Names only stick if history validates you. Plenty of other rulers ended up getting remembered through the lens of discontent, bad press by who came later, and sometimes mistranslation. Ivan IV Grozny was a ruthless dude, but “Grozny” meant awe-provoking or imposing, whereas in English “Terrible” tends to imply evil. Æthelred II Unræd meant “good counsel”, but as that word fell out of use in English he got stuck with “Unready” because it just happens to be similar in form but not meaning.

Donnie probably wishes he’ll be remembered as something special, but informally Diaper Don will outlive him and I don’t foresee history being gentle with its performance review.

That’s what they said about another inventor, John Dildo.

MJ sounding like James Earl Jones off camera would be… it’d be something.

Beastmaster is one of my all time favorite sword and sorcery flicks, with location shoots and big sets made to look “ancient”. Then they made the sequel and said “fuck that, he takes a portal to modern LA”. It’s even better now because it’s an unintentional time capsule of 90s LA.

Improvise, adapt, overcome.

Hmm. This doesn’t sound like the reply I’d expect out of an opportunistic bottom-feeder. Sure you’re a catfish?

For a paycheck? Meh. I’ve lived comfortably on $35k or less for almost 30yrs, there’s no allure to a bigger check. If you gave me a scenario where I desperately needed the money, say to save my dog’s life, I’d still try and figure out a way to lie, cheat, steal, or kill some rich, conservative asshole to get the money rather than work for them.

I’m a dog trainer and work at a boarding facility. I know my dogs love to go there, don’t have separation anxiety, and that my coworkers adore them. On the rare occasion I have to leave them for a night or two I still get stressed despite knowing they’re going to be just fine. And they don’t even get kenneled, they’re spoiled brats who get to sleep in the office!

Listen to Iron Maiden, baby, with me.

I realized as I got older how much of our history, the parts they have to acknowledge, are treated like they’re a singular moment in the past, resolved, and somehow could never resurface in a different form.

The push to frame the Civil Rights or Women’s Suffrage movements as the “correct” form of how American citizens call out inequality is also sanitized to the point it becomes toothless. We’re given a version where people just gather, speak out, sometimes get beaten to a pulp/jailed/killed but so long as they remain non-violent, eventually society will feel bad and someone with the power to change things will do so.

There are times where large scale protests are beneficial because it rallies and shows the scale of opposition. Sometimes witnessing the violence of the oppressors against peaceful people shocks and horrifies. But we’re at a point where watching cops, ICE, and Proud Boys brutalize others is fetish porn for MAGAts, and mass gatherings for the sake of showing up but not networking and continuing the movement during the weeks in-between is futile. They have no reason to see us as a threat if all we do is show up for a few hours one weekend every six weeks and hold signs.

And to my fellow dissatisfied leftists, if your aversion to anything more direct is rooted in the idea that previous protests were successful because they stayed “peaceful” and took their lumps, you’re protesting the way the machine wants you to. Just enough liberty to feel like you’re standing up to oppression but not doing anything that actually challenges the oppressor.

On the scale of malignancy, I’d say the pineapple’s desire to digest us is pretty tame compared to the attitude of most gods. At least it’s tasty while it does so.

I say “pineapple”, because unlike God, pineapples are real. Also it confuses people.

As I said, practical first, digital secondary or to enhance seems to be the secret sauce of creating something stunning. Most of the intimate shots with Rexy and the kids are practical. When she busts through the sunroof and tries to eat them… terrifyingly real because there’s a “real” thing attacking them. LOTR is real for a different reason- physical armor, cast of thousands. Compare the Rohirrim and armies of Mordor in that movie to the unified CGI mess that is the Battle of Five Armies in the Hobbit. Even using physical miniature sets for the big locations like Minas Tirith gives them weight.

Jurassic Park, Terminator 2, TMNT ‘89, Lord of the Rings.

Whatever the JP franchise is now, it will never go back to full scale animatronics, and without Stan Winston’s magic, it’ll never be quite what the first (and a bit of the second) were.

Cameron himself can’t recreate the magic of T2 even if his films make billions. He never risks having to “nail this in one shot” stunts.

As for TMNT. Nobody gives a shit they’re suits, we could suspend our disbelief and watched mindblowing performances by great stuntmen in some of the most advanced animatronics ever. Michael Bay can’t even fathom how much better that is.

The Hobbit was plagued by a lot of problems, but I don’t know if even Jackson could pull off the practical effects with digital overlay magic that was the first trilogy if he tried.

That era of Hollywood, practical first, digital to enhance (sparingly) is gone it seems. It’s sad Hollywood has forgotten that that boundary pushing era was what made those films iconic. Rexy had weight, she literally tore a car apart. You can see the chaos of the semi landing in the canal. The turtles hit. The Riders of Théoden truly rode for ruin. Tell me you don’t get giddy when you know that scene is about to hit.

Every device you run today has an Operating System of some kind, so this bill could impact all devices.

Not all devices.

God bless these chucklefucks for targeting the tools of the 1st instead of the tools of the 2nd. Why use words when you can use lead?

The Flys - Got You Where I Want You, Rob Zombie -Dragula, Real McCoy - Runaway

Hahaha. Fuck. I went to a record swap once where some dude we’d always thought was a fencewalker showed up with that album and tried to convince us “it’s actually really good”. The greatest hit Ian had was a tree.

LC never quite scratched that itch for me but Choking Victim is absolutely a guilty pleasure I haven’t abandoned despite Scott’s bs.

Our problems of a wealthy minority and a bigoted majority are intertwined. Wealth provides access to power, media/narrative control, and legal shielding. Some of the wealthy might actually be bigots themselves, others might personally not give a fuck but if that’s the ticket to power, they’ll punch it. Eliminating them is a part of the solution, but it’s not a “cut the head off the snake” solution. Americans with only two dimes to rub together would give them to the dirty rich demagogue who tries to fill the void you made eliminating the filthy ones, so long as the candidate promised more of the same hate. And all the while, that hater is spreading their bile in the communities actual people live in. How many of our mass shooters, vehicular crowd killers, and murderous cops were filthy rich? Both are a threat, but eliminating one does not doom the other.