mean, literally no one ever asked to revisit Bombuzal or Joe and Mac 2. And Claymates? I ask you...

The Republican Party immediately
claimed that the poll was rigged and
 have demanded a full investigation.

But it's twenty bucks, so fine, take it. Then someone at Nintendo decided to see where that line was. Like, when does a shameless nostalgia grab run into the harsh reality of overpriced. In a couple of weeks, players will be able to add Sega Genesis and N64 games to their Switch Online Service if they're willing to part with another thrifty dollars per year. Something a lot of fans are unwiling to do according to this poll in which 43% of respondents described the add on as "an absolute rip-off."

It'd go as high as twenty if they'd ditch
Ecco The Dolphin. Seriously, it's awful.

And yeah, I mean, given the track record Nintendo has for supporting a service at the outset and then forgetting about it for months only to add goddamn Brawl Brothers and not one, but three games about cavemen, that tracks. Sure, the initial roster of games is pretty great, like, I'd play Starfox 64 and Paper Mario again, and sure, the Genesis list includes some great games but it's just not worth a thirty dollar price bump. And surely they must have market research telling them this, right?

For twenty-five years non-pirated copies of 
Bloodlines were rare and exorbitant but now
Konami's giving it away like AOL discs in the 90's.

Speaking of research, the going theory on the internet now is that it's the licensing fees for the third party Genesis titles that's accounting for most of that thirty dollar increase. Which, if true, is a baffling move on the part of Nintendo since most of the Genesis games on offer have recently been re-released on Switch, some of them--specifically the Konami and Capcom ones, have been re-released more than once. So why they feel it sweetens the pot enough to get people to upgrade is an open question. We're suckers for nostalgia, but we're not dumb. Ok...not always, anyway.

Unless they don't care if people sign up right away. This is, after all, a business and maybe the smart thing to do is to set a price, see who pays it and then if players are slow to sign up, drop it or throw in Gameboy games or something until people come around. 

Or they could just slap Mother 3 up there and make all the money
in the world, but I don't want to tell them how to business...

Like a mezzanine, but for genitals.

Look, I'm no museum curator, but this is dumb. Just...dumb and I-huh? What's dumb? Oh, this replica of Michelangelo's David on display at the World Expo 2020 in Dubai. It's not dumb in and of itself, but hang on, let's talk about this whole World Expo 2020 thing first.

Didn't we give up on World's Fairs decades ago?
Like when we all realized that we couldn't get along?

God, if you're there, now would be
a great time to Rapture these people.
It'd really help the rest of us out.

So savvy readers, or people who know how calendars work, might have caught the fact that the World Expo 2020 is for some reason happening in 2021 and is even planed to run into March of 2022. Well, you can blame COVID for that and by extension, people who made simple and vital precautions like wearing masks and getting vaccinated into some weird political thing which they then, preposterously, turned around and blamed on the rest of us. But we're not here to talk about the idiots who ruin everything, we're here to talk about David's dick. Yeah, you heard me. 

So Dubai. The Expo is being held in the largest city in the United Arab Emirates. A place known--according to an incredibly lazy internet search--for rich people and shopping...for rich people. Like, private jets for their dogs rich people.

"Luxury shopping, fine dining and a dismal human rights record, Dubai has it all!"

-Dubai Tourism Bureau

Here's hoping the exhibit glosses
over our tiki Nazi problem...

Anyway, like any world's fair, Expo 2020 has a number of pavilions, each representing a different country from around the world. We have one. Its theme is "Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of the Future" and it's about how our freedom inspires uh...innovation or something. Italy has one too, which brings us to the five inch marble dong. Yup, five inches. And bear in mind that the statue is seventeen feet tall so now you know that.

Statues back in the Renaissance were modeled on the Classical Greek style, which, while totally down with full frontal dudity, also valued, uh, self-control? 

Although I suspect it's difficult to get aroused while being attacked by snakes.

Pictured: Just the tip.

Anyway, I said marble dong, but really it, and the rest of the Italy pavilion's replica of David, was recreated out of marble dust and recycled plastics using three dimensional scans of the original so it's supposedly quite accurate. Which is great, except the UAE is a somewhat uptight culture and dicks just won't fly (figuratively speaking) so the solution here was to display David in a sunken shaft designed so as to make the offending five-inches invisible from the top, even if you lean over the side. Unless you're rich. 

No really. If you have a VIP pass, you get access to the lower, more crotch level of the exhibit. It's like a mezzanine, but for genitals. Plebs on the other hand, just get is a chest-up view of this loving recreation of one of the most famous pieces of Italian Renaissance art. The whole thing is just, ridiculous for a number of reasons. 

Rich or poor, everyone deserves the opportunity
to titter at the Bible's most amusing willy.

Ah! Got it! Italian Star Wars
knock-off Starcrash starring David
Hasselhoff. Where's that pavilion?

For one, as one of the most famous pieces of Italian Renaissance art, it's not like people in Dubai are unfamiliar with the statue and its Goliath-induced terror-shrinkage. Secondly, all the trouble of 3D scanning the original seems rather wasted if they were just going to show the replica from the top up. And thirdly, why bother with any of this? Has Italy not produced any culture worthy of export since the Renaissance? Like...uh...ok, fine, I can't think of anything, but that doesn't mean there isn't something.

The answer is, of course, that the United Arab Emirates is a cautionary tale of what happens when you let misogynisitic, hypocritical theocrats run the show. And while that may sound incredibly judgmental of me, remember that as hilarious as the squeamishness towards five inches of marble flaccidity is, this is a country that jails protestors for protesting, stones people to death for blasphemy, prosecutes women for reporting sexual assault. So it's basically Texas in five years or so. 

Pictured: Greg Abbott signing a bill that puts a bounty on people
who help women exercise control over their own bodies.

Paging Dr. Wertham...

I really, really don't want to give DC too much credit here. I mean, it takes so little to draw the performative ire of conservatives eager to out homophobic quip one another in their tired quest to appeal to dumbs. And in this case so little was the reveal that Superman is bi. Except he's not, or at least not the Superman you're thinking of, but first the shitty comments from people who suddenly give a damn about comics. 

"The Super-Man? A bisexualist? I am outraged. Outraged! 
What's next a Lesbian Little Orphan Annie?"

-Conservatives, suddenly

Sexualizing comic book characters?
Has uh...has he read a comic book?

Were not going to go through them all, because there's a million of them and I have to go to work soon and really, my level of effort here should be consistent with theirs, which is to say, minimal. But take Raymond Arroyo from Fox News who went on Laura Ingram's show to wax nostalgic about how as a kid he loved superheroes and how straight they all were, and can you believe that they're sexualizing comic book characters now? For shame! Someone call doctor Frederick Wertham. Is he still alive?

Who said conservatives aren't funny?
Oh, right, everyone. Ever. Sorry.

Something something woke culture ruining whatever. I mean, the funny funny jokes practically write themselves. Arroyo went on to add:

"We loved those heroes. We just wanted them to get the bad guys, not venereal disease."

-Raymond Arroyo, thanks 

folks, he'll be here all night, 

try the waiters, tip the veal

Josh Mandel, some guy running for Senate in Ohio, said "They are literally trying to destroy America." Which is weird coming from a member of a party that literally tried to do a coup. And in self-owns, Arizona Representative Wendy Rodgers posted that Superman Loves Louis (sic) Lane before suggesting that DC rename bi-Superman Thooperman, because you know how the gays are always lisping? Oh that Wendy...what a card. 

A hate-filled, homophobic, fascist, gun-obsessed, anti-choice, 
Trump-cult, insurrectionist card. Also, does she know you don't
have to write "period?" You can just up a period at the end.

Pictured: that time Commissioner
Gordon wearing a robot bunny suit
filled in for Batman.

Ok, obviously she meant to say Lois Lane and not Louis, but she doesn't actually know what she's talking about because like I mentioned before, this isn't the Superman most people are familiar with. This is Jonathan Kent, ex-Superboy and son of classic Superman and Lois Lane, so while I'm sure Jon loves his mom, Rodgers should probably have bothered to check before riding hard for oedipal Supes. And while this isn't as big as retconning Clark Kent's sexuality, Jonathan Kent is Superman, or at least a Superman (there are two Spier-Mans...Men? Spiders Man right now, so why not?). At least for the moment. DC (and Marvel for that matter) loves to make big, bold changes with their major comics, insisting that they're the new status quo, only to reverse them a few months later. But whatever, representation is representation and a Superman in the main continuity  is queer now and that's great. 

And sure, there are plenty of reasons to take issue with DC's narrative choices over the years. The frequent and inconsistent reboots, Wonder Woman snapping Max Lord's neck, that time they wussed out on Batwoman getting married and if anyone piping up about this had a real criticism that would be different. But then, this was never about criticism, this was about being shitty, so I don't know, good job? 

"What a beautiful day! So many way to be
shitty to other people, where to even begin?"

-Conservatives, apparently

Oh, now he's not going to cooperate?

Sure, Chuck Schumer can be a little abrasive, but Mitch McConnell should maybe lay off the suggestion that Schumer calling out Republicans on their bullshit is partisan. He's made a career out of partisan. A protracted, ruinous career which, thanks to a lack of term limits on the Senate, will likely go on until he runs out of spaarti clone cylinders. 

Pictured: some of the strandcast bodies McConnell has in
reserve in the dark cloning labs beneath the Capitol building.

"Because intransigence has worked
pretty well for me so far. Remember that 
time I stole two Supreme Court seats?"

-Mitch McConnell

Again, 100% Schumer probably could have held off a day or two instead of immediately--like, the ink wasn't even dry--laying into Mitch McConnell and the GOP over the way the entire debt crisis was entirely their fault, but in his defense the entire debt ceiling crisis was entirely their fault. Probably. I don't know, I'm not an expert on these things, but this prompted Mitch McConnell to write an angry letter to the President insisting that he's not going to ride to the rescue next time. Which again, I don't understand why McConnell thinks he deserves a cookie for being intransigent in the first place. Because no cookie.

Like, a lot has been made about how offended Mitch McConnell was and how he said that Schumer has "poisoned the well" and how John Thune "...let him (Schumer) have it" and did you see poor Joe Manchin burying his head in his hands? 

Pictured: Joe Manchin getting a taste of how we feel watching the GOP
dismantle voting rights while he hems and haws over the filibuster.
Not pictured: any sympathy for Joe Manchin.

Yes, I harp on this a lot, but look at Texas.
Look, but don't ever, ever set foot there.

But as impolitic as Schumer was being--and he was, gloating is never a good look--the GOP (and I'm including Joe Manchin in this, because I mean, c'mon), has already made working with them a "hold your nose and try not to gag" prospect. Remember that time an angry mob tried to overrun the Capitol and crown a former reality TV host President for life? Because they don't. Or that time Mitch McConnell sat on one Supreme Court appointment and then rushed another so that said TV host could fill them? 

I guess what I'm saying is fuck Mitch McConnell. I know, it's not an original sentiment, but it's just that I think we're all a little sick of this man no one outside of Kentucky voted for wielding so much power over our lives and futures. And now he's unwilling to work with Democrats because Chuck Schumer--who isn't wrong--hurt his feelings? And how are we supposed to tell this new, uncooperative Mitch McConnell from the regular uncooperative Mitch McConnell we've had to endure all these years?

Above: McConnell's letter to the President. 
Here, I'll sum up: "Waaaaaaaah..."

Today in selective, militia-related amnesia:

Chad are you...are you sure you're not
ashamed of it? Like, not even a little?

I'm not sure what's more alarming, the fact that Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco was a member of The Oath Keepers, or that he forgot about it until now, or that he's not sorry about it--wait, no, definitely that one. He told the Los Angeles Daily News:

"I'm not ashamed of what I did."

-Sheriff Chad Bianco, about a

shameful thing he did

"Yer gonna have to take my
lightsaber outta my cold dead hands."

-Some lightsaber nut

But he probably should be, is the thing. Ashamed I mean. The Southern Poverty Law Center lists The Oath Keepers as the country's largest right-wing anti-government organization. The group, who've dubbed themselves "Guardians of the Republic" like they're a bunch of goddamn Jedi Knights with persecution complexes, were founded because a black guy was elected President and fragile white dudes who love guns felt threatened and formed a militia about it. The group has something like 35,000 members, mostly former military and law enforcement, which is weird, because both of those are like, government jobs.

I'm uh...I'm pretty sure that we
didn't misunderstand these people.

But apparently we've got it all wrong. According to Bianco, that extremist group he joined that one time is super misunderstood and he is sick and tired of the media portraying all armed right-wing militia groups as anti-government when really all they are trying to do is protect our freedoms. You know, by arming themselves and then storming the Capitol in an attempt to overturn the election results. But of course Bianco doesn't agree with the people who tried to pull a coup on January 6th insisting that what they did "was wrong and against the law..."

"Oh no! They got us!"

-no one on the left

And that's super, but the Oath Keepers were like 100% on board with the coup attempt and are super pissed that it didn't work, so like, what else ya got Chad? Oh, Antifa. So Sheriff Bianco, in defending his former militia group which again, he totally doesn't remember joining for a year, asked why similar scrutiny wasn't applied to groups like Antifa and Black Lives Matter. Because like any conservative when called out on their shitty worldview, Chad's first instinct is to try and turn the tables. 

Note the distinct lack of assault
rifles and attempts to stage a
coup d'etat at this BLM rally.

Except Antifa isn't really a group, it's just anyone who's anti-fascist which should be all of us, right? And Black Lives Matter is a social movement and while there are organizations that are part of it, they're not, you know, trying to overturn election results by force. BLM is just trying to get law enforcement officers, like Chad Bianco, to stop murdering black people. So yeah, I guess the short answer to why no one is treating Antifa and BLM like domestic terrorists is because, unlike The Oath Keepers, they aren't domestic terrorists.

I mean, c'mon, that guy's even wearing
an Oath Keepers hat. They've got merch.

Just so we're clear: the Sheriff of Riverside County, California, once joined an anti-government militia group and then forgot that he joined an anti-government militia group, but then when it came out that he joined an anti-government militia group, he claimed that it wasn't really all that anti-government even though it tried to overthrow the government as recently as ten months ago, but why are we even talking about that while BLM and Antifa are allowed to roam free? Have I got all that right?

Cool. Ok, I don't live in Riverside County, but this is California and because of our preposterous system, we were recently put through a recall election that could easily have ended with the sitting governor being replaced by someone with like, 11% of the vote, all because dumbs didn't want to wear masks during a pandemic. Are we saying that the people of Riverside County can't recall a Sheriff with selective amnesia who used to belong to a terrorist group? Because that seems like a valid use of a recall system.

"What? I can't possibly be expected to remember all
the right-wing, anti-government militia groups I join."

-Sheriff Chad Bianco

Well, it was nice while it lasted...

Did you notice feeling lighter? Less aggravated today? As though a cloud had briefly lifted from your life and for a moment, just a moment, the world was slightly less of a garbage fire? Well mystery solved: Facebook was down.

"Good riddance..."

-Everyone

"Oh, thank God, Facebook's back up.

-Everyone six hours later

Huh. I bet he's regretting breaking up.
Maybe you should like his dog pic?

Instagram and WhatsApp too, although I don't send many instant grams and I don't actually know what WhatsApp is even for. Facebook however was offline for about six hours forcing users to share dumb political memes and links to totally legit studies showing that the COVID vaccine reprograms your DNA to make you more open to socialist mind-control. It was tragic. For six hours today, you couldn't keep anonymous tabs on former classmates, coworkers you don't really talk to, and your college ex. Did you know he got a dog? 

Did uh...did no one notice her
walking out with piles of evidence?

And today the hilarious joke on the internet is how great it would be if Facebook went down for good. And maybe it would be great. I agree. In fact, just yesterday a former employee called Frances Haugen identified herself as the whistleblower who quit and walked out the door with reams--well, I don't know if they were literal reams, do documents even come in reams anymore? What is a ream? Doesn't matter, the point is Haugen put a ton of documents out there suggesting that Facebook knowingly spreads hate speech and misinformation because money. Which, I mean, that tracks right? Because bullshit and trolling is was more click-on-able than well-researched information and reasonable debate. Also everything is like, super-fucked up right now. 

But I think the question is, would we miss Facebook if it suddenly disappeared for good and I think the answer is yes, in the short term anyway. The short term being a few hours. But in the long run, no. Not because it isn't slowly killing us and its absence would trigger a renewed interest in kindness, civility, and real, human interaction, but because something else would inevitably replace it and we'd forget it ever existed in the first place.

Exactly.

Today in things that definitely won't backfire:

Santa Cruz County--which is where I live--has moved from orange to yellow on Wednesday. And to celebrate, the county has decided to lift the mask mandate, so now we no longer have to wear masks indoors in a lot of circumstances regardless of vaccination status. So basically it's mid June again, remember mid-June?

Here, check out this graph. Mid-June is that crater right before
the huge spike that happened when everyone let their guard down.

Huh? Ghost Rider. Wait,
what did you think I meant?

I mean, I don't know, would it have killed us to wait, I don't know, a week? Maybe two? Santa Cruz is one of six counties in the Bay Area to dip into yellow territory, but we're the only ones to rip the masks off and start breathing all over each other and I can't help but wonder what the rush is? Like, we've been at this for a year and a half. It's like 9/11. Hang on, I'm going somewhere with this. Remember 9/11? Ok, of course you do, but remember the decade following 9/11 where if you forgot 9/11 for even a second, there was a bumper sticker or a Nicholas Cage movie to remind you about 9/11. I'm sorry for bringing up such a difficult subject, but I'm approaching a point. After 9/11 a ton of precautions went into place, some of them reasonable, and some of them a bizarre TSA security line pantomime where we all take our shoes and belts off because it made us feel safe or something.

If ending the pandemic involved starting
a war with some country most of us can't
 find on a map, it'd be over by now.

And here we are, twenty years and two completely unrelated wars on, fully aware that a lot of these measure are just a waste of time, but we're still going through the motions. Meanwhile, COVID-19 has killed six hundred thousand of us and all we have to do is get vaccinated and wear a mask, but instead, nineteen months or whatever in and we're still fighting with asshats who hold up some story about their friend of a friend's cousin's dry cleaner who heard that the vaccine has a microchip in it as proof positive of how fake science is. 

Look, I don't know, maybe this is it (it's not) or maybe this is just another dip in an unending roller coaster of pandemic and we'll be back to masks indoors by next Tuesday (we will). But the point is could we please wait until the ride has come to a complete stop before forcing the safety harness off and climbing out like a bunch of dumbs?

"Wake up sheeple! Safety harnesses are just government tyranny."

-Some dumb about to ride a metaphor