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.

I hate the digital rental schedule. When the movie comes out on physical disk, you have something like two or three months to rent it. If you wait too long, it goes to HBO or Starz and is then unavailable to rent for like the next year or two.

This vaping things reminds me of how those Buckyball toys were banned for a while because theoretically a kid could die. Meanwhile, swimming pools kill kids constantly and you never hear anything about it.
Our reaction to threats are weird. We tend to focus on the unusual (vaping, school shootings) and not the greater threats (cars, swimming pools).

Democrats actually getting to implement all their awful plans is way scarier than AR-15s.

I’m a level-headed conservative. I don’t want to shock people and I don’t care about “owning the libs.” If there’s any sort of national gun confiscation, I’m exactly the sort of guy you want involved in the resultant military coup to make sure it doesn’t exceed its mandate.

Oil is great. It has so much energy packed into it, so it’s great for fuel. You can also make plastic from it! Nifty!
Know what we need? More oil.

Every time I want to make a political prediction, I think back to 2016.
“You know nothing, Frank Fleming.”

I sometimes use “lol” but only when something literally made me produce some laughter like noise. I never use “ROFL” because I have never done that. If that ever happened, it would probably cause my family concern.

The science is pretty settled we have only 10 years left to stop climate change. I mean, people have been saying that consistently for decades.

If Democrats make it illegal to own an AR-15, are they planning to enforce that as much as they do the border or what?

I’m guessing Texas will be a gun sanctuary state.

How dumb is Beto that his final strategy to protect him from irrelevance is to go full Swalwell? The only people who care about gun control as a single issue are the opponents of it.
If an AR-15 is banned or not banned, the average white liberal wouldn’t even know the difference because they’d never run into one anyway. But for the millions of gun owners, it would be the only issue they’d vote on for the rest of their lives.
I’m honestly baffled by this. If you want to stand out in the Dem primary, shouldn’t you come up with some new thing to make free and say you’ll make the rich pay for it?

If somehow a mandatory AR-15 buyback was implemented, what would be a realistic goal for compliance? 5%?

Your illiberalism is much scarier and much more of a threat than any AR-15.

“Molon labe” ain’t a death threat unless you’re an idjit.

People bought AR-15s to make sure the government can’t take AR-15s. How many people do you think are going to comply if the government says “Hand them over”?
And the dumbest thing is, even if you magically disappeared all the AR-15s, it wouldn’t even be a blip in gun homicides. It’s just a pure clown move to anger peaceful gun owners and solve absolutely nothing.

Started watching Halt and Catch Fire last night. First episode was impressive. Chinese wall!

From the debate the other night, I group Booker, Klobuchar, Castro, and Beto in the “you’re still here?” category.

DEM 1: “Trump is pretty awful. We just need to be less awful to beat him.”
DEM 2: “How about instead we be more awful and use his awfulness as a cover for it?”
DEM 1: “Sounds risky… but I LOVE IT!”

DEMS: “Hey, you paranoid gun nuts, no one is coming to take your guns. We just want some common sense–”
BETO: “LEEEEROY JENKINS!!!”

It must suck to be a bird that doesn’t fly. What’s even the point of being a bird then? Whatever you do could be done by a lizard or a rodent.
And while a bird being able to fly is graceful, a mammal being able fly is a frickin’ horror show. Stretched out flesh for wings and an inside out nose for sonar—look like something from a Cronenberg movie.

I think I spend money on Humble Bundles and Steam sales just to keep the dream alive of one day having time again to play computer games.

Beto overheard at a urinal that Kavanaugh sexually assaulted Corn Pop.

I usually don’t even watch the NFL, but with Kellen Moore running offense for the Cowboys, I dug the antenna out of the garage so I could get FOX.

Man, I don’t want to believe Corn Pop is real because it’s just so much fun as something crazy Biden made up.

Here’s my unranked list of the greatest games I’ve ever played:

Super Mario World
The Secret of Monkey Island
Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time
Final Fantasy IV
Ultima VI
Metroid Prime
Resident Evil 4
Batman: Arkham City
Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild
Riven

I was trying to keep the list to one game per series, but Ocarina of Time and Breath of the Wild are two great games in very different ways.

So far the technical detail that most jumped out at me in Halt and Catch Fire was someone telling a programmer how beautiful her bios code was. I’m trying and failing to imagine beautiful assembly code.

I feel like Gary Larson successfully keeping The Far Side from being online has successfully caused it to fade from people’s consciousness since the internet is where everything is shared now. Hopefully that will change.

The Far Side was the Seinfeld of the funny pages, wasn’t it?

Man, I was just thinking of all the different things I’d have to explain to my kids that they know nothing about to explain the joy of the Sunday funny pages.

Democrats should impeach Trump and Kavanaugh at the same time. That would be hilarious.

Reading the book Babies with Down Syndrome: A New Parent’s Guide. I think it’s smart that it starts with a foreword written by someone with Down syndrome.

So Biden has been saying this Corn Pop anecdote for years and this is the first we’re hearing of it? How is this not the first thing anyone ever thinks of when Biden is mentioned? Did no one read his autobiography?

Season 2 of the new DuckTales was great. I really really enjoy watching it with my kids, though of course the jokes I find funniest go over their heads while they find plenty of other things to crack up about.

Remake The Warriors starring Joe Biden.

Vox: “Here’s how to remove Brett Kavanaugh without impeaching him and here’s how to build a real phaser like from Star Trek.”

“Canceling is mine,” says the Lord

Ghostbusters III: No Girls Allowed

Don’t know anything about Shane Gillis. He could be the racisty racist that ever racisted. I do know that cancel people are just as awful as any racist. What sort of person goes after someone to get him fired? Unless Gillis was burning a cross on your lawn, you’re being garbage.

If you had a magic wand that could magically cause all guns to disappear in the world and never come back, would you use it?
Looking at the world before guns and how much more the strong preyed on the weak, I’d say I definitely would not.
In fact, I might try to figure out how to reverse the polarity of the wand and instead give everyone in the world guns.

What would make me interested in a new Spider-Man movie would be if they brought back Tobey Maguire. I want old man Spider-Man!

Yang is the only presidential candidate I wouldn’t send to prison.

What is the absolute worst story about Kavanaugh from the past three decades?

Vox Guide to Removing Kavanaugh without Impeachment:
Step One: Capture a leprechaun

Climate change is a bunch of rich people telling poor people how they have to make their lives worse so the rich people’s beachfront property doesn’t get messed up.

“Obama just spent $15 million on a new house in Martha’s Vineyard, so you guys need to stop eating hamburgers so nothing happens to it.”

I’m listening to the final version of Hellbender for Audible. You shall all have it soon.

Cool. Looks like Jack Ryan will be fighting socialists in season 2. As long as we’re doing retro 80s stuff, I want more battling commies!

*puts a grenade in a commie’s mouth and throws him off a roof*
“Let’s see your free health care handle this!”

This Joker sounds like an interesting fellow whom everyone should emulate.

Really enjoyed First Blood the novel, but it was way different character from Stallone’s Rambo. Now I’m curious to read the novelization’s of Rambo 2 and 3 since they’re from the same author and I’m wondering if he tries to make movie Rambo more like book Rambo.
I can’t find the review online, but I remember Ebert in his review of Rambo 2 being surprised they let a mass murderer out of prison. I’m thinking he got the book confused with the movie since Rambo only accidentally kills one person in the First Blood film.

Both the Republicans and Democrats don’t take climate change seriously. They just don’t take it seriously in different ways.

And I always found something about property tax unsettling, and it wasn’t until people said “We already pay a wealth tax on property!” that I understood exactly why that was.
Because of the property tax, you can be too poor to own property. If you don’t give the government what it demands, you lose it.

Me if I were a billionaire and there was a wealth tax: “Sorry, I lost my billions in a boating accident.”

You know the ancient Chinese saying: If you want to take people’s guns, you’re going to need a lot of guns.

Finally watched that Dave Chappelle Netflix special. It was very inappropriate. Felt bad a few times when I laughed.

If I were a billionaire, an indulgence I’d do would be that I’d be willing to spend up to $1000 to avoid paying $1 in taxes. Government is where money goes to die, and I want my money to go elsewhere to flourish and reproduce.

Know who was always saying “People need to pay their fair share!”?
Adolf Hitler.
Well, I don’t know if he actually said that; I don’t speak German and I don’t listen to a lot of Hitler speeches, but it sounds like something he’d say.

Some of the last great memories with my dad was watching Kellen Moore’s four years at Boise State (my dad was a season ticket holder). It makes me so happy to see his continued success since then.
He never thought Kellen Moore was going to make it in the pros. I wish my dad lived to see Kellen quarterback for the Dallas Cowboys (and now be their offensive coordinator). SarahK would have so shoved that in his face (he used to make fun of her Cowboys fandom).

You can’t confiscate guns, you sillies. We’ve always avoided registrations knowing that was the first step to confiscation. So there are no records of any guns. If a “mandatory buyback” of AR-15s has greater than 5% compliance, I’d be surprised.

On my first day as president, I will sign an executive order dissolving the Senate and then begin construction of my Death Star.

There are unprincipled conservatives who went all in for Trump and unprincipled conservatives who went all in against Trump and then there are we principled conservatives who just sit around being fairly useless and ignored.

“Your freedom to swing your fist ends when I get scared about you having the freedom to swing your fist.”

My 3yo always yells threats at the moon when she sees it like a common Buzz Aldrin.

I’m a little surprised how well Hellbender has done. It’s such a weird book. I was bracing for it to take a beating in reviews while just a select few really liked it, but so far it’s 25 reviews, 23 of them 5 star.
I had been delaying it’s release as I didn’t even know how to market it or describe the plot. Finally, I was just like we got to do this. I think having the cover by Ethan Nicolle helped. It looked like it possibly could be a good book. Maybe that would fool some people.
But people actually liked it. That’s cool. Well, the Audible version is coming soon and is really really good and I’m already started on a sequel which I had planned out but was half convinced I’d never do since no one was going to like the first.

I just read a Max Boot column and he opposes Trump and won’t vote for the GOP!!!

Are all the Democratic candidates really for abortion on demand at 39 weeks? That’s insanely evil. The average Ku Klux Klan member gets to look down on people who hold that position.
It’s hard to believe anyone isn’t horrified by that prospect. I would think that the candidates are just too much of moral cowards to say what they actually believe.

The fastest way to identify a fascist is laughter. Fascists find things funny. Non-fascists are constantly too upset by injustice to ever even smile.

I remember when we moved to New Jersey (back in ’88) my dad tried to register the handguns he brought, but the sheriff said not to bother. Because really, someone who will voluntarily report his guns is not someone to worry about.
I also remember my dad having to go to Pennsylvania to get an air rifle because it was just too difficult to get one in NJ.

A good marketing idea for a comedian may be to pay SJWs to denounce his comedy special.
“I saw it, and I’m literally shaking.”

My advice for comedy: Punch down. And punch down so hard they can’t get up to complain.

Watching John Wick 3. I love all the world building they have around the action.
And that scene where John Wick puts together an antique gun from different parts and listens carefully as he revolves the cylinder has to be an homage to Tuco doing the same thing in The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly (such a great scene).

Dave Chappelle is hilarious.
I mean, I haven’t watched his special and don’t plan to (I think he CUSSES), but watching the horrible little cancel culture people react with “That’s not funny!” is pretty entertaining.

The Greta Thunberg thing seems like some weird troll.
“You won’t listen to climate scientists, but will you listen to… some random girl from another country?”
“Wha… what are you… Why?”

Rambo IV did not sit well on my wife, so she tasked me with finding some other dumb action series like Fast & Furious to watch. We’re trying out Olympus Has Fallen (which I guess is having a second sequel coming out). On Netflix, so bonus!
I know Morgan Freeman was in this, so I adjust assumed he was the president. Racist?

Well, Olympus Has Fallen definitely qualified as dumb action. It had action, and it was so so so so so so dumb.
So dumb.

As part of my Rambo movie bingeing, I’m now reading First Blood. The author wrote the novelizations to Rambo 2 and 3, even though that’s a much different character (partly because he’s still living after First Blood).
I wonder what it’s like to be a part of such a cultural phenomenon, as Rambo feels more like a word than a person. It actually took me out of the movie Last Blood for a moment when Rambo told the sheriff his name and he didn’t react as if it were anything other than a normal name.

I’m thinking of becoming a right-wing grifter. How does one begin at that? What are the start up costs?

I get that people like lecturing about climate change, but no one has convinced me they honestly believe the world is under grave threat via their behavior.

Can you imagine summers before A/C existed? That must have been the worst. Now summers are fine… as long as you don’t have to go outside. I work from home; I can go days without going outside.
Sometimes, though, I have to open the front door to receive things delivered to me. That’s the worst.

Know who reminds me of Hitler? People who disagree with me.

Biden might be fine as president. People seem to understand he’s kind of an idiot—no one thinks he’s a genius—and it seems like the best we can hope for with president is someone most Americans agree is kind of dumb and should be mainly ignored.

So much of sports commentary is just stupid nonsense.
“More than just more points, what Florida State needs here is to build some momentum.”
No, I’m pretty sure they just need more points.

If it weren’t stupid nonsense, what would they say, though?
“What Florida State needs to do here is get the ball and get more points and then do that again.”

Working on a sequel to Hellbender… though just in my head. My writing approach is to come up with a bare skeleton of a story structure in my head and then sit down and write and see what happens.
Hellbender is my first novel where I intended to do a sequel, purposely hinting at a number of things to expand in later books.

“If you strike me down, I shall become more powerful than you can possibly imagine.”
“As powerful as a gorilla with T-Rex heads for fists?”
“…”
“Okay, I underestimated your imagination, Darth.”

I don’t think there is ever a good reason to say certain 4-letter words, such as “Beto.”

The butt stomp in New Super Mario Bros. U is the bane of my existence. 95% of the time, I’m doing it accidentally and it gets me killed.

Any actual solution to mass shootings probably doesn’t involve angrily yelling at the political opponents one already hated, so I’m guessing no one will ever care enough to implement it.

Batman is the most popular superhero because he speaks to a deep truth we all feel inside: Crime can be solved by a billionaire punching poor people.

What’s True: Biden is a person who said things.
What’s False: Everything he said.
Verdict: Mixture of True/False

Watching Godzilla: King of Monsters. It has Eleven in it and the actor who I’m probably the last person to keep thinking of as “the guy from Early Edition.”
The movie answers the eternal question: Who is the king of monsters? (it’s Godzilla)

It seems like the best way to stop mass shooting would be to not give them media coverage, but that sounds almost as untenable as a gun ban.

If you hate guns and don’t agree with the idea that a good guy with a gun is a solution to a bad guy with a gun, I believe it would be entirely constitutional to disarm the government.

When people scream and screech on an issue, all that shows is they love to scream and screech and feel righteous. It’s the people who show humility who actually care about an issue.

If they’re right about climate change, we could all be dead.
If they’re wrong, they’ll never realize it and keep screeching about how we’re close to doomsday forever and ever.
So, either way, the future is not looking good.

*open on man being soaked in the rain*
MAN: “I hate this climate!”
VOICE OUT OF NOWHERE: “What if you could change the climate?”
MAN: “That would be the greatest thing ever!”
—ad for climate change

Trying to keep criminals from obtaining one of the 400 million guns in this country is just ice skating uphill.

Hellbender now has 22 reviews. Two of them are less than five star, but the rest know what they’re talking about.

FBI lists 403 murders by rifle out of 15,129 murders. So, assuming all of those rifles are AR-15s (which they aren’t) and a law passed against them was 100% effective (which it won’t be) and someone won’t just get another weapon (which they will), you get < 3% reduction in murder.
But again, you won’t get that because any law (even a never going to happen national confiscation law) is still going to leave millions of AR-15s out there and hundreds of millions of other guns. You’re not going to have a measurable reduction in murder at all.
So all of this is to say I have trouble taking people who focus on the AR-15 seriously. You’re not actually trying to solve a problem. All these proposed law seem like they’d just irritate gun owners who were never going to shoot anyone and have no other effect.
I feel like no one is trying to use their brains when it comes to guns—like it’s considered uncouth to come at with anything other than pure emotion.

Though I find Trump so ridiculous that I have trouble convincing myself he’s not a cartoon character, a part of me want to drop everything and join Space Force.

So Andrew Yang’s plan is to give people enough money every month to buy an AR-15?

The people who should be asking if they’re okay with violence are the ones proposing gun confiscation. Suddenly declaring millions of Americans who never hurt anyone criminals if they don’t give up their property is not a peaceful act.
And what’s the goal here? You’re going to treat millions of law-abiding Americans as criminals so that maybe—just maybe—a handful of people won’t get a certain gun and instead have to use a different gun? That’s insane.

Maybe I’m a squish, but I don’t care about businesses banning open carry. I think bans on conceal carry, though, are beyond moronic unless you’re going to enforce that with metal detectors and armed security. Otherwise, what are you trying to stop?

What would be so wrong about requiring a universal background check before anyone purchases a gun or votes?

All these background checks and other measure to stop bad people from getting guns are just playacting. There are like 400 million guns already in circulation in this country; if someone wants a gun, they’re going to get a gun.
I think the one gun control shown to be effective is harsh penalties for using a gun in a crime as that goes after desire to use a gun rather than pretending you can stop someone from getting a gun.

How much gun crime is from non-criminals lending each other guns?

“Could you loan me a gun?”
“What for?”
“There are things far away I want to put holes in.”
“Okay, but you’ll have to pass a rigorous background check.”
“That’s fine. By the way, I loved Hellbender. I gave it 5 stars on Amazon.”
“Here. Have this bag of guns.”

*opens the door to see Beto O’Rourke*
“I’m here to take your AR-15s.”
“I don’t have any.”
*Beto points to the dozen AR-15s hanging on the wall*
“What are those?”
“They are… um… AR… uh… 14s. Perfectly harmless.”
“Oh. Okay!”
*Beto skateboards away*

“Hello. I’m here to confiscate your guns. Do you have any guns?”
“No. Sorry.”
“But your truck has a bumper sticker that says ‘I Heart Guns.'”
“That’s a typo.”
“Well, can I come inside and look for guns?”
“No.”
“…”
“Okay. You win this round.”

They’re not going to be able to confiscate our plastic straws until they first confiscate our AR-15s.

And don’t fall for “plastic straw registration.” That’s the first step to plastic straw confiscation.

They’re just going to put everything in Capri Sun type packages as a back door ban on plastic straws since then you’ll never be able to successfully use them.

The left’s long term economic plan seems to be that there will eventually just be five trillionaires doing all the work who are taxed at 99.9% to fund everyone else spending their days making art no one wants.

If one of the Democrats says “We have to make huge compromises with the Republicans to get them to go along with our climate change laws!” then I might believe the world is ending.

It’s hard to believe climate change must be this dire threat when Democrats (who claim to believe in it) are never motivated to do anything other than base-pleasing pablum.
I mean, the Green New Deal was just a grab bag of everything the left ever wanted plus a pony. How does paying for people who don’t feel like working help keep the planet from dying? Obviously the authors weren’t really that concerned.
“The world is going to end! We have to take drastic measures now! And they just happen to match my laundry list of policy ideas I always wanted anyway!”

The whole Chick-fil-A thing seems like the left picking a cultural war they didn’t need to just to lose it. Honestly, if you put a Chick-fil-A next to the average left-wing activist, which one is going to come off as more bigoted and hateful?

The worst part of capitalism is having to accept the idea that a person looking to make himself rich can material help the poor a 1000 times more than someone motivated by charity. It’s a bitter pill to accept that intentions don’t equal results.

The assumption seems to be that Sony did something wrong in the Spider-Man dispute because their movies are terrible.

Watching Rambo 2: First Bloodier!
My wife was confused by First Blood. “I thought he’d be running around the jungle or something.” I think this will be more to her expectations.

Man, I vaguely remember playing an NES game based on this movie. I think I had to kill flamingos or something—it was one of those NES games where everything is trying to kill you.

To be honest, Rambo hasn’t really shown a lot of skill in this movie. He just happens to not get hit a lot.

Monopoly: Socialism probably should have came with a “trigger warning” as that’s a good lame boomer joke and also that one guy got totally triggered by it.

What’s so scary about The Babylon Bee is that it’s a well-known scientific fact that conservatives can’t be funny. So what purpose would “satire” serve to them? It’s hard not to imagine something nefarious.
Conservatives, not understanding satire, thinks the purpose of it is to trick people.
“This is a very funny article. It has fooled many people.” is the sort of thing you might hear said if you found yourself among people from the right.
The left, on the other hand, are untrickable. This is just part of having good, smart policy ideas that always work. Thus it’s quite baffling to them this right-wing “humor” where people are fooled into believing things such as Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez not being very bright.
So what’s the solution? We need the government to step in. Just like you can’t say “Fire!” in a crowded theater (or even if it’s merely past two-thirds capacity), you can’t be tricking people in this volatile political climate.
Tlaib and Omar did not try to sneak into Israel stacked on top of each other in a trenchcoat, and it’s dangerous that people might believe that.

Little Winchester is almost 7 months old now. According to physical therapy, he’s still tracking with typical kids and we’re moving on to his 9mo milestones. He loves drinking ice water.

When I sign “love” to him, he always immediately grabs my hand and sticks one of my fingers in his mouth. I think he’s trying to be funny. If so, he should clearly label his satire.

What’s with the songs at the end of the first three Rambo movies? It seems really out of place.

I’m sad to hear about David Koch’s passing. I know there was often a cartoon depiction of the Koch brothers (everyone needs their Emmanuel Goldstein), but he really seemed to be someone who tried to use the wealth he was blessed with to make the world a better place.

For most of the Democratic presidential candidates, the only way they’re going to get anymore news coverage is dropping out.

The far left seem much more defined by hating certain people and groups than being for anything in particular.

If you want to look at the bright side, though don’t actually hate real people — just some imaginary concept they have of certain people. And much of that is usually projection. So the hate and anger is actually very self critical.

Can’t wait until the people who celebrate the death of their political opponents are in charge of health care.

Kind of like some animals have warning colors to know they’re poisonous, some people have warning signals to never give them political power.

One of the greatest technical innovations of our age is adding ridges to potato chips so that they have the structural integrity to withstand thicker dips like bean.

I don’t even understand caring about billionaires. I guess it’s because I have a job and a family and actual problems to deal with.

“Those billionaires, they make me so mad! I mean, I have more wealth than 99% of people throughout history, but billionaires have way more than me and I am going to scrunch up my face and get really mad about it!”

As terrible as the prequels are, it’s hard not to get excited for an Ewan McGregor Obi Wan series.

The left need to take on the moral sickness that’s rotted much of their fringes. It makes all their talk of compassion and tolerance look quite hollow.
No idea how, though. Certainly no one has come up with a good idea on how to similarly clean up the right.
Maybe we can join forces. Or at least find a place to hide together while the rest tear each other apart.

People think expressing their hate shows how much they care about certain issues but all it shows is they like being hateful and are looking for excuses to show it.

Jesus’s statement that people should love their neighbors and love their enemies will never cease to be a radical notion and everyone will always fight against it.
But consider giving in.

I only know Werner Herzog from his cameo in Parks and Rec, but that’s still enough to make me excited to see him in a Star Wars.

The way a surprising large number of the left act when someone they disagreed with dies is one the scariest aspects of the modern left. They get this caricature in their head of political opponents then end up fully dehumanizing them.

It’s not easy to fight against one’s own hate. People instead want to feel righteous about it—justified in it. And the more hateful they are just shows how much they care about injustice or whatever. Instead they just become the worst of whatever they claim to hate.
Maybe I need to do a new book about punching one’s inner nazi. It’s one own hate that’s the biggest problem (and the one you have the most control over).

Why am I getting excited for Star Wars again? I read as a child that dogs will keep going after skunks and getting sprayed and never learn; it seems like that.
But it can be good. Force Awakens was pretty good.
I realize it’s kind of funny how I felt the need to qualify the thing about dogs and skunks. I’m very suspicious of any scientific facts I learned about only has a child.

This whole idea the balance of the Supreme Court rests on when people happen to die is super dumb—like monarchy dumb.
I’ve always thought the Supreme Court was the least well-thought out part of the Constitution.

Check out this great video explaining the whole Babylon Bee/Snopes brouhaha. See Bee headlines animated!

You’ll be happier if you spend less time on Twitter and more time reading books. I’ve written three novels (the latest is Hellbender). Ethan Nicolle wrote about bears. The Babylon Bee has a book. Dostoevsky wrote some things. There’s like a dozen books out there.

So are the She-Hulk, Moon Knight, and Ms. Marvel series announced all live action or animated? And is it possible to take the name “Moon Knight” seriously?

If there’s another Supreme Court vacancy, Trump needs to pick a nominee that will unify this nation… like The Rock.

I’m still surprised that the “mooses” line from Hellbender seems to be the biggest break out line. The narrator working on the Audible version emailed me after reaching it saying he then had to take a break to recover.
I’ve been doing humor a while now, but there’s still so much voodoo to it. Every once in a while I come up with a funny idea and it’s received just as I think it will be, and other times the things I find funniest are things only I find funny.

Watching Rambo III. I’ve seen it before, but all I remember about it are the parts that were parodied in Hot Shots Part Deux.
The Rambo formula to being a great soldier seems to be that people shoot at him and miss and then he shoots back at them and does not miss.
I do like how he treats his wound with gunpowder and fire. Straight from the Boy Scout first aid manual.

Man, they knew how to deal with Commies in the 80s, though.
“You want to make everything free? Take this for free!”
*blows a Soviet up with an explosive arrow*

“There are many faults to your economic system you fail to recognize!”
*fires M60 from the hip*

Nuking hurricanes is one of the main duties of Space Force.

Is there really even a single person out there who takes this Joe Walsh thing seriously?
I swear, politics makes me feel like Frank Grimes these days.

JJ Abrams claims he isn’t trying to undo The Last Jedi, though rumor is that Rise of the Skywalker opens with Rose being executed for treason for how she tried to kill Finn.

Remember that gaslighting campaign where people claimed that The Last Jedi was good and that critics loved it? That was so bizarre.

Man, I hope my last words aren’t “Aiee! I’ve been nuked!”

I find the way a large number of the left have these gleeful celebrations whenever someone on the opposite politically from them dies so depressing. It’s not just that so many people are such hateful little children about politics, it’s that they want to advertise it.
I mean, most racists at least understand they should at least try and hide their shameful hate.
And how can these people be so arrogant and willfully dimwitted to not even imagine people might have good reasons to oppose them politically? I mean, look at them; they’re hateful wieners. Of course they have lots of policy ideas that are just awful; how do they not see this?
Maybe one day they’ll grow out of it. “Oh boy; I used to be such a hateful, arrogant turd. I’d quickly dehumanize anyone who disagreed with me. Luckily there were billionaires out there to fund organizations to make sure people like me never got power.”
“Really, can you think of someone like me in power, someone who can’t even fathom that maybe I’m wrong about something and thus thought everyone opposed to me was evil. Millions would die.”
And they’ve always got some excuse about why whatever issue they’ve glommed onto is so special that their hate is justified, but they don’t really care. The hatred is the point. They like hating and feeling righteous in their hate and to get praised for it.
To look at things outside of some “everyone who is against me is evil” viewpoint would take the mind of an adult, and they just want to be emotional and scream.
And where are the adults on the left? Shouldn’t there be more out there saying, “You petulant little children. Stop jettisoning every single bit of classical liberalism because you love throwing tantrums.”
“Do you mewling idiots have any idea how your gleeful celebrations of the death of people who dared disagree with expose all your talk of tolerance and compassion as absolutely hollow rhetoric.”
The only one on the left I saw speak out so far was Alyssa Milano, pointing out how the rabid bloodlust doesn’t really jive with their whole opposition to the death penalty.
It’s not that hard to understand, though. Some guy murders some people you don’t know, that’s abstract and you can have compassion for that guy. Someone disagrees with you on tax policy, though, that’s personal.
And what do these silly silly people think is going to be the reaction to their performative hate? “Wow! I wish I had the political convictions of those who celebrate the death of whoever disagrees with them!”
“If there’s one thing I know about the Nazis, they had weak political convictions–certainly not enough to wish death on those who disagreed. Only people with smart and correct views could be that certain they’re right.”
Whatever. Anyway, Jesus says to love your neighbor and your enemies. And your fellow citizens are more your neighbor than your enemy — even if they have the opposite politics from you.
We’re all just trying to do what we think is best for this country and for everyone. Try to learn to celebrate that… even if you think others are going about it all wrong.
Well, said my piece. Love you all… even the haters and the losers (and no one is really a loser and we all hate from time to time but should aim to be better).

Trump could set an orphanage on fire because he was cold and wanted to warm himself and the MSM would still somehow overplay it to the point I’d end up having to defend Trump.

Trump’s idea of nuking a hurricane didn’t bother me; it’s his idea of using psychological warfare against volcanoes that’s worrisome.

I’m not upgrading my Kindle until they finally get USB-C. I’m so sick of microUSB. That port always just wears out.

All the Rambo movies are R rated, but the first three look positively G-rated compared to the 4th.
Weirdly, it was $3.99 to rent on Amazon, but $4.99 to buy. I don’t know if I’ll ever watch it again, but sure, here’s the extra buck.

So at the end, Rambo is walking a long road toward a ranch while the credits roll for like ten minutes. I think Stallone was like “Have a stunt double do it; I don’t want to walk that long.” SarahK thinks he did that stunt himself.
Man, Stallone was already in his 60s for that movie. He’s now in 70s for the one coming out later this year. He may be able to kill a bunch of people, but he’ll feel it in the morning.

If someone was ever mean to me on the internet, I’d probably freak out. That would be so crazy. What kind of psychopath would be mean to me? I’m a cool dude everyone loves.

I just don’t understand caring about billionaires. You have an absurd amount of wealth compared to people form 200 years ago. A billionaire has way more than you, but hundreds of years from now people will have way more than him. Who cares?
If you don’t want to be miserable all the time, have some gratitude for what you have and don’t worry about what someone else has.
I think it’s obscene even knowing someone else’s wealth. Whose business is that?
The only absurdly wealthy person who has money he doesn’t deserve that I get angry about is Uncle Sam.
Oh yeah, might as well mention again my short story “The Demon Capitalism” which is about how I find one of the biggest objections about capitalism completely baffling that anyone would care about it.

Has anyone figured out a way to stop Trump yet? Have you tried completely overreacting to everything he says or does?

I shouldn’t have to search for the error among 500 warnings. Maybe when there’s that many warnings, the IDE should be smart enough to know I just don’t care about them.

“WARNING: You defined variable ‘device’ but never used it.”
Maybe one day I will. Leave me alone. Who is it hurting?

Is there a moral difference between a third trimester abortion and infanticide? Seems you can deliver the child just as easily as kill him or her at that point. If so, then abortion would only be morally permissible where infanticide would also be permissible.

At the end of the CNN 7 hour Democratic presidential townhall on climate change, will anyone want the world to continue on?