I never played the first one (I’ve always been a Nintendo and PC gamer and it never came out for PC), but Red Dead Redemption 2 might make my list of all time favorite games.
The open world gameplay was great, but I was really pulled in by the writing and acting. I was surprised that I didn’t recognize a single actor’s name; I guess there’s number of good voice work actors out there.
For some reason, RDR2 on PC got absolute creamed in the user score on Metacritic. It seems to be from launch day bugs. I didn’t run into a single problem with it (after I updated my graphics card drivers on launch day).
I happened to get a new laptop for work just in the time for RDR2 that had a RTX 2060 on it. Was able to run it on ultra settings at 60 fps at 1080p resolution. Beautiful game.
Too much to do to play a game that engrossing that often. I have the new Star Wars game just sitting there, but I think I’ll have to wait a couple months before I start to have any time for it.

People, I’m an officially licensed satirist. I had to take government certified courses to make sure that my satire doesn’t accidentally become fake news. Please leave the satire to professionals like me.

It’s alarming to hear people say they want socialism, but often you find out they just want a few more welfare programs. It’s a bit like people going around saying they want Nazism but then you find out they just mean they want military officers to wear snappier uniforms.

Did we ever get an explanation of why we’ve even heard of Great Thunberg?
“So, you wont listen to random scientists, but I bet you’ll listen to those same arguments from a privileged foreign girl!”
“Wha… why would you think that?”
“Isn’t she the greatest?”
“Are you high?”

Is there any evidence Greta Thunberg has convinced anyone who didn’t already agree with her?

I moved my Fun Day Clock 10 seconds closer to midnight. We’re all really close to having a super fun day!

I’m three episodes into the show Legion. Now there is a show you need to pay close attention to or you’ll be completely lost.
I used to surf the web while watching TV, but I also used to watch a lot of junky shows. I have time for maybe one show a week night and there is so much out there I stick now only to shows worth paying full attention to.
BTW, I picked Legion because it’s has the same showrunner as Fargo. I decided I need to pay more attention to showrunners. For instance, I really like Justified so I guess I should eventually check out Sneaky Pete.

What would be funny is if they tried to make the Doomsday Clock more accurate by making an Atomic Doomsday Clock and then it exploded and killed everyone.
“Oh no! We changed the results by trying to measure them!”

MY BRAIN: “Impoochment!”
ME: “Huh?”
MY BRAIN: “It’s like impeachment, but for a dog.”
ME: “Eh… that’s almost something. But who would be ‘impooched’?”
MY BRAIN: “The President’s dog.”
ME: “He doesn’t have one.”
MY BRAIN: “Impoochment!”
ME: “Leave me alone.”

Home ownership is the most accessible way for the average American to become a crony.

Warren’s loan forgiveness plan is an unserious proposal from an unserious person. If you’re not as angry at her as that one father, it’s because either
A. You’re willfully being an idiot
B. You don’t think she serious about it

I mean, the problem are skyrocketing college costs and her solution is to start forgiving loans and remove any incentive to worry about costs? That makes Trump wall seem like Founding Father level well-thought-out in comparison.
And don’t get me started on Bernie’s national rent control. I don’t know how anyone can pretend he’s a serious person after that. The average monkey has better economic sense than that.
Of course, we demonstrated the Republic can survive an unserious President. We just have to make sure things are set up so they’re impotent to enact their stupid stupid plans.

I see a lot of people angry at Kathleen Kennedy for what’s happened with the Obi Wan show, but did she get any credit for The Mandalorian? Or is that like Mr. Burns taking credit for Daryl Strawberry hitting a home run?
“I told him to do that!”

Are the far left saying Joe Rogan is more bigoted, hateful, and close-minded than they are? Because that sounds like hyperbole.

college costs skyrocket for years way past inflation and any other industry
“Know what’s the problem: We have to pay these big loans!”
The whole college debate makes me feel like I’m in crazytown.

This whole student loan thing is like people are getting hit over and over in the face with a bat and their main complaint is bandages cost so much.

Winchester is one years old now! Here’s a rare picture where his three siblings aren’t all over him. He is the sweetest little guy and a constant blessing.

The fact that he has Down Syndrome hasn’t seemed like too much of a factor his first year other than he’s a bit small and we have therapy visits (all that early development is very complicated when you try to break it down like that). We’re ready for the adventure ahead, though.
One of the things I’ve found from fatherhood is the constant fear of failing your kids. They all have their unique needs, and you want to be up to whatever challenge they can give you. Each day is a lot of praying. I’ve had to grow more than I could imagine.
But, man, four kids. It’s a nice big family. Each day I feel so wealthy.

I’ll never forget SarahK’s reaction when she was told Winchester has DS right after he was born.
“I have some news: We believe he has Down Syndrome.”
“Okay. Can I see him?”
“I want to make sure you heard me; I just dropped a bomb on you.”
“Yeah, I gotcha. Can I see him?”
With our 3rd child, the genetic test was positive for trisomy 13. With that, she most likely wouldn’t live a year. Would have loved a trisomy 21 diagnosis instead. That’s the worst thing in my life I dealt with. Nothing you can do but wait and pray and hope you’re strong enough.
It ended up being a false positive, though. So with our fourth, we didn’t get the genetic test. Better to just not stress about and what will be will be. And so while Win having DS was a surprise (no indications in ultrasound), it didn’t feel completely out of left field.
Anyway, we’ve had some scary time and some stressful times, but we don’t go forward alone and all these blessings are certainly worth that price.

Of all the people in the world to give welfare to, why are we settling on people with high-end college degrees?

The goal is to treat all human life as precious in and of itself. The worst ideas on the both the right and left have one thing in common: They treat certain lives as problems to be managed.

Is Jennifer Rubin doing a bit? That’s the only way I can comprehend her. I mean, I can understand the extreme right and the extreme left who have lost their minds, but whatever she is baffles me.

I don’t know much about Joe Rogan, but I haven’t seen anyone condemn him as a nazi or whatnot who didn’t come off as way more irrational and hateful.

I’m getting a headache just imagining watching Birds of Prey.
“This looks like complete and utter garb… Ooh. Ewan McGregor.”

We had Winchester’s birthday party on Saturday.

The theme was “Baby Shark” because you need a theme but he isn’t really into anything yet. SarahK got a bit stressed on what to get Win, but he’s also not very materialistic yet. He just likes attention.

We found out he does not like getting frosting on his fingers.

He also does not like having a mustache. Who knew?

By the end of the day, he was quite tuckered out. Here’s to many more years for him.

MY BRAIN: “Hitler Sonic Youth!”
ME: “Come on.”
MY BRAIN: “It’s a combination Hitler Youth and—“
ME: “I get it, but what am I supposed to do with that? And what’s it with you and Hitler?”
MY BRAIN: “Hitler is funny.”
ME: “He really isn’t.”

ME: “Do you even know who the Sonic Youth are?”
MY BRAIN: “I think they’re a band from the 90s.”
ME: “You’re so useless.”

I’m thinking of being a political grifter. Is there any complex issue you’d like to be made extra angry about? I’ll do so for a moderate fee.

I don’t get taxpayer funding for NPR. When Firefly got canceled, the government didn’t swoop in with funding. And nothing on NPR is as good as Firefly.

“I have one question about these mutant ninja turtles you’re pitching: How old are they?”

Rico will return… soon.

The new cover for Superego is by Allison Barrows and Romas Kukalis (http://midsizemedia.com). The cover for the sequel is currently being painted.

If I was president and got impeached, I’d be like, “You can’t impeach me! I quit!” but before I’d quit, I’d mess up the WH direct deposit so I still got paid.
That’s right, I’d still get paid to be president but not even have to do the work. Suckers!

The best pitch I’ve heard for Bernie Sanders is that he’s authentically as dumb as a post. Authenticity in politicians is so rare these days and I value it highly.

Man, I really don’t care who wins in 2020. I think the least interesting scenario would be Biden wins the primary and then loses the general since there aren’t a bunch of Biden stans that will have an entertaining breakdown.

My wife is a great cook, but I have to be careful with her. I once tried to give her some constructive criticism on the mashed potatoes she made, and she didn’t make me mashed potatoes again for ten years.

I found that CNN clip kind of endearing because they’re now like “No one is even watching us; we can do whatever.”

Without looking it up, my assumption is that flying in a helicopter is statistically safer than driving in a car.

Was reading the Old Testament to my kids and I came to a section that threw a bunch of names and places that meant absolutely nothing to me, and my thought was “This is almost as bad as The Silmarillion.”
The passage was Judges 4:11, BTW. It was cute, because while I was reading the chapter, my 4yo came over to look at the Bible because she wanted to see a picture of Deborah. Maybe she can obsess on her instead of Rey.
Rey is fine, though. We’re planning a Disney World trip later this year and will give the kids a choice on the things that cost extra. When asked to choose between a princess makeover or build a lightsaber, she didn’t even have to think about it. “I want a lightsaber like Rey!”

It doesn’t matter how bad Trump is if the other side makes it clear they despise half the country and wants bad things to happen to them.

If Hollywood types want to demonstrate how much they believe in saving the planet, they should do the entire Academy Awards show over Skype.

I learned not to make political predictions after the 2016 presidential election, but I’ll make one for 2020: If Trump wins reelection, regardless of what the margin is he’ll claim it’s the “biggest landslide ever.”

The risk with Bernie is he’ll be McGovern 2.0 and give Trump a Nixon-esque landslide victory… except that if it’s found out in Trump’s second term he covered up a burglary, we’d all kind of shrug and go “Sounds like Trump.”

I lived through a booming economy in the 80s in my early childhood and another in the 90s just before I entered the workforce. This is the first one during my adult life. It’s not bad.

My mom got me a weighted blanket for Christmas but I’m really really strong so it just feels like a normal blanket.

I don’t have to worry about my job being replaced by robots because I do one thing robots can’t: be a really cool dude.

There are two types of socialism: The totalitarian, seize the means of production one that everyone should be willing to grab a gun to fight and the Scandinavian one which is more a parasite on capitalism and its success is based on not making the host too sick.

Weirdly, what a lot of people mean by “socialism” these days is “I want the government to guarantee me all the fruits of capitalism.”

If I have to choose between dumb, unserious plans made by idiots, a $22 billion plan to build a stupid wall does sound more appealing than a $54 trillion plan to further ruin health care.

Funny seeing conservatives react to how Bernie Sanders has been treated despite him being like a Commie. We all know the sting of unfair media bias.

People are like “Can a woman win the presidency?” and I’m like “Of course a woman can win the presidency” and they’re like “Really? Of the United States?” and I’m like, “Oh. I didn’t know we were talking about the U.S. No. Never. No girls allowed.”

Is there any scientific explanation for why they keep remaking Doctor Dolittle?

A lady James Bond? Come on.
“Do you expect me to talk, Goldfinger?”
“I was kind of hoping you’d finally shut up.”
“No! We’re talking!”

For voting for convicted felons, I fall back on that, for clarity, I think it’s useful to tie voting rights and gun rights. Whenever you’re ready to let him have a gun again, he can vote.
And I think all rights should be restored when you’ve served your time.

Know who deserves their money less than a billionaire? A career politician who is a millionaire like Bernie Sanders.

If I were a supervillain who wanted to starve billions, I’d lobby for government to declare food a right.

“Feeding people is too important to leave in the hands of greedy capitalists. Government needs to guarantee food for everyone.”
“You make a good point… but why are you in colorful spandex with a skull-shaped mask?”
“I’m just a concerned citizen named Dr. Destructo.”

It’s starting to feel like if you didn’t change any of the Nazis’s tactics but hand-waved them to be about “stopping racists,” the far left would be all on board.

What’s rap in favor of gun control going to sound like?
“I’m going to grab a Glock and kill a pig… unless sensible gun control makes legally purchasing it through a gun dealer prohibitive.”

Space Force camouflage should be black with white dots.
“Do you see anything to stop our evil, fellow Space Commie?”
“Just the blackness of space and stars… Wait! It’s SPACE FORCE!!!”

The Women’s March always seemed to me to be “We’re Democrats who don’t like Republicans but we’re trying to pretend we’re something more significant than that.”

Sounds like this gun rights rally could cause as much violence as the Joker movie.

MY BRAIN: “Crandalorian!”
ME: “Wha… what is that?”
MY BRAIN: “It’s like a promotional juice box for The Mandalorain.”
ME: “I can’t do anything with that. Stop obsessing on stupid puns I can’t do anything with.”
MY BRAIN: “Hatler!”

Any endorsement of Elizabeth Warren that doesn’t start with, “Sure, she’s a liar and a huge phony…” feels like a used car salesman trying to pull one over on you.

One of the amazing things in America is there are a group of people known for being armed and what they’re mainly feared for is that they vote.

Anyone who turns against gun rights because they’re scary will turn against all your other rights.
Because they’re all scary.

You essentially have two options with guns: Everyone gets guns or some people amass lots of guns and use the the threat of them to try and keep other people from having guns.

The only way realistically to get rid of the electoral college would be to secede and start your own country.

When the Founding Fathers made the electoral college, did they understand that one day idiots would be confused when it worked exactly as intended?

Was trying to give my 4yo an easy Bible question to make sure she got one.
“So does one of the Ten Commandments say you should murder or not murder.”
“Murder.”

I really love the calculator Windows comes with. Programmer mode is so so useful.

I pronounce all “silent” letters. If you don’t want me to pronounce them, don’t put them in there. Simple.

If you don’t like talking to people, don’t wear a Baby Yoda tshirt.

I wonder if we’re going to see a surge in Christian humor as Christians are becoming more the counter-culture and the left are focusing more on enforcing conformity.

The only way Hillary can clear her good name is to run for president again.

President Trump being removed from office is fine. Him being re-elected and serving another term is also fine. I’m not pretending either one will lead to great change in our ailing political system.

Here’s some of my favorite lines from Rise of the Skywalker:

“This new Death Star will be twice as big as the one that was twice as big making it DOUBLE TWICE AS BIG!”

“Looks like we got ourselves some wars up here in the stars… some real STAR WARS.”

“That’s how we’re gonna win. Not by fighting what we hate. But saving what we love.”
“Stop saying that or I’ll fight you because I hate you.”

“Why are you tweeting trollish things as Luke?”
“I’m trying to get a RISE OF THE SKYWALKER.”
“But he’s dead.”

“He took everything from us! Our hopes! Our dreams!”
“Emperor Palpatine?”
“No, Rian Johnson.”

“I’m Poe Dameron, cocky, hot shot pilot. Anyone have anything for me to do? No? I’ll just stand around and wait, then.”

“What are you going to do now, General Leia?”
“I have to go now. My planet needs me.”
“But your planet was blown up.”
NOTE: Leia died on the way back to her home planet

“Okay, Bernie. Here’s a marshmallow. If you can resist eating it now, you’ll get a second one in 10 minutes.”
immediately scarfs up the marshmallow
“I want another one.”
“You can’t because you ate that one now.”
shakes fist in the air
“Billionaires!”

The Last Jedi fixed Star Wars like Obamacare fixed health care.

Trump’s been impeached. Hopefully that will motivate him to take a hard look at himself and figure out why he’s just so awesome that everyone can’t stop hating on him.

So much of the cultural stuff now is people running around yelling “Two plus two equals five!” and regular people deciding whether it’s worth the headache to say, “No. That’s stupid.”

“As long as they’re not teaching my kids math, whatever.”

Biological sex is something religious fundamentalists made up in the 1950s.

Maybe I don’t understand impeachment but when does Merrick Garland become president?

Nothing I love more than hearing millionaires complain about billionaires.

One of the important thing billionaires do is get useless people to obsess about them instead of some other dumb thing.

If I were a billionaire, I’d tweet that biological sex is a real thing and watch the world tear itself apart.

As terrible as Trump is, you’d think it would be easy to be a critic of his and not be worse than him, but apparently that’s very hard.

goes to cancel Humble Monthly subscription
“I literally have 300 unplayed Steam games and about an hour of game playing time a week.”
“We’ll give you $3 off if you stay.”
“Well, I’d be stupid not to.”

Star Wars Episode VII: Here’s a Bunch of New Plot Threads
Star Wars Episode VIII: Those Plot Threads Are Dumb
Star Wars Episode IX: No, You’re Dumb

A version of “We Wish You a Merry Christmas” where the threats about figgy pudding become increasingly detailed and violent.

“The cops won’t be in time to save you!
The cops won’t be in time to save you!
The cops won’t be in time to save you!
So do as we say!”

John says “God is love.”
It’s interesting to think that God’s central power is one accessible to us.

I think it was a good idea for Disney to do Star Wars stand-alone movies, but the problem was they accidentally labeled one “Episode VIII.”

Disney+ should add an “Are you sure?” prompt when anyone attempts to play one of the Star Wars prequels.

“Rose, are you going to come with us?”
“No, General Leia says I need to stay here to study Star Destroyer specs and I have to wear a soundproof bag over my head so I can be neither seen nor heard.”
“Yeah, that’s probably for the best.”

Rose had way too much screen time in Rise of the Skywalker. They should have killed her off in the opening crawl. Should have just added to the end: “BTW, Tico Rose fell down the stairs and died. It was a while ago, so no one is going to mention it.”

I was actually rather indifferent to Rose in TLJ except for that last part where she rams Finn and gives a speech about love. That was one of the worst things in all of Star Wars. It was like a rejected line from the Holiday Special.

To be honest, even when I thought Little Women was part of the “Honey, I Shrunk the Kids” universe, I still wasn’t that interested in seeing it.

Watched Ford v Ferrari which is about the rivalry of Henry Ford and Enzo Ferrari and how they decided to settle who was the best car maker with a no-holds-barred cage match. Essentially, it’s the story of the invention of the piledriver.

“It’s like the plot from Cats, but instead of being about cats, it’s about little women.” -pitch for Little Women

“Market research for our Women movie is really positive. The main complaint is that regular-sized women are kind of intimidating. If we can find a fix for that, I think we have a hit on our hands.” -brainstorm that eventually led to the movie Little Women

Palpatine is always saying “Give into your hatred and strike me down!” which is a total trap. Me, I’d kill Palpatine with my lightsaber, but I’d kind of shrug as I did it. See, I’m not giving into my hatred; I don’t even really care.

Nice how The Mandalorian has given us two ways to abruptly end a conversation: “I have spoken” and “This is the way.” The second seems more polite as it involves an implicit agreement between both sides.

I assume season 2 of The Mandalorian will introduce Baby Yoda’s arch-nemesis, Baby Palpatine.
“The attempt to make me take a nap has left me scarred and deformed.”
“Spank me, and your journey to the dark side will be complete.”
“UNLIMITED CANDY!”

The most intellectually rigorous writers on the other side are the ones who most agree with me.

spends a century in conflict so your kids don’t have to deal with nazism or communism
KIDS: “Look at these brand new ideas we’ve never heard of, nazism and communism!”

If people want to defend themselves with guns, it’s extremely tyrannical to threaten government force to prevent that.

Everyone believes a good guy with a gun can stop a bad guy with a gun and it’s dumb anyone pretends that’s controversial. If anyone disbelieved it, anti-gun people would start by trying to disarm the government.

Anyone who get scared about you having a gun will get scared at you exercising your other rights as well.

It’s extremely dumb to ban guns from a place unless you’re going to enforce that ban with metal detectors and armed security.

I had completely forgotten about the part of Benghazi where the Obama administration lied to us and told us it was because of some YouTube video no one saw.

The 00’s and 10’s don’t seem to me like distinct decades in the ways the 80’s and 90’s are.

I saw Little Women. It was well done, but I got confused by the time jumps and just a bit bored by the — I don’t know how you say this — lack of Die Hard-ness… if you get my meaning.
I mean, the Civil War was going on, but there wasn’t one action sequence. Who wrote that?

Democrats say they want to stop people from shooting up a church but they’ll settle for disarming Jack Wilson.

If Iranians don’t want to lose their supreme commanders, maybe keep them in Irania.

I remember seeing the pilot to The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel and thinking “Wow! How is she going to start her stand up comedian career while being a single mother taking care of two kids?” Ends up, step one was forget she has kids.

It’s kinda funny thinking of a bunch of Millennials getting drafted to fight a war.
That’s another comedy premise, like Donald Trump being elected president.

I didn’t know Soleimani and he didn’t owe me money so I’m kind of neutral on this whole thing.

The problem with chanting “Death to America!” every day is how do you up the ante when America blows up your general? “Death to America… and we mean it this time! Totally not perfunctory!”

So on the scale of “millions will die,” is Trump blowing up that general as bad as ending Net Neutrality or is it as bad as the tax cuts?

I’m reading this parenting book that’s all about validating your kids’ feelings and I’m like if this is what it takes to get kids to behave, it ain’t even worth it.
“Here’s a little life lesson, boy: Ain’t nobody care bout your feelings, so learn to get over yourself.”

My national security doubts about the Soleimani killing are failing to persuade. So as a farm boy let me offer a different analogy. Growing up, we’d catch badgers in a sack. I hated them but I learned that sticking my face in the sack and yelling at them makes the problems worse.
Now, I wasn’t a very good farmer. I could never help with the crops because of all my badger related injuries.
The others would say to me, “Can’t you just leave the badgers alone?”
And I’d say, “No. Because they started this. They started this by being badgers.”
So I decided to try something new and got a sledgehammer. It’s not easy to hit a squirming sack full of badgers, though. I accidentally just tore the bag and they got out. And they were mad.
Long story short, the farm went bankrupt and I had to learn to code. Anyway, I hope this all clarifies how we should handle Iran.

Little baby Winchester has learned to fake laugh and does it all the time now. It feels like I’m part of some really early Joker origin story.

Star Wars Episode I is so bizarre. The humor seems like it’s aimed at 4 year olds, but the prominent words in the first paragraph of the opening crawl are “taxation” and “trade routes.”

I hope Hollywood can survive being told exactly what everyone thinks of them.

I liked the Mr. Rogers movie, but it was distracting that I kept seeing shades of David S. Pumpkins in Tom Hanks’s portrayal of Fred Rogers.

But no WWIII means Trump wins.

As an important influencer with a blue check mark, I think one of the most important services Twitter can provide is protecting us from the opinions of people without blue check marks.

I know Tom Steyer and Mike Bloomberg are unlikely to win, but the most hilarious outcome of the Democratic primary would be Bernie Sanders losing to a billionaire.

Did Paul Krugman really win a Nobel Prize? He just seems like the sort of guy who regularly gets tricked by squirrels.

Oh, he won a Nobel Memorial Prize.

I’ve watched 3 seasons of The Crown and I still don’t understand in the slightest what’s going on with this whole Meghan Markle business.

I think delaying the impeachment really taught Trump a lesson. He’ll probably be a very good president from here on.

It’s good to get a living wage. The worst is a kill-you-instantly wage. As soon as you get your paycheck, you drop dead.

I think Democrats can ride “It’s Trump fault Iran accidentally shot down an airplane since Trump killed that terrorist” all the way to the White House in 2020.

My 6yo son’s commentary on Jar Jar: “That frog never helps anyone.”

My 6yo son’s commentary on The Last Jedi: “Luke is mean.”

I think the best acted parts of The Irishman were the parts where they were acting like they were very old. Quite convincing.

My favorite part of The Two Popes where was the one guy exclaimed, “I’m seeing double… four popes!”

The Two Popes is the sort of movie that can only get made with a company like Netflix who gives directors a lot of freedom. All the major studios wanted at least eight popes.

The way the British vote is they gather around two microphones — one for Labour and one for Conservatives — and they try to harumph the loudest into them.

If Labour does poorly this election, they’re going to lose their ‘u’.

If the Conservatives win, they’re going to sell the NHS. The Democrats should jump on that; maybe they can get used national health care really cheap.

The Greta Thunberg thing is very stupid and you’re all quite silly to pretend it isn’t.

Everyone had given up trying to convince anyone and just wants to feed their id.

It feels so good to go a whole night without having to take your kid to the hospital.

The far left doesn’t care about anti-Semitism if they can’t blame it on people they already don’t like.
But maybe you can say that about any bad thing they sometimes rail against.

Daily reminder that proving Trump is terrible is not the same as proving he’s worse.

As for MCU vs DCEU, I think Batman Versus Superman, Suicide Squad, and Justice League are all worse than even the worse MCU film — as the worst MCU gets is forgettable but still somewhat enjoyable at the time.
Man of Steel (which at least was interesting) and Aquaman (really stupid, but fun) was maybe better than some of worst MCU — I might rather rewatch than Thor: Dark World.
Shazzam would be a top tier MCU film — it was really enjoyable. Wonder Woman is up there against the best of the MCU.
I haven’t seen Joker, but I don’t think it’s part of the DCEU and is kind of its own thing.

Kinda chuckling at the far left screaming at Buttigieg as Biden just walks away with it all.

I don’t think I want to watch Marriage Story as I’m not sure what to do while watching someone else’s marriage fall apart. I guess say, “Ha ha! Idiots!”

I probably won’t understand a thing about what this British election means until it’s an episode of The Crown.

through tear-filled eyes
“But don’t you hate capitalism and the Jews?”

If you can’t understand the good reasons people voted differently than your own politics, it’s good you lost.

This UK Election stuff is like hearing about a historic game that just happened in some sport you know nothing about.
“He did two knicker-dillies in a single set!”
“Wow. Epic. I guess.”

Judging by my feed, it was going to be a Labour landslide as all these people who never vote were voting Labour because it was just so so important and it was all I could do to keep my eyes from rolling back in my head.
Good rule of thumb: People only get really worked up and loud about dumb, unimportant things now.

Well, here’s my UK election explainer for people who don’t follow things there.
The UK is an island somewhere off France. It has water on all sides to keep out the Irish. It’s divided into several regions like Scotland, Wales, and the Shire.

The UK is a Constitutional Monarchy. That means they get to vote like normal people, but they still get to have royalty to use as a tourist attraction.
It was a very heated election this year, the main issue being the white wigs judges wear. Conservatives wanted to keep them the same length, but Labour wanted to make them an inch longer — something considered too radical by the working class.
Does this have any implication on American elections? No. Thanks to voter id, we should be able to stop any Brits from voting here.

Finished The Irishman. Wasn’t sure if at the end they were using old people makeup or just stopped using makeup.

One of the problems of the left is they think the way they’re super duper sure they’re right about everything and can’t imagine anyone disagreeing with them for any other reason than that person is evil is something that separates them from the Nazis.

The left are going to be an angry menace until they finally bother to understand why good people could disagree with them.

Since Brexit predicted Trump winning, I guess this UK vote is predicting a 1984 type landslide for Trump in 2020. California is in play!

Solid episode of The Mandalorian, but whenever Baby Yoda isn’t on screen, all the characters should be saying, “Where’s Baby Yoda?” Definitely my question for the first 20 minutes.

How can they impeach Trump when there’s no evidence he’s even president. Didn’t Hillary win the popular vote or something?

With how much people scream about how horrible things are, it makes you wonder how people would deal if any of us had actual problems and not just all the made up ones we screech and cry about.

Say what you will about Donald Trump, but he does treat fellow politicians with the respect they deserve.

The frozen nuggets I’m cooking in the oven for the kids has the recommended internal temperature for them when they’re done like I got some sort of chicken nugget thermometer on me. I hate when frozen food gets all uppity.
The worst is when the microwave instructions tell you to put it at 50% power like anyone has any idea how to do that. I mean really, Mr. Burrito, you’re just too good for the same microwave power that 99% of other frozen foods use?

Just for fun, here are my top 5 Simpsons episodes in no particular order. These are very open for debate.

Deep Space Homer
You Only Move Twice
Marge Versus the Monorail
A Star Is Burns
Homer at Bat

Maybe “Cape Feare” should have replaced one of those. 5 is hard.
Just a little bit of trivia: Matt Groening took his name off “A Star Is Burns” because I guess he saw it as crass publicity for The Critic, but it is a solid solid episode with many classic moments.
I think “You Only Move Twice” might be my all time favorite episode of The Simpsons. I love love that episode. Just the right amount of pure insanity in it.
Other episodes that maybe should have made my list:
Lisa the Iconoclast (a perfectly cromulent episode)
List the Vegetarian (“It’s still good! It’s still good!”)
Much Apu About Nothing (“Book him on one count of being a bear and him on one count of…accessory to being a bear.”)
And maybe another Sideshow Bob episode: Sideshow Bob Roberts. So odd now to think someone could do an episode about partisan politics that’s funny to everyone.
Oh man. I somehow forgot about the Stonecutters episode (“Homer the Great”). That has to be top 5.
And I forgot about the Australian episode (Bart vs. Australia), definitely one of my favorites. It makes fun of Australia so bad, and I never quite understood why (I think The Simpsons were really big in Australia).
Oh yeah, and special mention needs to go to Itchy & Scratchy & Poochie for predicting how eventually I’d stop watching The Simpsons (“Aw, classic Itchy & Scratchy… what else is on?”).
I thought The Simpsons had gotten really bad for a number of seasons, but got better about the time they went HD and almost felt like classic Simpsons… yet I faded away as a viewer soon after.

I tried to honor how Scorcese wanted us to view The Irishman — I watched it in four parts using VidAngel to take out all the swearing.

My review of The Irishman: It’s exactly what you’d expect if you were told you were getting a 3hr plus mob film by Martin Scorcese starring Robert De Niro, Al Pacino, and Joe Pesci. You can decide if that’s a good thing. I liked it!

Watching 6 Underground (with VidAngel). It’s like the opening chase sequence is cut to induce nausea in as many people as possible. Not sure that’s a criticism.
I swear a magazine stand they hit just exploded in fire. It’s like Goldeneye for N64.
I rewatched. That happened.
Fast & Furious exposed to me why car chases tend to be boring (as opposed to car races where the objective is clear), but that one kept me pretty engaged by being so over the top insane.
So the backstory from one guy is he wanted to fire on a UN van but they wouldn’t let him. That’s similar to the general from that Robin Williams movie Toys.
They’ve featured both Red Bull and Monster prominently. Isn’t that like product placing both Coke and Pepsi?

Should I do a best movies of the decade list? Well, I really liked that last Spider-Man movie. Also, I’ve watched half of 6 Underground so far and I’m really enjoying it.
This is hard.

You don’t think Kristen Stewart should be named the best actress of the decade? Can you name a better actress?
Oh, you can name 23 off the top of your head. That’s a lot.

To help promote the new Star Wars movie, we only have to wait until Wednesday for the next episode of The Mandalorian.
I NOW LOVE THE NEW STAR WARS MOVIE!

If Disney needs someone better to run Star Wars for them, I can do it. If I saw The Mandalorian, I’d say, “This is good. Do more of this.” But when I’d see The Last Jedi, I’d say, “This is bad. You shall be cast into the outer darkness for making this.”
And here’s my innovation: When making a trilogy, I’d plan out a cohesive story line.
Think about it.

All the clothing options in Grand Theft Auto V and Red Dead Redemption 2 seems to make this odd assumption that there’s a big overlap between people who want to run around shooting people and people who want to play dress up.

lives in the most prosperous time in human history with no real problems
“I have an idea for radical change!”

“I don’t know if I’m going to watch Rick & Morty anymore. It’s vulgar and nihilistic it doesn’t leave me with a good feeling.”
watches the heist episode
“You son of a bitch, I’m in!”

Ranking of the Star Wars movies:
1. The Empire Strikes Back
2. Star Wars
3. Return of the Jedi
The rest of the movies are on some list far away from these.

Revenge of the Sith was the least dumb of the prequels but it was still pretty dumb.

So in like 40 years, should they do another Return of the Jedi special edition since Hayden Christensen will be the same age as Sebastian Shaw was and can refilm all those scenes?
Of course, by then, we’ll have the technology to replace Hayden Christensen in the prequels with a young Sebastian Shaw.

I need to get in better shape. How do I get cast in a Marvel movie?

I think the fade in support of impeachment is people expected the impeachment hearings to lead to some more coherent charge than “He’s Trump!” and it hasn’t really happened.

My main criticism of Red Dead Redemption is that as I’m riding through the countryside, I’m just constantly hearing pigs squealing. I guess there are boars off in the woods or something (I’ve yet to encounter one), but why are there loudly squealing pigs everywhere?
I mean, I’m trying to have a lovely stroll through the countryside and it sounds like I’m touring an abattoir.

Wanting other people to pay more taxes is unAmerican.

I’m okay with the Red Letter Media guys having their fun with Star Wars fandom, but it kinda looked like they made fun of Baby Yoda.

Wow. William Shakespeare sure wrote a lot of memorable lines — not as many as John Swartzwelder, but a lot.

My reading of the mainly positive first reactions to Rise of the Skywalker is that the thing is a convoluted mess that couldn’t figure out what to do after Rian Johnson hacked apart everything from Force Awakens.
I figured worse case was that Episode IX would need to basically ignore Episode VIII and then be both VIII and IX in one movie, and it’s kinda sounding like that’s what happened.
Many are making the movie sound like it’s a direct rebuke to The Last Jedi, so maybe I’ll like it.

I hope all reviews for Rise of the Skywalker start with whether the reviewer liked The Last Jedi so I know whether to read any further.

The people who loved The Last Jedi seem to hate Rise of the Skywalker, which seems like a good sign. It would be nice to have a Star Wars everyone could love, but TLJ stans have gone too far to the dark side; there’s no saving them.

There hasn’t been a lot of analysis of The Last Jedi, so I thought I’d talk about why it fails specifically as the middle part of a trilogy. I thought the Force Awakens was a fine start and was excited to see more, but TLJ killed that enthusiasm. Let’s look at why.
First, Force Awakens posed a number of questions that intrigued me: Who is Snoke? Who is this Rey and why does she have such powerful force powers? What’s Luke been up to and how will he help? TLJ just dismissed most of those questions.
I was also intrigued by the character Finn as he didn’t seem to have any analog from the original trilogy (not really a Luke or a Han Solo) and was curious where his character ark would go. In TLJ, he just ran around in a circle and now I don’t care about him.
Not only did TLJ get rid of the questions that intrigued me, but it also defanged the main threat. Snoke was threatening because he was powerful and mysterious. Kylo and Hux are just two young goobers, though, and the Empire seems 100x less threatening now that it’s run by them.
I mean, I wasn’t sure what I was supposed to be worried about at the end of TLJ. They had the resistance in tatters (after lots of poor decisions), but things just seemed less scary with Snoke gone. Are you really supposed to fear Hux?
And Luke just seemed wasted. His death could have been intriguing for the next entry if it seemed like only Luke was powerful enough to take on the main threat—but there was no main threat left. Instead, he annoyed Kylo and died.
There are other criticisms of TLJ (Holdo, Rose and “war is about love”), but those would have been just minor annoyances if TLJ had at least kept up the momentum of Force Awakens. It’s main crime is it was the middle part of the trilogy but left nothing to care about in the end.
In conclusion, the failure of TLJ as the middle part of a trilogy is so objectively obvious that anyone saying they thought TLJ was great is obviously a Russian troll and part of some plot to hurt Baby Yoda. Don’t engage them. Protect Baby Yoda from Putin.

So The Mandalorian had a strong first three episodes, but in the next three it kind of became this episodic, Xena: Warrior Princess-esqe show. I mean, I’ll keep watching because Baby Yoda, but I’m hoping it gets back to the greatness of the beginning.

I missed that Admiral Ackbar was killed in The Last Jedi the first time I saw it. You really had to pay attention to see he was in the room when it blew up and I was correcting my son from putting his feet on the seat in front of him so I missed the line saying he was killed.
That one really felt like a slight against the fans. “He’s insignificant and you’re dumb for having liked him so I’m killing him off screen!” Ackbar had to go to make way for Holdo so we could learn the important Star Wars value of never question your commanding officer.
How cheesy/awesome would it be if it was Admiral Ackbar who did that stupid Holdo maneuver, with one of the Imperials yelling “It’s a trap!” just before it happened?
BTW, they really needed a throwaway, hand-wave line to make it clear you can’t just do Holdo maneuver all day every day. “There is a bliby-blooble particle stream going through the command ship. That never happens, and it gives me an idea for something I normally could not do…”

Rise of the Skywalker is PG-13 which means it gets one f-word, which it used as the very first word of the open crawl followed by “Rian Johnson.” I thought this was an effective use, but I’m guessing others will see it as divisive.

That’s it. I’m done ranting about The Last Jedi.
At least until someone mentions Star Wars again.

To try and compete with Disney who keeps putting out all those live action remakes, Netflix has released a live action remake of Team America directed by Michael Bay.

“I think I’ve finally turned a corner on this sickness!”
spends all night shaking from the chills
“I think I’ve finally turned a corner on this sickness!”
spends all night throwing up
“I’m terminally ill and this is the best I’ll ever be!”

I finally saw Peanut Butter Falcon. I think I was putting it off for a bit because I knew it would hit close to home, but in the end I think it was a good reminder of where my priorities need to be.
t’s easy to fall into fear when it comes to the future of your kids, because you don’t have a lot of control there. I just try to walk with faith and remember we’re not alone here.

I’ve never been big on “owning the libs” but for some reason I’d still really like a GIF of Baby Yoda where the cup he’s drinking from says “Liberal Tears.”

Stop pretending anything interesting happened in the impeachment hearings. You’re only encouraging it.

I can’t believe that one impeachment witness threatened to murder Trump’s child or whatever.

Here’s a good review of Ethan Nicolle’s book Brave Ollie Possum: My three older kids quickly paused their new video game they were playing when I offered to read them another chapter.

You’d think by now someone would do a “Actually, Baby Yoda Is Bad” hot take article just for the hate clicks, but I think his draw is too powerful that not even the most jaded clickbaiter can bring himself to say anything bad about the little guy.

Watching an original Scorcese film and in a week or so I get to see an original Michael Bay film. Netflix is really earning its keep.

We really need a national conversation on what rights are and how they work to combat this sort of stupidity. The right to bear arms is actually a right, but people don’t argue that the government must buy everyone an AR-15 as that isn’t how rights work.
When you argue you have right to something someone else must provide, you’re saying you have a right to take from someone else. At that point, you’re no longer arguing for freedom; you’re arguing for tyranny.

I expected all this impeachment stuff to be more interesting, but we all know how this is going to end and the lead up is just tedious with a bunch of people pretending what’s happening is momentous.

My kids are watching Elf, and it got me thinking that Jon Favreau doesn’t get enough credit. You don’t hear him mentioned among the great film makers, but he’s made a number of lasting cultural contributions such as Elf, Iron Man, and Baby Yoda.

If Pete Buttigieg isn’t homophobic, then why was he raising money to help the homeless?

I now want to impeach Trump and everyone behind the impeachment hearings.

Congratulations to the Cowboys on staying #1 in the NFC East! Why overexert yourself getting a win if you don’t need it?

They shouldn’t release The Baby Yoda Show in the morning because I can’t watch it in the morning and now I’ll be spending all work day thinking “I wonder if anything happens to Baby Yoda!”

I always tell GeForce Experience to update my drivers, forget, and then freak out for a second when my screen goes black.

Why do appeal assume a reusable bottle is better than single use plastic? Reusable means you need to clean it with soap and water which will all go into sewage. Doesn’t seem like an obviously better trade off.
I usually get the best of both worlds: When I’m out and about, I refill my reusable bottle using single use bottles.

BTW, I’m no fan of the environment. It committed genocide against the dinosaurs.

Is there a term yet for the constantly angry, constantly online left-wing white people that sunk the Beto and Harris campaigns when they tried to appeal to them? I think I’ve heard “Chapo” or something before.

So this upcoming Richard Jewell movie is a dramatization of the Trump impeachment?

Maybe The Mandalorian should also watch Mrs. Maisel’s kids; he seems much more attentive.

Saw a Truth ad on Juul that was like “Maybe it’s bad. We’re not sure.” Who is burning this money?

Of course porn is bad and it’s silly people pretend it isn’t.
But I’m a libertarian so that’s not an argument for laws or anything.

The impeachment is so boring. It really needs a breakout character like Baby Yoda. Or they should at least call Werner Herzog as a witness.

“So who is cuter: Baby Yoda or our little Baby Winchester?”
“Daddy, don’t make me choose!”

So is Trump still president? I haven’t really been following impeachment.

The episode descriptions for The Mandalorian are things like “The Manadalorian helps protect a village” and “The Manadalorian assists a rookie bounty hunter” when it should be things like “Baby Yoda drinks from a cup” and “Baby Yoda gets scared by a loud noise.”

“I mean, it’s one banana Michael. How much could it cost? $120k?”

“Robert De Niro is bitten by a radioactive leprechaun and becomes… THE IRISHMAN.”

“Wow. Since being bitten by that leprechaun, I look younger! I don’t move or sound any younger, but I look a bit younger.”

I hope she kept the gift receipt for all the gifts except the five golden rings.

The new Ghostbusters trailer looked good, but there were some women in it, so I’m wary.
Had the same problem with the new Wonder Woman trailer.

Did everyone finally give up on pretending Kwanzaa is a thing?

Little Winchester had his first ambulance ride. He has croup, and it got so bad they wanted to transfer him to a children’s hospital for observation. He’s back home now and doing well.

In the Down Syndrome forums I’m in, I see so many big health problems, but he’s done really well. Other than that first week in the NICU and this, he’s been pretty healthy.

Since ultimately all laws are enforced by people with guns, the question to ask when determining whether something should be banned is this: Am I willing to shoot someone in the face over this?

When did it become the job of whoever runs advertising to fact check all of it? When did you weirdos come out of the woodwork on that one?

Straight talk: Your problem isn’t advertising on Facebook. Your problem isn’t FOX News. Your problem is you’re horrible people with awful ideas. Until you face that, you’re never going to convince anyone other than other horrible people.

And you know if these idiots were successful in their dummy quest to get Facebook to factcheck political ads, they’d scream like a stuck pig the first time one of their favored morons got an ad pulled for being inaccurate.

“We’re going to have to pull Elizabeth Warren’s ad where she says she’s an ‘honest politician with great ideas.’ By any objective measure, she’s extremely dishonest and all her ideas are dumb.”

“Bernie Sanders, in your ad you say you won’t utterly destroy the economy. Is that a typo?”

Can you believe the 80s were actually more hopeful than now when we had the threat of nuclear annihilation hanging over us? That was a real threat that could kill us any day; not like climate change where we’re all going to roll over and die because the world got 2 degrees hotter.

If we don’t impeach the president, he could steal the election again when Russia runs $12 in Facebook ads.

Watching The Irishman, and it got me wondering whether Jimmy Hoffa was the most high profile assassination where people completely got away with it? At least, until Jeffrey Epstein.

This Brexit stuff is going to make for a great 8th season of The Crown or whatever.

Cool. Special parking for rich people.

Winchester is having a grand old time at the hospital. Lots of wires to grab and stick in his mouth.

“Trump has nuked Minnesota. This is the most evil, malicious thing a human being has ever done.”
ten minutes later
“Yeah, I guess Obama did nuke Minnesota twice, but it didn’t seem worth reporting at the time.”

Now before I tweet anything clever, I always try to remember to ask myself, “Could this be a Babylon Bee article.”

Poor little guy. He has what’s known as “E.T. toe.” Only way to cure it is to send him back to his home planet.
But it ain’t happening! He’s ours!

Time’s Person of the Year: An orange. Eat one, and you won’t get scurvy. Yay oranges!

If I ran a fire station, I’d put up the slogan “Fight fire with fire” on it just to freak everybody out.

When has “fight fire with fire” ever been good advice? Certainly not while playing Pokémon.

I’m really worried about Trump.
No, wait, I’m thinking of spiders. I’m really worried about spiders. Why won’t Congress impeach spiders?

I like how in the hospital they mark which sockets are backed by a generator so I can rest assured that, no matter what, my Air Pods will be charged tomorrow.

That Trump executive order on Judaism seems weird, but I love the way the left are approaching it.
“What’s the absolute worst way of interpreting it? DOUBLE THAT!”

Man, they really need something worse than Nazis to compare Trump to so they can finally turn things to eleven.

My wife just asked me what was going on in a Hallmark type Christmas movie playing on the hospital TV like I’m even physically capable of paying attention to such a thing.
The sum total of all my knowledge of all the Hallmark Christmas movies I’ve been exposed to: I remember someone wearing a red sweater.

People who already believe the same as Greta Thunberg thinks she’s really influential and everyone else is baffled that anyone would think she’s influential.

“I bet if we had some foreign girl repeating all the exact same rhetoric, then you’d believe us!”
“Why… why would you bet that?”
“She’ll be sailing on a yacht.”

Journalists just want to destroy random people in peace without having Clint Eastwood make movies about them, you guys.

in as whiny a voice as possible
“Well, yeah, that all really happened, but it’s really mean to point that out right now, you guys.”

Democracy may die in darkness, but from the reaction to the Richard Jewell movie, it seems like journalism is allergic to sunlight.

Really enjoying The Irishman, but I bet it’s better to watch in the theater where the audience is really getting into it and yelling things like, “Look out, Pacino, he’s Irish!”

I can never tell if something is actually happening or if this is the usual “Something is happening!” that happens multiples times each day and is promptly forgotten about.

“Come quick, everybody! Them Democrats is debating!”

Thought the showstopper for Frozen 2 was pretty uninspired.
“Let it go. Two point oh.
We’re doing this a second time.
Let it go. Two point oh.
Not altering the paradigm.”

“Kids are gonna repeat it over and over anyway.”

I don’t know how many episodes of The Crown I’ve seen now, but they’re sure taking their time in building up to her saying her famous phrase “Off with his head!”

My 4yo pulled off a perfect “Hug!” and then punched me in the belly as soon as I opened my arms wide. I didn’t see it coming at all. I’m very proud.

“I’d like to introduce the Cybertruck!”
“Jim Wallace, Associated Press. Is this a joke?”
“Far from it, Jim. This the future of trucks.”
“Toby Hunter, Minneapolis Star. No really, is this a joke?”
“No more questions about whether this is a joke.”

I’ve heard a rumor that a bloated, mediocre blockbuster has a still bloated but slightly less mediocre cut by the original director. This is important to me.

I could see driving the Cybertruck on Mars, but on a U.S. highway we’d have a slew of auto accidents as drivers died from embarrassment.

Still, if you know any cyborg rednecks, they might love it. Hopefully there’s an optional laser rifle rack you can add to the truck bed.

The Crown makes me not want to read about history. Like I looked up Lord Mountbatten on Wikipedia and got a huge spoiler for next season.

The Cybertruck: The only commercially available truck that can be used as product placement in The Mandalorian without completely taking you out of it.

I swear Elon Musk made the Cybertruck because he loves memes so much.
“This will make the internet hilarious!”

What is the “cyber” in “Cybertruck”? It’s this. It’s already improved the internet from all us dunking on it.

I’m pretty much a free speech absolutist with just one exception: Things I disagree with

Know who I never cared for?
Adolf Hitler.

Some people are saying I stole this from Norm MacDonald, but I checked and he wasn’t even the first person to express disapproval of Hitler.

Looking through the seasons of The Simpsons, 1st season they’re figuring things out, 2nd season start to gel, and third season on it’s pure home runs where I can remember multiple great gags every episode.

I’d say the first great gag (and you can certainly dispute me on this) was in the last episode of the 2nd season.
“Hello. I’m Mr. Burns. I believe you have a letter for me.”

There is one joke from the very first episode that’s always stuck with me, though. That when Marge is writing the Christmas card.
“Lisa got straight As again, Maggie is walking, and Bart… we love Bart.”

I didn’t realize it until today, but one of my parents was actually Silent Generation (born the year before the cut off, just like I was for Gen X). I just assumed I was raised by Boomers.

The problem with out political system is you can only punish one party per election when what we need is a way to constantly punish both parties.

It’s like someone mugged you and someone stole your car and you have to choose one to go to prison and one to get $10,000. That’s not going to convince people to stop robbing you.

Man, the Baby Yoda animatronic is pretty crucial to the success of The Mandalorian. If were a Disney executive, I don’t know how I’d react to the pitch of the whole series being about Boba Fett protecting a puppet.
And I wonder if we’ll find out more about Jango Fett. The Mandalorians make a big deal about never taking off their helmets, but obviously Jango did not share those concerns. Were he (and maybe his clone Boba) outcasts?

Whoever came up with the concept of Baby Yoda needs to be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.

Just realized what Carl Weathers calls the Mandalorian — “Mando” — is just one letter off from “Manco” — what the bounty hunter Man with No Name was called in For a Few Dollars More.

As much as I thought The Last Jedi was a terrible misstep, I’m not against Rian Johnson still getting his own Star Wars trilogy. He was horrible at doing the middle part of a trilogy, but he might do something interesting out on his own.

Was discussing how complicated a modern controller is with sixteen buttons, and I told my daughter how in my first video game system, you had one joystick and one button.
“What? How could you do anything?”

It is weird they didn’t immediately realize how limited that was.
“So, there’s one button, which can be either jump or shoot.”
“What if in a game you wanted to be able to both jump and shoot?”
“The human brain would not be able to handle such complex possibilities.”

Anyway, I started Red Dead Redemption 2 on PC with an XBox controller, and it makes use of all sixteen buttons, with sometimes a tap being different than a long press and it making a difference what they do based on the situation you’re in (combat versus riding a horse).
I feel like a need a giant cheat sheet to hang on the wall to know what to do. They give you a little tutorial the first time you do something — like hand to hand combat — but then it’s like a day before you’re back in that situation and it’s like “Wait; what do I do again?”
“Okay, what button calms the horse? I tried all the buttons and accidentally shot a rock. …Oh yeah, the joysticks are also buttons.”

For the record, here’s my sixteen button count: Four face buttons, four shoulder buttons, start and select (though they’re not called that anymore), the four digital pad directions, and the two joysticks which can be pressed as buttons.

“The Cowboys are playing the most evil team in the NFL.”
“What do you mean evil, daddy? Teams are just teams.”
“Oh, naive little girl…”

Gotta hand it to Jon Favreau; he’s given Star Wars fans exactly what they’ve always wanted, and with Baby Yoda, given them what they never knew they needed.

my daughter is playing with the Swift Playgrounds app which teaches you basic programming and starts laughing
“What if I had a function call itself?”
“Oh, dear sweet child, you don’t know how long I’ve waited for you to ask me a question like that.”

It seems like 90% of a toothpaste tube’s life is spent on its last 10%.

What I liked about shows when I was a kid is that they’d have ridiculous premises but there’d be no origin story and we kids never thought to ask for one.
“It’s a bunch of teenagers in a van with a talking dog solving mysteries. Any questions?”
“No. That seems reasonable.”

“He’s a sort of cyborg inspector with a bunch of gadgets inside him fighting badguys or something. Are you curious about how he came about or anything?”
“No.”

I’m not sure how I’d pet a hero dog any different than a regular dog. I’m all in every time I pet a dog. They’re all the best.

Politics no longer interests me now that I’ve found all the correct views on all the politics.

Does Warren have a plan for everyone realizing her plans are dumb?

Some people say you should avoid talking about The Last Jedi at Thanksgiving, but if any of your relatives think it’s a good Star Wars movie, it’s your moral duty to explain to them what horrible people they are.

Just keep trying to find ways to work it into the conversation.
“Wow. These mash potatoes sure are good… unlike The Last Jedi, which was bad.”

How to talk to your relatives about impeachment at Thanksgiving:
1. Put on Home Alone 2: Lost in New York
2. When Trump appears on screen, yell, “That’s the guy! That’s the guy I want to impeach! Bob Trump, or something.”

“Thanks to Disney+, we can now watch all three Star Wars movies in 4K HDR.”
“Daddy, there are eight Star Wars movies.”
“GO TO YOUR ROOM!”

My favorite Star Wars moment with my kids was my daughter seeing Anakin get turned into Darth Vader and she exclaimed “Anakin got turned into Star Wars!”

“Hey, we need to hide Luke from his father.”
“Okay. Let’s give him to his father’s step family and have him keep the same last name of his father.”

I prefer the original version of the Han Solo/Greedo confrontation where Han sneaks into Greedo’s room and shoots him in the head while he’s sleeping.

My 4yo really loved the Gargoyles show and keeps running around saying, “I’m Goliath!” For some reason, she doesn’t want to pretend to be the one girl gargoyle.

If you really do feel a compelling need to talk politics at Thanksgiving, that’s very good evidence you’re a horrible human being and thus all your politics are bad.

De Niro? As a mobster? This I gotta see!

No. Wait. It’s by that guy who said a talking raccoon teaming up with a tree wasn’t “cinema.” Boycott!

Did the media figure out whether the Trump boxing image was doctored and what the purpose of such subterfuge would be?

I don’t know what I think of the way The Crown takes some liberties with history to increase drama, like the way the 3rd season ends revealing Hitler is still alive and seeking vengeance against the royal family.

Watching the Netflix’s The Knight Before Christmas with my wife, and judging by the writing, this is how it came about:
“We need you to write a movie called ‘The Knight Before Christmas’ — but it’s Knight with a K.”
“Okay, how long do I have?”
“We start filming in 10 minutes.”

I don’t have strong feeling on the Chick-fil-A thing, but I find it a bit sad if they abandoned the Salvation Army because of the urging of a bunch of people who like to yell and scream but were never going to help the homeless.

On Dagobah, they have all these fantastical creatures but also snakes. Always seemed a little lazy to me.
Is that the only regular animal in Star Wars (other than humans)?

I keep being surprised networks still have TV shows. Who watches those?

I have a lot to be thankful for this year.

Know what’s a small thing Apple could do which would have a big impact? Make stronger charge cords. But as far as I know, they make all their money selling replacement cords.

journalists reacting to the Trump photoshop
“This photo of Trump — he is so powerful in it! We will never defeat him! …Wait, this photo is a deception! Does Trump’s treachery know no bounds?”

Our 4yo said our baby is even cuter than Baby Yoda which was sweet of her to say, but come on.

I hear Rian Johnson’s movie Knives Out is really good but it also somehow further ruins Star Wars.

I kind of want to be done with the Cowboys now but they’re still number one in their division.

If you think Lincoln was better than Trump, then how come Lincoln never made a billion dollars?

I hope VidAngel has The Irishman so I can remove any scenes involving Italians.

“But Palpatine, aren’t the Jedi good and the Sith bad?”
“Anakin, things aren’t quite that black and white.”
“Hmm. Good point. So should I murder all the kids at the Jedi temple?”
“Oh… wow… sure. I really thought this was going to take more convincing than that.”

“Only the Sith deal in absolutes… other than the absolute that the Sith are the only ones who deal in absolutes, as that is an absolute accepted by lots of non-Sith, but any absolute beyond that is just the Sith.”

“Anakin, your journey to the dark side is complete.”
“Yep, I killed all the kids at the Jedi temple.”
“Wait… you WHAT?! Why?”
“‘Cause… ‘cause I’m on the dark side.”
“We shoot lighting out our fingers; we’re not serial killers. What is wrong… I’m calling the police.”

How can they find so many people willing to kill Baby Yoda? Even Anakin wouldn’t have been willing to kill Baby Yoda.

Trump is brash and crude, but he’s likely to win in 2020 because people are going to look at him and say here’s someone who is tough enough to protect Baby Yoda.

The special edition change to Star Wars that annoys me the most is the loss of the Yub Nub song. It’s the one big subtraction from the changes.
I get thematically why it was done—you want to show it’s a galaxy-wide celebration—but the Yub Nub song is just gone and that’s wrong.

And while we’re talking about ROTJ, why would you bring C3PO on a stealth mission?

Also, if rescuing Han from Jabba went exactly as they planned, what would have happened?

Biden unveiling his “No Malarkey” slogan is a bit like a Trump tweet in that I had to check and recheck and recheck again to make sure I wasn’t falling for a parody tweet.

“Malarkey is a gateway to shenanigans… and if you don’t put a cork in that, soon you’ll be drowning in horse feathers.”

Greedo is going on a “No Maclunkey” tour.

Probably the best thing Warner Bros. could do with Superman is sell him to the MCU.

The heavy lifting of the 4th episode of the Mandalorian is making an AT-ST seem intimidating. The Ewoks in Return of the Jedi kind of ruined that.

I really love the theme for the Mandalorian. Starts kind of westerny and ends with a more epic adventure feel like you expect from Star Wars.

Yeah, 4th episode was weakest so far, which isn’t to say it was bad. How can anything be bad with that much Baby Yoda in it?

My problem with the 4th episode of The Mandalorian clicked into place when I saw it compared to an episode of Xena: Warrior Princess. It just felt cheaper and the sort of filler conflict you’d have in a 22 episode season. Liked the character development, though.

I don’t think that stationary bike ad was very good as that woman didn’t look any thinner at the end.

I don’t know who Lisa Page is or what that’s all about and I’m just too tired to look it up. If it’s important, it will be in the critically acclaimed movie about these events 10 to 20 years from now.

“Hmm. All these apes speak English. I wonder if I just came back to Earth in the future. I’ll keep an eye out for blown up landmarks as further evidence.”

Isn’t it way past time for a Womandalorian?

I instantly liked Mandalorian. It was Star Wars unburdened from the Skywalker story line. And it was made by people who obviously like Star Wars and weren’t all “The stuff you like about Star Wars you’re wrong to like so I’m going to subvert expectations!”

My 4yo was saying a very nice prayer last night, asking God to help her not be afraid of the dark and go right to sleep, and then added at the end “and please destroy my family.”

Saw a new thing on Disney+. They have Swiss Family Robinson, and in the short description it says see details for viewer advisory. In the details it says the movie was kept as is but contains “outdated cultural depictions.” Well, zip-a-dee-doo-dah.
It’s been a long while; I don’t remember what the cultural depictions were in it.
Will we eventually get something like that for Mario games with his “Lets-a go!”? Currently, those cultural depictions are not outdated.

Would be nice for Disney+ to have some list of the Marvel movies in order. I notice they’re missing a few though (I know about Spider-Man, but do they not have full rights to the Hulk standalone film?).

I am much more excited to see what happens next after the first episode of The Mandalorian than I was with The Last Jedi.

Not to get all feminist, but the high heels on Zero Suit Samus in Smash Bros really grates on me. She’s the no-nonsense, intergalactic bounty hunter and they have her running around in impractical shoes and the powersuit equivalent of underwear.
Alone together, we faced the horrors of planet Zebes. Treat her with respect.
Oh man, and don’t get me started on Other M…

Man, I don’t know if I’d want a billion dollars because then people might not like me. But I guess if I had a billion dollars, I wouldn’t care what people think. I barely do now.

Has enough time passed that it’s not spoilers to talk about baby Yoda?
Anyway, first order of business, we need a name for that baby, as timeline-wise, it’s obviously not actually Yoda.
And, yay, we finally got to see what that disintegration Darth Vader warned Bob Fett against looks like.

Disney+ is pretty sweet. Just watched the 2nd episode of The Mandalorian with my kids (son very upset has to wait a week for another) and now they’re laughing at Lady & the Tramp.
The original. I’m morally opposed to the live action remakes.

Oh, I was trying to remember what’s the “outdated cultural depiction” from Lady and the Tramp, and then I hear “We are Siamese if you please…”

The second season of Jack Ryan did not grip me as much as the first, as evidenced that it took my like two weeks to watch the eight episodes.
And it was hard to get over that bizarre choice to have it take place in Venezuela—famous for collapsing from socialists policies—and have it collapsing from vague right-wing policies.
And I had trouble buying that the Venezuelan president was so oppressive that he’d throw anyone opposed to him in a camp but not so oppressive as to prevent a viable opponent to him an election.
And then there was the whole helicoptering into the presidential palace and shooting everyone. I’m no foreign policy expert, but some countries might interpret that as an act of war.
Hopefully next season doesn’t take place in a North Korea torn apart by capitalism and deregulation.

I see some people getting really sensitive at the idea they are too far left, and it is a bitter pill to swallow that maybe your ideas are so terrible that Trump is literally the better, more compassionate option.

Can’t the right and the left unite around how we need to protect baby Yoda?
There may be things we disagree on—like whether or not it’s necessary to disintegrate Jawas—but the important thing we all agree on is that baby Yoda is precious and needs to be protected.

I’m still not voting for Trump in 2020, but I understand why Barack Obama is.

I’m going to try that “I have spoken” on the kids. If it works, then I’ll try using it on the wife. #TheMandalorian

ME: “First time your uncle was deployed, he wasn’t an officer and went to door to door in Iraq.”
9yo: “Wouldn’t that cause a war?”
ME: “We were already at war.”
9yo: “Why? Did Iraq attack us?”
ME: “Um… it’s more complicated than that.”
Someone want to help me out here?

My 9mo spent ten minutes yelling at his own shadow and I was all like, “Ok Boomer.”

#ReleaseTheSnyderCut into a volcano.

I’m really enjoying The Mandalorian which makes me worried Rian Johnson is watching everyone enjoying it and lobbying to be the showrunner for the 2nd season. “I have some ideas to really subvert expectations.”

I enjoy watching The Crown even if some of the historical liberties it takes are a bit grating, like the way President Kennedy is still alive in the show because Queen Elizabeth threw her crown just in time to deflect the bullet.

The Salvation Army is verboten now?

I kind of feel bad for Rian Johnson now. I don’t think he meant to ruin Star Wars… though some of it did feel malicious.
He might have actually done an interesting movie if they just had him do some Star Wars movie unrelated to the Skywalker story line, but as the middle part of a trilogy, The Last Jedi was just an absolute train wreck.

You can personally like The Last Jedi, but you have to admit it failed as the middle of a trilogy based on the reaction to it. Know the mark of a great Star Wars film? You don’t have to constantly argue with half the fan base that it wasn’t terrible.
I have a similar thing with my novel Sidequest. I love the ending. Many readers loved the ending. But I had a lot of reviews of people who said they loved it up until the ending. I could explain to them all why it is in fact a good ending, but maybe I messed up a little.
Everyone loves the ending to Hellbender… as far as I know or care. Buy Hellbender.

I put up with a lot of negativity on Twitter, but I don’t know what I’d do if I saw someone say something bad about baby Yoda.

Showing my kids Gargoyles off of Disney+. I remember it having much more complex storylines for a kids’ show (the premiere spans 5 episodes), so much so I didn’t completely feel silly watching it when I was fifteen.

The reason they get frozen as statues for a 1000 years was bad writing, though.
“Without evidence, I’m going to believe other people killed the princess, so I’m going to cast a spell on you. …Oh. She’s alive. My bad.”

And I don’t know how to explain the relationship between Goliath and the female gargoyle. Is she his girlfriend? Wife (spoilers: It is later revealed they have a kid)? I don’t know if there is gargoyle marriage.
Anyway, I hope they learn some good lessons from the show, like if you become a billionaire, spend your money on extremely convoluted schemes.

I think a good surprise to end the season finale on would be finding out President Trump has no idea what Twitter is.

I’m not trying to be over the top, I’m just saying I don’t want anyone who liked The Last Jedi near my kids. If I found out one of my daughter’s teachers liked TLJ, I would try to get that person fired. And since my daughter is home schooled, that might result in a divorce.
I checked, and my daughter’s teacher thinks the Rose “love” speech near the end was really really stupid.

If you’re only job was to learn for the next 16 years, you’d expect to come out of that like Batman. For kids, we’re happy if after K-12 plus college they have one marketable skill. Most of the school time is already just wasted busy work, but they want to increase it?
Seems like it would be cheaper and more honest to just abolish schools and just give parents guaranteed daycare until their kids are 30.

What percentage of women in the workforce would rather be a stay at home mom if given the option?

It’s strangely hard for a lot of “feminists” to accept that most women don’t want to be like men.
A society that values women wouldn’t look back at history and say all the important figures were men and women need to be more like them. It would say women have always done the most important job and it needs to be recognized more.

Some people have noticed that Superego is not available anymore as anything other than audiobook (well, some sellers have the paperback for like $1000). It will return with a new cover and a sequel.
And if you’re going to pay $1000 for a paperback, buy it from me. I still have like a box of them.

That thing where you push a button and someone you don’t know dies but you get $1 million is a great government spending metaphor.

It’s a free country. That means you can complain about billionaires and call them the worst things you can think of all you want, but if you try to plunder even one of their dollars, you should be thrown in Azkaban forever.

Billionaires don’t deserve their money. You deserve it even less. The government deserves it least of all.

People who think billionaires shouldn’t exist shouldn’t exist.

It’s called Ford vs Ferrari, but you know in the end they both team up to fight Lex Luthor.

Trillionaires should not exist. Cut the federal government.

You live in the most prosperous nation in a time in human history where you luxuries and opportunities unimaginable just a hundred years ago. If you spend any time angry someone has more than you, you’re extremely greedy.

Remember when Megyn Kelly was fired for mentioning blackface? Have we gone forwards or backwards since then?

Just like firefighters run to the fire, reporters run to the news to extinguish the news before anyone sees it.

Can you imagine a world without billionaires?
You can’t, because you’d be dead from the Joker’s laughing gas since there’s no Batman.

“Billionaires shouldn’t exist!”
gets rid of billionaires; somehow everyone becomes poorer
“Millionaires shouldn’t exist!”
gets rid of millionaires; everyone becomes poorer
“Thousandaires shouldn’t exist!”
…
“People with more than five sticks shouldn’t exist!”

My perfect president would be someone who doesn’t really care whether the American people lives or dies and thus won’t be interfering with them to harm them or because he thinks he’s being helpful.

I’m glad it gets narrowed down to just two choices in November 2020 because I am completely overwhelmed by all these great options for president.

I don’t understand exactly what’s “guaranteed” about Amazon’s guaranteed delivery dates.
“We guarantee it will arrive by this day or otherwise we’ll email you telling you it’s going to be late.”

I didn’t see The Simpsons Stranger Things Halloween episode, but I was think the weird thing about 80s nostalgia with The Simpsons is when the series first started, Bart grew up in the 80s, but now that would be Homer.
I think it was over a decade ago they had a joke on The Simpsons sliding time scale, with Homer starting a flashback narration with “Back when I was a kid in the late 50s… or was it the 60s? Or maybe the early 70s.”
You know, The Simpsons was only in its 14th season when South Park did its “Simpsons did it!” episode. South Park just completed its 23rd season. A difference with South Park, though, is I still hear people talk about South Park episodes.
End observation dump. I have no point.

It doesn’t matter how much money someone has; you don’t have a right to decide how to spend a single dollar of it.

All the people complaining about billionaires also don’t deserve whatever wealth they have. If they somehow succeeded in summoning economic “justice,” they would not like it.
For how much of human history did people subsist on what would be the equivalent of $1 a day? No one “needs” $20,000.
We were all born into incredible wealth and luxury, yet so many just focus on people with more and make themselves miserable. You all deserve less than you have.

I wish I was important enough for President Trump to give me a nickname… though it would probably be “Cool Dude Frank.” Even Trump wouldn’t be able to insult me. Because I’m such a cool dude.

I hate billionaires. One lives next door to me and he constantly makes fun of how relatively poor I am and then pelts me in the face with stacks of bills. Those are heavier than you think and they sting.

My billionaire neighbor, Steve, is a huge jerk. He’s always taunting me with things like “Better go save those pennies for your kids’ college. Better save those pennies!”

The other day, he asked me, “Do you even own your house?”
“Well, I have a mortgage…”
“Ha! The bank owns your house! Look at me, I’m Frank: ‘Please Mr. Bank Manager, please give me money so I can buy a house.’”
“Mortgages are pretty common, Steve.”
“Common for losers!”

“How much do you even make, Frank? Like only 7 digits?”
“I don’t earn anywhere near that, Steve.”
“How do you even live? I would kill myself if I were you.”
“I think I make a pretty decent salary. I mean…”
“Sorry! Can’t hear you over the sound of how much money I have!”

I don’t know what to do. He’s out there every time I leave my house. I guess he doesn’t have to work… on account of all the billions he has.

I really like Laffy Taffy as a candy, but I feel compelled to read the terrible terrible jokes on the back before I tear off the wrapper and it just makes them too much work.

I’ve decided “OK Boomer” is what I now say to my kids whenever they whine about something.
“Stop saying that! I don’t know what that means!!!”
“OK Boomer.”

Little Winchester is about 9 and a half months now. He’s doing great, except he’s small… like fell off the growth charts small. It would be really concerning if he weren’t so perfectly health otherwise. He’s hitting all the other milestones and really seems to be thriving.

All the Fleming kids have been on the small side, and when you combine that with Down syndrome, I guess you’d expect really small. Still, we’re hoping he’ll put on some more weight soon.
He’s starting to talk. “Mama” and some syllables that are maybe “dada.” His favorite form of communication, though, is the raspberry. He’s always giving me raspberries. It’s not particularly respectful.

Have you tried not caring about billionaires?
“Jeff Bezos has a net worth over one hundred billion dollars!”
“Interesting.” moves on with his life, dealing with things that actually affect him

And is it just me, or is it perverse all these millionaires complaining about billionaires? It just goes to show you it doesn’t matter how much you have, you can either choose to be happy or miserable about it.

If you don’t like the way police handle law enforcement, here’s a great tip: Stop coming up with new laws for them to enforce.
Instead it’s like: “We don’t like the way police treat minorities. Hey, let’s pass a hate speech law to protect minorities!”
So instead of someone getting strangled for selling loose cigarettes, they’ll get strangled for using the wrong pronoun.

Maybe Politifact should just come up with a “True, but we don’t want to admit that” rating.

Isn’t it hypocritical for people on the left to get angry at that churro lady being arrested? But hey, if you want to support unregulated capitalism, we’ll make room on the bus.

There are basically only 1 ways for an entity to become a trillionaire:
1. Large-scale violent coercion

Renting Hobbs and Shaw. Accidentally got it first through Amazon before I realized it was only a 24 hour rental. I can’t watch 2 hours and 17 minutes in 24 hours; I’m not an unemployed bachelor.
For some reason all the Fast & Furious movies are 24 hour rental on Amazon but 48 on Google Play but the same price. Wonder why that is.

Important to know: If you have a Verizon unlimited data plan, you can get Disney+ free for a year through them. Just log into your account, go to manage add ons ad the bottom of the page, and it should be there.

In politics, there is at least one thing you are absolutely 100% certain you’re right about that you are in fact very wrong about and you should behave accordingly.

Before Disney+ stopped working for me, I was able to show my 9yo daughter the first episode of the original DuckTales and the first episode of The Simpsons (I got in trouble with my wife for that one, but I was my daughter’s age when I first saw it).

Made my 4yo cry by saying “Ok Boomer” to her, but someone needed to take her down a notch.

I hate command line compiling on Windows. It’s the ugliest thing.

I cannot recommend Ethan Nicolle’s new kids book, Brave Ollie Possum, enough. It’s kind of like IT, but for kids and not adult weirdo creeps. I had so much fun reading it out loud to my kids. You can buy a premium edition straight from Ethan.
When I was reading it to my daughter, she had been coming into our bed every night. The book actually helped convince her to try being brave and stay in her own bed, and she stopped coming into our bed soon after.
Anyway, Brave Ollie Possum is a great chapter book filled with illustrations and I think aimed at early readers (like 8 and up). If you have kids, definitely get a copy. It’s just the right amount of spooky to keep them hooked to the story.

“It wasn’t until I heard of a group called the ninja turtles that I began to question and assert and recognize my inherent value as a human being—which is a very separate thing from a mutant turtle.” -Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez

backing minivan out of driveway at night
“Everyone ready?”
4yo: “I’m Not Buckled.”
wife turns ceiling light on in a panic and see my daughter is strapped in just fine
4yo: “‘Not Buckled’ is my name.”
She did a reverse “Nice to meet you, hungry” on us!

I had a great discussion with Jazz Shaw. He had an interesting question on which Democratic presidential candidate would be the best for satire, and I think I picked the right one.

$52 trillion? No one can wrap their brains around that. You might as well just say it costs a gajillion dollars.

The best way to reduce costs is capitalism. Going with some other method is like trying to win a race by picking a tricycle over a Ferrari.

If Netflix gets that 2x feature, The Irishman will be only an hour and 45 minutes long. I prefer a lean, 90 minute movie, but maybe I’ll check it out.

I dunno. Just seems like there could be some problems from turning over more of health care to the dumbest, most dishonest people on the planet.

When an irresponsible sociopath says she wants $52 trillion in spending power, I’m always a little hesitant.

Death Stranding seems pretty divisive. I’ve seen some perfect reviews for it and some bad reviews (IGN gave it a 6.8). Game reviews don’t tend to vary as much as movie reviews, especially for AAA games.
I remember one lone review for Breath of the Wild that gave it a 6. I would not listen to that person’s opinion on any other game ever. Or anything else.

Democrats argue about health care like Obama’s greatest political victory never happened.

Back when I was a kid, we had to read comic books ourselves since we didn’t have movie producers to do it for us.

Maybe they’ve matured with age and it will be Rage Against Cancel Culture.
“By the way, we’ve analyzed the data and capitalism is — by far — the greatest force against poverty that has ever existed. So if you don’t like capitalism, just leave this concert right now. No refunds.”

This morning, the kids were playing Monopoly at the table and the wife was feeding the baby in his high chair while I was cooking pancakes and bacon in the kitchen, and for a moment that place I’ve been searching for my whole life, I was there.

We catch but glimpses of the other world in this one, but it’s a powerful thing.

I don’t cook much, because I have a wife. And before I had a wife, all I usually ate for dinner was Campbell’s chunky soup.
Still, there’s a couple things I cook. One is “daddy breakfast” which is pancakes, bacon, and fried eggs (like my dad used to do on Saturdays). The other is rib-eyes, as my wife made it pretty clear she would think less of me as a man if didn’t insist on cooking the steaks.
Now, my dad did teach my how to cook steaks before he passed away, but it amounted to five minutes on each side when on a grill. I want something more exact than that to get more like a good steak at a restaurant. So I looked into skillet recipes.
First one I tried sounded neat because it like butter and fresh garlic, but it relied on a meat thermometer to get it right, and I found out mine was no good. Man, was it disheartening when I cut into it and it was well done. I couldn’t meet my wife’s eyes after that.
Found this recipe, though, from Alton Brown which is nice and simple and gives you the times to go by. Worked out perfectly. Nice, seared, medium-rare steak. I earned my wife’s respect (though she eats hers medium, which I don’t respect).
Trying again tonight. We’ll see how consistently it works for me. Anyway, the point is, my wife bought more steaks. Yum!

I want to thank again everyone who bought and enjoyed Hellbender. I love writing stories and funny things, and it’s a real blessing to have an audience to share it with.
I am writing a sequel to Hellbender as I have a ton more idea for that world and characters. First though, I’ll be putting out some long overdue sequels to Superego.
If you like my writing, make sure to sign up for my newsletter at http://frankjfleming.com… though you probably won’t miss things if you just follow me on Twitter.

I eat gluten free along with my wife and daughter, so I don’t have any opinion on Chick-fil-A versus Popeye’s fried chicken. I like Chick-fil-A’s grilled chicken, though.
I remember first trying a Chick-fil-A fried chicken sandwich a long time ago, though. I was like “This doesn’t have much breading. It doesn’t look very good.” I was wrong. It was good.

The polling doesn’t look great for Warren, but if the Democrats really want to get an unlikable woman president, their best bet is against Trump.

I’ve been working from home for nearly three years, and now that we’ve rearranged the kids’ bedrooms, I just finally got my own office (I had been working at a desk in the corner of our master bedroom). It’s sweet!
Things have been going so well for me lately it’s starting to feel like the first act to some horror movie or thriller where I have to go rescue my family.

As people argue which are worse, the Boomers or the Millennials, it’s important to remember that GenX are blameless and have done nothing wrong and are but victims of both of them.

Remember when PCs were going on this rant about “Bad command or file name” and Radiohead was all like “OK Computer.”

Yay! Red Dead Redemption loaded and ready to play on two different gaming PCs!
Now I just need to find that fabled time to play. Maybe sometime around Christmas… as long as I’m where I want to be on all my projects.

“The Koch brothers just pulled a family from a burning car. Here’s why we should be concerned…”

About this James Younger thing, how exactly do you determine a 7yo is a girl other than that person have XX chromosomes and the unique organs of a female? Especially how do you determine that to the certainty you would give the child harmful drugs?

People are outraged that Trump is Trump, not because he said a particular thing, and they just use whatever he said latest to again express that outrage.

Making a new streaming service for coding-related programming. It’s called C+++

The only way to always support Trump or always oppose Trump is to surrender many of your principles.

I’m still trying to find good ways to market my book Hellbender. How much does it cost to put flashing videos on the dark web?

You have to support the terrible people. They’re the only thing between you and the horrible people.

The final season of Halt & Catch Fire was strange. Just felt like it meandered a lot.

My political analysis is that if all the time and money wasted on analyzing which terrible politician is slightly less terrible than the others had instead been invested in other sectors of the economy, we’d all have jet packs and lasers guns by now.

When you are little, you want to buy all the video games but you don’t have the money to buy all the video games. When you are adult, you can afford all the video games but don’t have time to play them. Such is the condition of man.
I feel like I could write another chapter of Ecclesiastes on this.

The left want a candidate who is really smart but also able to suppress that smartness so as not to tell them that all the big things they really want are stupid and unworkable.

I’ve never paid enough attention to see what happens when an album drops these days. So it just goes straight to Spotify and such for everybody now?
My experience with Kanye West is knowing for the longest time he was a superstar but then had someone play all his top songs and then became frustrated that not even one was vaguely familiar.
If someone is a superstar, I expect to have heard at least one song through osmosis — like it was used in ads or something. With Kanye, only one was familiar because Weird Al used it in a polka medley.
Later, I decided to try to become familiar with modern music by listening to all of the current top 25 songs on Spotify. It all blended together — except for two. One was pretty good, and the other was so bad I skipped it. Both were Kanye.
Anyway, listening to his new album to be a part of culture.
I expected Closed on Sundays to be kind of cheesy, but I kind of liked it.
Overall, I kind of liked the album Jesus Is King. Don’t know if it will rank up there with my all time favorite album (Flood by They Might Be Giants).
It was interesting enough that I listened through it a second time. I think my favorite was “Water.”

Got the biggest dis from my baby son. My wife was holding him and he was smiling at me, but when I reached for him, he quickly turned and clung to mommy tighter 🙁

I didn’t know what to expect with Jesus Is King. I thought it might be cheesy or just surface level religious, but it felt much deeper than that.

Star Wars Movies Ranked:
1. Empire Strikes Back
2. Star Wars
3. Return of the Jedi

1. Caravan of Courage: An Ewok Adventure

What makes The Last Jedi different than the prequels is how apparently a bunch of people conspired together to troll Star Wars fans and pretend to really like it. It seems mean, but I admire their dedication. Some of them never drop character.

I’m sorry, but for all its problems, none of the later Star Wars come anywhere near the greatness of Return of the Jedi. All the original trilogy are in a class by itself and it’s silly to rank them amongst the others.
And the Ewoks are great and you’re dumb.

Wearing my Babylon Bee hoodie, listening to Kanye, and going to Chick-fil-A — being a total pop culture Christian today.
Should probably fit in reading the Bible, tho

At the tee-ball fields, we weren’t watching our 4yo for a minute and she went to the concession stand, got a ring pop, and got an adult in line behind her to pay for it. We need to watch out for that one.
She’s kind of in this no-man’s-land being the second youngest of four. I’m guessing that will lead to a bit of independence.

With my son’s classic costume, I’m teaching him to correct people with “Actually, Frankenstein was the doctor. I’m Frankenstein’s monster.”
I’m sure he’ll get extra candy.

Man, you don’t want to be a terrorist killed while Trump is president. He’s going to make fun of you.

Mario cuts the bridge, sending Bowser into lava
he checks the Washington Post the next day
“Bowser, Austere Leader of the Koopa and Go-Kart Enthusiast, Dies”
Mario burns the paper with a fireball

No disrespect to the president, but with all his “fired like a dog” and “died like a dog” talk, if I were a shelter I would not let him adopt.

I am really curious how that WaPo headline happened. I doubt they’ll be forthcoming on it, though.

I know the euphemism often used for Winchester is “special,” but he certainly makes me feel special to be his dad.

He’s getting some forward movement down. He lifts up on his hands and knees and then launches himself forward about an inch. Often though, he’ll just lay on his stomach and spread out his legs and arms (as seen in the picture) like he’s trying to fly and then starts kicking.
It hasn’t worked so far, but he keeps trying so maybe he knows something I don’t know.

I keep seeing this thing about how we’re going to achieve gender equality in 208 years, but it seems really optimistic that men will birth half the babies by then.

I was on The Conservatarians podcast talking about satire, Snopes, writing, Trump (probably), and of course, my novel Hellbender.
Check it out. My SarahK says I wasn’t terrible.

I don’t get Apple TV+. It looks like they’re going the sorta HBO route by investing in a few shows that they hope everyone will talk about, but it’s a weird reach for a computer device company.
Do they really expect to have enough to get a lot of people to pay for their service or be a selling point on iPads (“I was on the fence about a new iPad, but I’ll get a year of Apple TV+ and it’s eight or so shows!”)?
Well, Apple has more money than most countries. They can do what they want. Also, I have a number of great TV show ideas, so they should probably come talk to me.

Imagine a decade ago pitching a movie where Trump is president, but it’s a drama.
It wouldn’t happen, because that’s a comedy premise. We’re currently living in a comedy. If you accept that, it’s kinda fun. If you resist it, you end up being the dean from Animal House.
Or Kevin Bacon.

I don’t know if I’m #NeverTrump. I’m more “I don’t like Trump but I don’t have any realistic better suggestions.”

#AlwaysYang

It seems like the least popular way to attack Christianity is to go after something Jesus said or did. I’ve seen it done before, but it’s pretty rare.
Strategically, that seems like it should be the most popular way to attack Christianity. The assertion is that Jesus is God made flesh, so to disprove that just show that something he said is really dumb. Dig up his old tweets, so to speak.
What he said and did certainly was attacked back in his own day, but it everything he said accepted now? Well, obviously not all or everyone would be Christians.
What are the least popular things Jesus said? How he talked about marriage in Matthew 19 might be considered a bit narrow now (though I don’t see a lot of people bring that up).
Personally, when he was 12, I didn’t care for his response to his mother after his parents had been searching for him for like three days. Maybe it’s the translation, but it seems a bit dismissive of their concern.

THE FORCE AWAKENS: “Do you love Star Wars? So do I! Here’s some more!”
ROGUE ONE: “Remember Tarkin? Remember AT-STs?”
THE LAST JEDI: “I will raze everything you love in front of you and drink your tears.”
SOLO: “Um… remember Chewbacca? ..No no no. I’m not going to hurt you!”

I’ve never watched Game of Thrones, so I’m not up on how I’m supposed to hate David Benioff and D.B. Weiss. I did read the five released books years ago, so I know I’m supposed to hate George R.R. Martin.
Years back, when I finally started writing the sequel to Superego, I joked that my goal was to get it out before Winds of Winter. I thought it was a joke as with my part time schedule I can sometimes literally write one sentence per day.
But I finished it a while back and have just been sitting on it, getting other things ready. It should finally come out early next year when the cover is ready. I don’t see much chance of Winds of Winter beating me.
But can I get the second sequel to Superego out before Winds of Winter comes out? I’m going to write a sequel to Hellbender before that, but I think maybe.

“Oh, you say you’re a big fan of progressives? Then name five things Americans enjoy that you want to ban.”

Maybe there is a market for people with really terrible politics who want that politics fed back to them in their sports coverage.
But maybe there isn’t.

What do I know, though? I live in this blessed place where I don’t have to care if any of my writing is marketable.

Just because you like doing something doesn’t mean anyone owes you a living doing it.

Man, WaPo is the absolute worst. They now have an editorial on limiting freedom of speech. Is “Democracy dies in darkness” their mission statement?

The arguments against a hate speech laws are so elementary I’m constantly baffled we need to repeat them. What do they teach in schools anymore?

I was planning to not vote again in 2020, but if you Democrats decide to nominate Yang, I’ll vote for him. I’d have to reward that.
There’s a lot I don’t agree with him on, but he’s the only candidate who seems thoughtful instead of partisan.

Release the Joss Whedon cut!

I don’t like the media teaching my kids there are such things as “good” werewolves. That’s not helpful.

One thing that makes writing less stressful for me is that I already know how to code.

Glad we have these new, young, dynamic politicians who can take principled stands against…
checks notes
…condemning genocide.

I don’t get the freak out over Netflix offering a 1.5x speed option. If a consumer wants that, then what? You want to physically stop them?
People talk about the way something was “intended” to be seen, but I’d rather it seen than not. The Third Man still sticks with me, and I watched it on a couple inch screen on a Compaq iPAQ (anyone remember those?).
BTW, I don’t listen to any of your podcasts as you intended them. 2x speed, because I’m a busy man.

Banning all political ads is a much fairer way to handle things than having to wade into partisan fights saying what’s true and what’s isn’t (when you don’t know).

Like I said, we’re living in a comedy and everyone is trying to be the dean from Animal House.
“That was a doctored photo of a dog! I’ve never seen such a disgrace! That’s it Trump: You’re on double secret impeachment.”

Man, wish I had more writing time. I’m really debating whether to hunker down and finish writing Hellbender 2 or Superego 3 next. Have great starts for both.
The first sequel to Superego, Superego: Fathom, should be out in not too long (it’s being edited and cover is being worked on), and my original thought was to continue to write the rest of the sequels (the full story arc is 4 books).
At the same time, Hellbender was a lot of fun and I don’t want to wait that long to write another one. So I was thinking of alternating.
Oh well. Lesson I’ve learned is just make sure you write something each day and eventually — eventually — it all gets done.

“We need national rent control” is considered a serious position held by serious people?
You know why you can’t have progress? We keep having to go back and explain why 2+2 equals 4 and not some other number.

There is no real proof that photo of Trump giving the dog a medal was altered.
I’ve seen photoshops before. They all say “Photoshop Trial Version” down in the corner. This did not have that. It’s a real photo.
When forensic analysis of the photo is complete (which is supposed to be sometime next week), I think people are going to feel really silly for doubting it and will hopefully apologize to Trump and the hero dog.

I think that hero dog has exposed a lot of prejudice. When people hear a dog killed a terrorists, they say, “What a good dog. I would like to pet that dog.” But if it was a cat that killed a terrorist, people would say, “That’s one scary cat. Keep that cat away from children.”

The Democratic candidates all rallying around abortion on demand in the third trimester is just straight psychopath. Don’t know of a nicer way of putting that.
It’s just infanticide at that point. It’s like a decent chunk of the population has gone completely insane… in a very gruesome way.
Now I find abortion horrific from the getgo. I saw my kids at 8 weeks and would have considered it murder to harm them then. Still, it’s no mystery why you have a lot of support for abortion on demand in 1st trimester but it drops to crazy fringe in the 3rd.
It’s just that crazy fringe includes now almost all the Democratic candidates. My guess is, most of them find it horrific too, but you have to pander to the base which feels the need to double down on the most gruesome parts of abortion.
Well, if you want profiles in courage, the last place to look is politicians. Still, if you want to help Trump, make sure he’s the only one on the good side of the dismembering babies issue.

When I eat a fortune cookie, I just pop the whole thing in my mouth and chew and swallow the cookie along with the fortune.
Because I make my own luck.

Yes, I’ve nearly choked to death a couple time, but that’s because of my actions… not random chance.

If I ever met anyone who disagreed with me about politics, I’d just patiently explain to him why he’s wrong.

Why don’t all the Dems just run on what a great success Obamacare was?

“Here’s my plan for health care: Nothing. Because we have Obamacare. Problem solved back in 2010.”

If you honestly believe the world could soon be ending from climate change and that America is collapsing to fascism, how much time do you spend worrying about pronouns?

When you first see a person, is categorizing that person as male or female the very first categorization your brain does? How long does that take and how accurate is it?

If I had a platform and was told to remove false political ads, I’d just ban all politicians and political entities from saying anything on it. That would be the only fair way.

The reason the left are obsessed with Facebook and political ads is they have this false belief they can get people to their side by controlling what they see. The actual way would be to treat those who disagree with respect, but the far left would die before doing that.

The annoying thing about writing something funny for a book is can be like a year or more before anyone gets to see it. Much tighter feedback loop with tweets.

Was typing on my phone the message “Going to be 10 minutes” and autocomplete suggested “early” as the next word. I thought these things learn from you.

Wow. Can you believe how close we were in 2016 to electing an unhinged nut job?

I still have absolutely no idea what Seb Gorka is and why I’ve heard of him.

I wonder what’s happening right now.
opens Twitter app
scrolls through “In Case You Missed It” tweets from 12 hours ago that I didn’t miss
scrolls through 5 promoted tweets
goes to Google News

What exactly are “streetlight people”? Some sort of mutant, half-man, half-streetlight? And why should I “don’t stop believin’” in them? Because they sound fairly ridiculous.

DAFFY DUCK Backs MARTIN SCORSESE, Calls MARVEL Movies “Despicable”

But who watches the Watchmen? Not me, since I don’t have HBO.

“From the man who ruined Star Wars… Knives Out.”

We always hear about “anti-heroes,” but pretty much every superhero has done something wrong. Spider-Man got his uncle killed, Batman is obsessed to the point of it being unhealthy, and Iron Man is an alcoholic.
The only superhero who has never done anything wrong is Rorschach.

Are people just joking around calling other people “Russian assets” or have people actually gone psycho-crazy?

What makes me different is I think really hard about each political issue before coming up with an opinion. That way, I come up with the right opinion. It would be nice everyone else did that.

“Watch as JJ Abrams tries to salvage the few plot threads Rian Johnson didn’t completely curb stomp to death.”

No one needs a 30 round magazine. If they were outlawed, I wouldn’t care. I wouldn’t protest. I’d just get a 29 round or 31 round magazine and think nothing of it. Because I don’t need 30 rounds.

I saw in that clip of the Joker dancing on the stairs that he’s smoking a cigarette! Is that guy crazy?

Oh no! Someone just stabbed me while saying, “I just saw the Joker movie, so I think this is okay.”

I find Trump’s use of the term “lynching” so dumb and the freak out about it so disingenuous and I just want to impeach everybody from everything.

My other three kids adore their baby brother Winchester to the point it’s pretty annoying when you try to hold him. I think only our oldest understands about Down syndrome, which just means she’s extra encouraging.

Winchester loves his mommy!
And he’s aware he has a father 🙁
Well, I can keep him entertained for a few minutes, and then he’s like, “Where’s the other one?”

The third season of Halt & Catch Fire was interesting. And for some reason, it was just weird to see Matthew Lillard playing a middle-aged executive.
Those last two episodes of the season were kind of odd. Each felt like it’s own combination of season finale/season premiere.

How long have neo-Nazis been around? Not really “neo” anymore, are they?

If it was a popular vote contest in 2016, I wonder who would have won?
We’ll never know!

I have to hand it to the NBA and Blizzard—they’ve united the right and the left. That’s pretty rare these days.

JARED LETO JOKER: “Wait till they get a load of me.”
AUDIENCE: “We got a load of you, and it was underwhelming. We’re moving on to the next Joker.”
JARED LETO JOKER: “Aw.”

APPLE: “What do you want? Freedom? Or how about instead… a fourth camera on your iPhone?”

Marriage is a religious ceremony. That it’s between one man and one woman is religious view. That it could be with a different number or different genders are other religious views. The government would be taking a religious stance to treat one view as superior to the others.

Why would Greta Thunberg deserve a Nobel Peace Prize? All she did was cause people who already believed one thing to briefly become even more irritating about it.
Still, that’s technically more than what Obama did when he won his.

“The Force Awakens sure set up some intriguing plot points.”
Rian Johnson takes those plot points and stomps them to pieces
“Oh. At least there will be more Admiral Ackbar, right?”
“I’m killing him off screen.”
“Why do you hate Star Wars?”
“I LOVE IT MORE THAN YOU DO!”

When I was in college, Norm MacDonald came to my campus. I bought a ticket to his show, but I was studying so hard I forgot to go. I mean, I have a great career now, but I could have seen Norm MacDonald.

How come whenever a white male is in a movie, he has to be the Joker? I’d like my sons to be able to see some positive portrayals of white males in the media.

I guess a difference between The Empire Strikes Back and The Last Jedi is that no one ever felt the need to memorize a number of apologetics to explain why The Empire Strikes Back is in fact a good movie and not a terrible one.

El Camino was really just like an extended episode of Breaking Bad, but since it’s a really good episode of one of the best TV series ever, that’s not really a complaint.
Also, it really reinforces that Aaron Paul needs a great new role. He is excellent.

I just don’t get caring about billionaires. I wrote about this absurdity in “The Demon Capitalism.” Compared to most of human history, I live in absurd luxury, but I’m supposed to be all upset because someone else has a lot more than my vast wealth?

I noticed my 6yo son was looking cooler. Ends up he got a scrape under his lower lip and it scabbed up and now looks like he has a soul patch.

My son noticed my Babylon Bee hoodie and asked “Is it called the Bible-on Bee because Satan is in it?” I didn’t know what to say to that.

I saw that video and it was pretty scary. If I were the logo for the Vox website, I’d be really afraid of the president shooting me in the head in a church.
It’s another stupid, Trump-worshipping video. You can completely freak out about it, though, but it would just give people more reason to not take you seriously… if anyone is left taking you seriously.
He didn’t shoot The Babylon Bee in the head, did he?
In summary: Everyone chillax like me, the most reasonable person on the internet.

I thought that scene from the Kingsmen was kind of disturbing when I saw it in the movie, but I think the edited version is as likely to inspire violence against journalists as the original inspired violence against Westboro Baptist or other churches.
For the most part, I don’t think we’re very good at figuring out what can inspire crazy people to be violent.

I already knew that out of the gate Disney+ would have tons of A+ content, but it’s great they’ve revealed it will also have a ton of forgettable garbage.

Owning a cat is a bit like having a ghost in your house. It’s this entity you just see every so often and often you’ll just hear some big clatter somewhere in the middle of the night.

Who exactly is the audience for GQ?

My 6yo son gets really hyper any time he has a double espresso.
I keep asking the Starbucks to stop giving him those — or at least charge him for them — but they keep saying “no” and that they “hate me.”
What do I say to that? “Don’t hate me.”? I can’t make a good argument for that.

I guess I’m not caring and compassionate enough to keep getting angry at a chicken sandwich.

If you don’t monitor what’s influencing your kids online, they could end up a part of some fascist organization like the neo-Nazis or the NBA.

I never quite cared for Jack in Supernatural—didn’t hate him, just was meh—but demon Jack demonstrates the problem was how the character was written and not the actor because I like demon Jack.

A really rich guy saying he can’t speak out against brutal oppression because he might lose money probably ain’t a great look.

They’re all terrible idiots and their objective is to trick people into thinking they’re not terrible idiots. And a depressing amount of people still fall for it.

Taxes are the least way the rich contribute to society. Actually, it’s the least way most people contribute.
Except politicians. I want a wealth tax on politicians. I’m very suspicious of all the wealth they’ve accumulated.

Adam is naming all the animals. He sees an insect buzzing in the air.
“That’s flying, so I’ll call it a ‘fly.’”
He sees a bird in the sky.
“This is already getting way too complicated.”

“Adam, so I was near the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, and this snake came up to me and said—“
“You mean a ‘crawl’?”
“…”
“I told you we’re not calling it that.”

Remember when Obama got a Nobel Peace Prize just for existing? Things used to be so silly.

Forgiving a murder from a year ago is baffling to people who can’t forgive a tweet from ten years ago.

Can imagine pre-2010 someone pitching a movie in which Donald Trump is president, but it’s a drama and not a comedy?

“Thanks to the success of the Joker movies, we’re now having a Penguin movie!”
“Oh no!”
fat, short middle-aged men go on violent rampages

Don’t turn against free speech or eat babies.

My favorite part of The Joker is where he says, “Riddle me this!” and then shoots at Batman with his umbrella.

Scorsese: “What am I? A director? Here to amuse you?”

ME: “The most common cause of death is—“
MY 6yo SON: “Lava.”

“Lava” was also his guess on why the moon glows at night.

Do I have to watch the Joker movie to have a hot take about it?

My 6yo is listening to the audiobook of Hellbender and responding to whatever words he recognizes.
“There’s a government in this!”

There’s no lava in the story, though 🙁
There was in Sidequest.

The whole Scorsese thing is just sour grapes as he knows how much better Taxi Driver would be if Travis Bickle had a lighting-infused hammer.

It’s not cinema unless you’re kinda bored by it but feel cultured afterward.

I think I learned the cinema distinction back when I had Netflix DVDs through the mail. They were the movies that I got because I heard what classics they were but they’d just sit there while I’d immediately watch whatever disposal blockbuster came my way.
If I dragged myself to watch them, I get engrossed and afterward say “What a great film!” but they took effort to start.

I think one of the reasons Brandt Jean’s actions angered so many is we’ve become a culture that not only wants to hate, but wants to be told their hate is righteous and good. And here is someone no one would blame to hold on to some hate, and he said no.

Watching Spider-Man: Far from Home. Glad Sony and Disney worked out a deal or otherwise this would be just a little depressing watching knowing it would be the last of MCU Spider-Man.
Man, the “Blip” was not random. Of course, all the original Avengers were spared. And every major character from Spider-Man got “blipped” so they would all stay the same age.
So do Italians usually have to rely on vacationing American superheroes? Shouldn’t there be like a Pastaman or something?
I do like their universe’s Daria/MJ. She’s so weird.
LOL. “Night Monkey.” Ned might be my favorite MCU character.
Oh. Wow. A number of big surprises in the first after credits scene, including the return of a character that’s hard to imagine being played by anyone else.
Anyway, that was a fun movie! But I’ll need like a 60 tweet thread to analyze whether it was “cinema.”

My 4yo just now: “When I grow up, I want to be a goose.”
Guess what video game we’re playing.

My older daughter’s suggestion for a title for the Untitled Goose Game is “Bad Goose.” Yeah, that works.
You worry about violent video games, but I’m not sure what to think of my kids trying to come up with new ways for the goose to be mean to random people.
“Steal his newspaper and throw it in the water!”

I don’t care if Trump stays as president or is brought down. He’s not the problem.

It really seems like a lot of people when they hear someone is a billionaire, they think of Scrooge McDuck with a big vault full of a billion dollars they can spend any time they want.
Sure, Bezos could sell off a lot of his stake and Amazon and buy people all the things they think they deserve, but that’s not long-term sustainable. And I kinda assume if someone like him started selling his stock, that would drastically affect the price.
Actually, that’s an interesting question. Bezos is said to be worth 108.4 billion. If he decided to liquidate all his assets, how much cash could he actually get on hand? I’d need someone more versed in economics to answer that.

I really need daily assurances from the president that the kind of genius he is is stable.

The far left get really mad when people aren’t hateful enough to those they hate, which is really sick.

If you’re not constantly throwing tantrums at the mere sight of people who disagree with you, how caring a liberal are you?

What Aaron Calvin did is way worse and more damaging than a few old racist tweets, but I still don’t think he should be destroyed over it. In a world where everyone’s idle utterances are remembered decades later, we need to work on a better culture of forgiveness.
You know, there’s a whole religion built around forgiveness that might be worth looking into.

If it took you hours of searching through someone’s old tweets to get offended, then you’re the one with the problem.

The Democrats should be honest and just impeach him for “general Trumpiness” instead of pretending it’s for anything specific.
“He just seems like the sort of guy who should be impeached.”

I think Trump’s main defense in impeachment will be that “This isn’t the Trump the American people thought they elected!” doesn’t ring true.

Maybe this is the puritanical streak in me, but asking foreign leaders to do political muckraking for you is a bad look.

One thing that makes me feel like my mind is going is finding a description of an episode of The Simpsons from the first 8 seasons that I don’t remember anything about at all.
“Marge worked at the power plant? Season 7? I don’t… what was the B plot?”

So, I read the transcripts, and I’m pretty sure that’s Trump speaking there. I’m not sure who the other guy is.

I didn’t realize Colin Kaepernick was the quarterback for Nevada during Boise State’s Kellen Moore years. I remember him as this tall, lanky kid who was pretty formidable. And part of Boise’s most devastating loss during the Moore years.

I love being a developer and going off into my cave to work on cool new stuff, but there is a certain satisfaction you only get from helping a user solve a problem, even if the solution is of the “turn it off then on again” variety.
I worked in a supermarket as a teenager, and I lucked out and was in produce — the only job where you could hide from customers most of the day. Still, I loved it when I got asked where the restroom was. If that was your problem, I could help you.

I’m the one behind the whistleblower complaint. It was 11:30 pm, which is way too late to be blowing a whistle that loud when you have neighbors. That’s why I filed the complaint with the HOA.

I know everyone is getting very excited right now, but I should point out that President Trump is unlikely to get impeached. A simple legal analysis shows why.
According to the Constitution, a president can only be impeached for “high crimes and misdemeanors.” If they impeach Trump for something other than that, the Supreme Court will put him back in office and make sure he gets back pay.
So what’s a “high crime or misdemeanor”? Legally, that’s defined as “a crime or misdemeanor committed on a plane, dirigible, mountain top, or other high altitude location.”
Trump’s not stupid. Anytime he’s on Air Force One or hot air balloon, he’s usually very quiet and law abiding. Trump only commits medium crimes or low crimes (crimes committed in a cavern or building sub basement).
The Democrats best bet it to try and trick Trump into testifying under oath while in a blimp. If they can get him to commit perjury at over 20,000 feet, they have him.

What if President Trump is removed from office? How will things be then? I haven’t really followed Pence’s Twitter feed; is it any good?

Beyond Meat for McDonald’s? I enjoyed their cheeseburgers as a kid, but let’s be honest here: They never quite made it to meat.

I assume the country will be more prepared for Trump being re-elected than it was for Trump being elected in the first place, but I’m not 100% certain of that.

The status on ACX for the Hellbender Audiobook is “Headed to Retail”. Don’t know how long that takes, but I’m guessing it will be available later this week.

For the record, I already hate that Birds of Prey movie based on the poster.

I think Harley Quinn is a character who only works in small doses.

It was my idea that Sony and Disney should do a third Spider-Man movie.

It sounds like the Des Moines Register just used that one reporter as a fall guy and didn’t learn a single thing.

I thought the Netflix original film Orc Cop was kinda entertaining, so will I like The Irishman?

In season 2 of Halt & Catch Fire, in one episode I saw someone blow into an Atari cartridge before playing it. I’m pretty sure that’s just an NES thing, though. Did anyone else do that for any other cartridge system?
I believe it was all just poor design on the NES. People thought blowing into it fixed it, but it was actually taking it out and reseating it. I usually got the cartridges to work by putting them in barely enough to be able to push them down into the system.

I feel some sympathy for the fired reporter because of how the whole thing was placed on him… but less sympathy having read the interview in Buzzfeed. No one learned anything.

Why is that 16yo girl worried about a threat as far out as climate change? Didn’t anyone tell her about the Joker movie coming out next weekend?

Million Dollar Idea: Build the entire wall out of studs, so then you can hang things anywhere!

I like Yang. I disagree with him on a lot of things, but he appears to be the only politician trying to do something other than stir up one subset of idiots.

If we can just get rid of Trump we can go back to the way things were before Trump which was so bad we wound up with Trump.

Trying to explain football to my kids while we watch the Cowboys. You know, it’s kinda complicated.

I have too much going on to join in a civil war. Sorry, guys.

My 4yo will give me a thumbs up, and after I make eye contact, turn it upside down. It’s strangely devastating.

The Ryan Reynolds/Michael Bay straight to VHS movie looks dumb in a good way and that Birds of Prey movie looks dumb in a bad way.

Man, kid pitch for ten and under softball is a completely different game. I saw a homerun off a wild pitch.
If a kid gets to first, she’s going to steal her way to third and there is little anyone can do about it. Goal is to then make sure she doesn’t steal home on a wild pitch.

My oldest daughter did great at her game today. Her request at home was to watch Abbot and Costello do the who’s on first routine.
I don’t think I’ve ever watched that without laughing.

I don’t want people who participate in cancel culture to get fired for their old bad tweets, but a few moments of introspection would be pretty awesome.

It’s Fall Ball. Once again I have three kids to get to different practices/games plus Winchester along to spectate.

If I thought gun confiscation was going to pass, I’d feel it was my duty to finally buy an AR-15 just to not turn it in.
Knowing my luck, though, I’d immediately lose it in a tragic boating accident.

Is Beto right that you can get an AR-15 for $350? One of the reasons I don’t own one is I thought they were like a $1000.
Also, the ammo looked expensive to shoot.

Trump is a pretty embarrassing leader of our country except compared to leaders of other countries.

The libertarian in me feels the need to point out that when I say “leader of country” I really just mean “head of national government” and nothing more.

Sometimes it takes 6 or 7 times until you learn blackface is bad.

“Yes, I used to put on blackface. But now I know that’s wrong. You see, I’ve grown a lot as a person since…”
*new photo emerges*
“…yesterday.”

The new Rambo movie kind of sounds like “Taken, but with Rambo” which is actually a great pitch.
Did you know that Taken is rotten on RottenTomatoes? Who doesn’t like Taken? The “I told you I’d find you” scene is one of the all time greatest movie scenes.

I think the big problem with the Bill de Blasio campaign is that absolutely no one liked him and everyone was just kind of baffled he thought anyone would want him to be president.

I enjoy The Crown. It feels educational. Like watching a documentary.

Canada has guns?

*bang*
“Sorry.”
*bang*
“Sorry.”

If the Dems actually think the world is going to end, shouldn’t they be making big compromises with with Republicans to stop that?
“We’ll give you all free AR-15s in exchange for a carbon tax!”

So does having kids say things work to convince people? If so, I’m going to read my 4yo Economics in One Lesson and get her to lecture people on it.

“Do we want dangerous people like this getting their hands on military-style assault weapons?”
*Trudeau holds up a picture of himself in black face*

For those waiting on the Hellbender audiobook (which should be anyone who listens to audiobooks), it’s just waiting on Audible QA. Should be available to purchase in the next week or two.

They’re called “fire” ants because that’s what you want to kill them with.

If Trump is convicted and sent to prison, that might be good for him. I think he’d be a much better president with a guard watching him at all times.

*kids rally for action on climate change*
“We will not give up until action is taken to save this planet!”
“How about we give you some free Fortnite character skins instead?”
“Deal.”

In 2nd season of Halt & Catch Fire, and all the Commodore 64s are giving me such nostalgia. About the time this is supposed to be taking place, I was in first grade and we had a computer lab full of them where you could go instead of recess. Guess where I always was.

Was at the ball field Saturday from 11am to 5pm for three games (for three different kids) in 96 degree heat with high humidity. Nearly killed me. Only one still in good spirits is little Winchester. He did get scared, though, during some of the cheering.
My kids did great though! I don’t expect them to be great athletes—they have my genes—but I like to see them try.

Man, the not caring about partisan politics is sweet. If Trump is re-elected or if Trump is impeached and sent to prison, I’ll just be like “Whatever” and roll with it.
And probably crack a few jokes as I am wont to do.

Everyone always says to me, “Frank, how can I not care about things and be cool like you?” and I always says, “You can’t. Because you can’t help caring about things LIKE AN IDIOT.”

My unpopular opinions:
The Beatles were very talented
Coke > Pepsi
The Princess Bride was a great movie
Bacon is tasty
The Empire Strikes Back is perhaps the best Star Wars movie
Slavery is bad

I don’t care for Sophia the First and her catch phrase “Get away from me, commoners!”
I love how the king in the show has the most actively bland voice that it almost seems like a parody. Just keeping up the Disney tradition of the male royalty being people you can’t pick out of lineup.
I do wonder what all this Disney monarchy propaganda is doing to our daughters. Maybe it’s why libertarians skew male.

When you wake up at 3am and turn to see someone standing next to your bed staring at you, you’re going to freak out for a moment. True no matter how long you’ve had kids.

Dak Prescott + Kellen Moore seems like a pretty formidable combination. And it’s like the first half is just warm up.

I wonder what’s the world’s deadliest butterfly? I don’t think a butterfly has ever killed anyone, but one has to have come closest.

Kids, calm down. You’re not going to die from mass shootings or climate change. Learn to be more skeptical like when we Gen Xers were much more superior kids. Our “whatever” attitude now makes us look as wise as Solomon.

A passenger boarding the United plane I’m on just stopped in front of me, punched my shoulder, and started to say something, but I punched him in the face. My shoulder isn’t my weak spot, idiot. You’re going to have to try harder than that to take me down.

The whole Greta Thunberg thing feels like they’ve given up trying to convince anyone and are so frustrated they’re just trolling now. The whole exploiting a kid to do it is creepy, though.

I’ll be believe the world is ending when the climate change activists use the one thing in their arsenal they seemed to have vowed to never touch: humility.

“I know we’ve made a lot of mistakes and we’ve been dismissive of your concerns, and we’re sorry. We’re too arrogant to admit when we don’t really know things, but we want to change. We’re really worried about what’s happening and we want you on board.”
“Okay. Now I’m sacred.”

Is there any evidence Greta Thunberg is convincing anyone who didn’t already side with her, or am I missing the point?

It’s hard to take the UK seriously as a modern civilization when they’re worried about knives. I thought we got past the “Sharpened objects are going to kill us all!” panic thousands of years ago.

Don’t criticize kids? I’m a parent. It’s like 90% of what I do.

Little Winchester has a cold. This morning, both his eyes were sealed shut with eye crusties (he’s had some tear duct problems before as part of DS). Still, didn’t make him sad. Even though he couldn’t see me, as soon as he heard my voice, he smiled. He’s now 8 months old.
I think as part of being a parent, you can’t be a pessimist about the future. You don’t have that luxury.

Impeach him on one count of being a Trump and Pence on accessory to being a Trump.

If we don’t do something major about climate change, the world only has 7 years, 9 months, 16 days, 3 hours, 42 minutes, and 23 seconds left.

Man, when I was a kids, we were worried about the world ending because of nuclear war with the Soviets. That makes today’s concerns look asinine in comparison.

Man, I was just thinking how much that would mess up 16yo me if I had a bunch of adults all over the world calling me the smartest and the greatest. A big part of moving from adolescence to adulthood is overcoming one’s own hubris.
And the thing is, I probably was the smartest, greatest teenager ever, just judging from all the other teenagers I met.

We have to stop the billionaires before they billionaire us with all their billions.

“Serial Killer Dad, all I ever wanted to do growing up was play catch with you, but you were too busy killing. Serially.”
“Let me out of prison and we can play catch and I promise not to kill anymore.”
“I’m not falling for that again!”
-from FOX’s new show, Serial Killer Dad

The thought of us getting to the end of the Trump presidency without at least one impeachment hearing seems crazy.

*I show up to an impeachment inquiry in tshirt and jeans*
“This is a formal impeachment inquiry!”
“D’oh!”

Is a formal impeachment inquiry what the Marshal of the Supreme Court was waiting on?

The thing is, everyone is really dumb and impeachment is really dumb so it seems like the thing everyone should be doing.
Impeachment will accomplish nothing, but it will accomplish nothing in a much more entertaining way than just doing nothing.

Near the end of the second season of Halt & Catch Fire, and it’s starting to feel like The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel in regards to the Clarks’ kids in that they’re never around but you’re not supposed to worry about them.