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?

It used to be when someone said “white supremacy” I’d think “Oh, like the KKK” but now I think “Oh, like breakfast cereal.”

“They won’t listen to scientists or Al Gore, maybe they’ll listen to… some random kid!”

They’re pea-brains and virulent anti-Semites, but I’m not sure what harm they would have done by visiting.

So is it just way too late to tell Randy Newman he doesn’t have a very good singing voice?

If Ilhan Omar is boycotting Israel but then had to spend a week in Israel, wouldn’t she starve to death?

Just when I thought Trump couldn’t possibly be any dumber, he goes and does something like plots to buy Greenland and TOTALLY REDEEMS HIMSELF!

Can we stop pretending either party cares about bigotry?

Or, to put it another way, if caring about bigotry were a golf ball, winning elections would be the sun.

Argument I will not listen to:
“This politician you say is horrible is good actually.”
You make that argument, you’re everything wrong with society.
What I will listen to:
“This politician you say is extra horrible is really just regular politician horrible.”

Man, I honestly thought we were done with the whole Snopes saga and then they commission a friggin’ survey asking if people believe our articles.

Snopes has turned my daughter against me.
“Maybe you shouldn’t make fun of people.”
“I don’t make fun of people. I make fun of politicians.”

My 3yo: “Can you put on the kid’s version of Ain’t Nobody Tell Me Nothing?”

Why are there so many nazis in Portland?

Antifa gets rid of nazis by making them feel redundant.

Ridiculing antifa makes you pro-nazi in the same way ridiculing a bunch of LARPers running around a park makes you pro-orc.

Winchester is almost seven months old, but the other kids still act like they’ve never seen a baby before every time we get him up from a nap.

They call themselves “Proud Boys”? That’s the name they came up with?

It’s hard to believe the people who think Trump is this genius who can never do wrong and the people who think antifa are brave freedom fighters are two different groups as the detachment from reality seems so similar.

I don’t know why companies hire big name stand up comedians for their ads and then apparently write a bunch of unfunny lines for them to say.

“A rose by any other name would smell as sweet.”
“But what if we called it an ‘anti-rose’?”
“Oh. Then it would be something else entirely.”

How to Beat Donald Trump:
Try not to be worse than him.

My daughter asked why dollars are valuable. That’s a hard one to explain. I tried the “shared fiction” explanation, but eventually told her “Just try not to think about it too hard or the whole system will collapse.”

If they want to fight fascism, shouldn’t they be backing up the people in Hong Kong?

Why are we still talking about slavery? We ended slavery in the 80s with the “Don’t do slavery” slogan.

The Joe Rogan thing is kind of odd from the outside.
“Oh yeah. He’s like a comedian, I think. I know I’ve heard of him. So he has a podcast? That must be pretty niche.”

I try not to comment on people’s appearances, but I just can’t help it this time: What happened to Al Sharpton? It’s like his body just shrunk. He looks like a bobble head.

There are lots of reasons to criticize Israel that have nothing to do with anti-semitism… but 95% of the criticism they receive is because of anti-semitism.

Doing movie break between show binging, so watching the Rambo movies with my wife. I warned her the first one is way different than you’d think, but it’s all dumb action schlock after that. Never seen the 4th one.
I know this one is the “best” one and I should be enjoying it more, but I really just want to see Rambo kill a bunch of commies like he does in 2 and 3.

I liked the way this review explained the robot Feeb from Hellbender. He’s a robot bound by Asimov’s three laws, but does everything he can to go against the spirit of those laws.

I think it would take a lot to convince the right that any time the left are talking about race they’re not just using it as a partisan cudgel.

Man, I was just telling my wife, “I sure could use another Spider-Man reboot.” So what a great day.

“Also, I’m really curious about what happened to Trinity and Neo after the end of the 3rd Matrix movie.”
“After they died and all the fun was sucked out of that franchise?”
“Yeah.”

“Mr. Anderson, welcome back. We missed you.”
“Really?”
“No. Are you sure you don’t want to spend your time doing another John Wick instead?”

How a real president would have handled it:
“I would like to buy Greenland.”
“We don’t want to sell it.”
“I never asked if you wanted to sell it.”

Suffice to say, if the Trump presidency ends with Greenland still in Denmark’s hands, then it was a failed presidency.

If you hear “Chick-fil-A” and your first thought is “They hate gay people!” you live in a bubble.

“So, Goldfinger, do you expect me to talk?”
“No, Mr. Bond. I expect you to die.”
“I don’t have time for that.”

I heard a story that broke my heart. A family had an agreement with a mother to adopt her child, but the child had a birth diagnose of Down Syndrome and the family dropped out. It was made less sad that I heard this from the family who immediately agreed to adopt the boy.
Having a special needs child isn’t easy, but I pray to God I’m up to the task. I don’t think you can do a greater thing in life than make a child feel loved and wanted.

Apparently a lot of people read the 2nd Amendment as “Now let us take a break from listing individual rights to mumble something about militias. Please ignore.”

Wealth is immoral. Let me be burdened with your sins.

Did people just make up this whole thing about The Hunt being about liberals slaughtering MAGA types? There’s none of that in the trailer. And if that is the premise, the liberals are clearly the bad guys.
Or if the production company spread this rumor, bravo on stealth marketing.

I dream of a world where partisanship is considered as big a moral failing as racism.

We need to stop the white supremacists. We also need to stop the not quite as bad but still awful “whites are in my top three.”
Don’t rank the races, people.

Seems like any law designed to stop a bad person from buying a gun could only ever have a marginal effect even if extremely effective since there’s like 400 millions guns out there already purchased.

Of the things sold at Walmart that kill people, would their guns even make the top ten?

I once bought a gun at Walmart. While living in Florida, got an automated phone call from police that there had been break-ins in the area. So I said to myself, “I should own a shotgun.”
So I went to Walmart and I think it cost $200 for a basic pump action shotgun. I think there would have been a waiting period for a background check or something, but it was waived since I had a concealed carry permit.
I bought a box of shells with it. I still have them all as I’ve never fired the thing. It’s not really something you take to an indoor range, is it?
To me, the great thing about a pump action shotgun is it chambers a round really loudly and everyone knows what that sound is.

I hope my son doesn’t end up as absent minded as me. He’s only stepped on the baby three times so far.

“Whoops. Sorry guys. First day as suicide watch guard. I’ll do better tomorrow.”

I read Black Swan by Nassim Nicholas Taleb and it was nothing like the movie.

That’s pretty damning.

I think at this point we’re less angry at the Clintons and more angry at ourselves for not watching them more closely.

I was just thinking: Who are movie novelizations aimed at? People who would rather read than watch a movie but are still are interested in movies?
I remember reading the novelization of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle movie as a kid. Action was not as fun in that.

Been meaning to mention that The Pursuit, a documentary by Emergent Order about
Arthur Brooks and free markets, is now on Netflix. I highly recommend it. It’s an exploration of capitalism and its effect (good and bad) on people around the world.
Arthur Brooks is obviously very pro free markets, but what really impressed me with it was him talking with socialists where he was just listening — going at them with the attitude of what are these people right about. I.e, don’t watch The Pursuit expecting the owning of libs.

A pretty amazing thing about my 3yo is she has a couple stuffed animals she wants at bedtime, but she can always tell me exactly where each one is despite always leaving them in different places. I don’t have that memory.
“Can you get me Woofy and Bun Bun, pweese? Woofy is on the couch in the living room and Bun Bun is on the white table in the kitchen.”
She never knows where her shoes are, though.

We can’t use ethnic slurs against Italians anymore? Then who’s left we can use slurs against? The Irish?

I’m a quarter-Italian. I can call people Fredo; you can’t.

Maybe, just maybe, people aren’t against abortion because of white supremacy or because they want to control women but instead oppose abortion for the extremely obvious reasons.
The reasons people are both for and against abortion are fairly obvious and the reasons people plainly state, and to pretend it is all about something else just shows an uncomfortability with dealing with the actual arguments.

Great news! The Hellbender audio book is going into production and should be ready by around the end of the month. We have a professional with a huge vocal range working on it, so I’m very excited to see how it turns out.
This was the first audio book where I got to listen to auditions and pick the narrator. Thanks for all the support so far; there wasn’t originally going to be an audio book but the book has done really well.

As appalling as Trump is, it seems like one shouldn’t have to sacrifice all his integrity to oppose Trump, but in practice it is apparently very hard.

“Stop the presses! Stop the presses! We’re getting ratioed on Twitter!”
All the news that won’t upset Twitter mobs.

I’m reading a book on gross motor skills for children with Down syndrome and it makes everything from rolling over to crawling to standing seem so complicated I’m not sure how any of our other kids learned how to do any of it.
I guess that’s part of the point, though: These are all extremely complex movements involving lots of subtle balance and other issues that we usually never need to think about. If you have to break it down step by step, it’s complicated.

Question for dogs who tilt their head when something confuses them: Has that ever helped?

The SMOD is going to wait until we solve climate change.

If you want something to be crazy expensive, have the government help people pay for it.

If you guys keep watching these debates, they’ll keep having them.

I finished Endgame. It was good!
I’m not really sure no the extend of Captain Marvel’s powers, though. Seems like everything would have been really easy if she just stuck around.

Kamala Harris is like Oprah, but instead of everyone getting a free car, they get prison.

Yes, Trump is unbelievably awful, but we spent billions of dollars back in 2016 to find a president and he was the best we could come up with.

Seriously, though, Chick-fil-A does great food and customer service, and the people trying to make them into a political entity are making up a battle just to lose it.

UHF is available free if you have Amazon Prime. Time to find out if that’s a movie I only liked because I was a dumb kid.

I’m so libertarian, I bristle every time I use the word “free.”

BTW, remember when Weird Al Yankovich’s American Pie parody about The Phantom Menace came out and he suddenly didn’t have glasses or a mustache anymore? Man, it took me years to accept that.

Got Endgame with Bonus Features on Amazon video, but it’s just one over 7 hour long movie file. No sections or anything you can quickly move between. No way to navigate on a Roku except fast forward. Gives me vague memories of using a VCR.

Though I had an NES and played both Super Mario Bros and Super Mario Bros 3 when they both came out, I notice I get the most nostalgia feeling for the Super Mario World mode in Mario Marker 2. I was 12 when that came out.
BTW, if you want to check out my Mario Maker levels, my Maker ID is WX4-YQD-22G. In a recent one, I try to bring back the fear of Mario’s first enemy. It’s very conceptual.

Using ACX to get an Audible version of Hellbender. I wasn’t sure what to expect, but I just put it up yesterday morning and already have 20 auditions to go through. Hopefully I can find someone good as I think it could be even funnier with the right performance.

We have significant amounts of people on the right and left espousing horrible ideas I thought we left back in the 20th century, and I don’t think either party has someone who will forcefully speak out against both.

I hear the term “common sense gun legislation,” but I haven’t seen any that reflects common sense. There are 400 million guns in this country. If your bill operates under the assumption you can successfully keep people from obtaining guns, then common sense was not a co-signer.

All you people who are yelling at Trump even though he said exactly what you want him to say are convincing me you don’t care about white nationalism or mass shootings — you only care about stupid partisanship.

Finding a narrator for Hellbender isn’t easy. More than half the people who’ve auditioned through ACX seem like they’d do a good job. And now I’ve heard the same part of my book read 100 times and hate my own writing.
I’m just kidding. It’s still hilarious.

If the concern really is 30-50 feral hogs coming after your kids, then I want an AR-15 with one of those 90 round drum magazines.
I don’t think I’d trust myself to one shot, one kill in that situation with feral hogs running everywhere. I’d probably also need a second 90 round magazine as backup. Man, where would I keep all that?
Man, I’d be happy to save my kids, but 180 rounds of .223? That has to be uber expensive.

I know your kids are being threatened, but a range of 30-50 is a pretty large margin of error on your estimation on the number of feral hogs.

“Do you want to scream at Trump or actually solve prob–”
*can’t finish the rest of the sentence because the person is already screaming at Trump*

I don’t trust anyone’s outrage anymore. And the louder people scream, the more I assume they’re trying to cover up they’re just being partisan.

These easily angered screaming idiots know what’s best for society and society should conform.

I think a key to 2020 will be whether more Americans feel personally targeted by Trump or the left.

Trump’s supporters take license from the president’s behavior to be awful people. Trump’s detractors take license from the president’s behavior to be even worse people.

*Bernie Sanders walks up to a death row inmate being marched to the execution chamber*
“I know you’re probably a little busy, but why don’t you quickly fill out this absentee ballot.”

Sure the Clintons killed a lot of people back in the day to secure their political power, but I don’t think it’s fair to judge that based on modern standards.

“I’ll swallow your soul!”
-Disney executive looking at a beloved animated feature and contemplating a live action remake

You’re going to be right most of the time if you just assume the thing everyone is getting outraged by is overblown.

I got my first likes for a course I made in Mario Maker 2. I feel so accomplished.
I find the tutorials for level design on Mario Maker 2 quite fascinating. It’s just interesting to here the heuristics on what make an enjoyable level spelled out.
It reminds me of how I played a director’s commentary mode of Portal that explained how levels were shaped by tester feedback. The Companion Cube came about because so few solved a puzzle that required them to carry around a cube from the beginning of the section.

“First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.”
-Bozo the Clown

Giving the left credit for being right about racism feels a bit like if someone fired indiscriminately into a crowd and then you give him a thumbs up because one of the people he hit ended up being a pedophile.

Winchester is 6 months old now. I don’t know what challenges lie ahead, but I feel so lucky he has three older siblings that are obsessed with him.

#ChristianPrivilege
Being used to absolutely no one caring when you say “I’m offended.”

When I first married, we lived an hour for Orlando. We bought a season pass to Disney World and went many times, usually ending in Epcot for dinner. I am looking forward to eventually going back with all my kids, though.
Man, it was nice exploring Disney World with no rush. If you didn’t have time for something, you’d just say, “Eh. I’ll see it next time.” Also met other season passers who knew all these hidden little secrets about the park.

I’ve been to Baltimore once. All I remember is I had a crab cake. I think it was good.
There. I’ve contributed to the discussion.

My 3yo drew the solar system. I love how she strove for color accuracy. I mean our seas somehow ended up purple (wrong crayon?), but she specifically didn’t color in the sun (because it’s white).

Student loan forgiveness doesn’t make sense to me unless it’s the colleges paying back the loans.

I had only contact watched Veronica Mars—my wife binged it multiples times and I just caught bits and pieces of each season here and there—but the new season on Hulu was great. I think that’s the first Hulu original I’ve watched.
My wife is very upset by the ending while I don’t have the emotional investment.

The assertion is that Trump, who constantly yells at everyone who disagrees with him, maybe yells at minorities a bit more. All I can say to that is “maybe?”

No matter how much Trump lowers the bar, the Democrats limbo right under it.

“I know how to defeat Trump: We’ll rally around how great Baltimore and Al Sharpton are!”

Even more than 2016, it seems like 2020 will be a contest of who is trying to lose more.

Why are the Democrats trying to reverse Milkshake Duck Al Sharpton?

Man, four kids is a lot of kids. Interestingly, it makes me feel wealthy.

If they can get Beyond Meat to be cheaper than meat, then you have something. Until then, it’s just a novelty.

I get that some people do take The Babylon Bee headlines seriously–no matter how ridiculous they are–as happens to The Onion and others. But the only reason the The Babylon Bee gets dinged for it is that The Onion happens to be more well known.
You could clearly label ever piece satire, but when you’re explicitly told that a clearly satirical headline is satire, it starts you on the wrong foot with the audience, like you thought they were too dumb to figure it out.

I still remember the first time Snopes really went after
The Babylon Bee, which was before I started writing for the Bee. It was for the article “CNN Purchases Industrial-Sized Washing Machine To Spin News Before Publication” which I refuse to believe anyone thought was real.
Still, the Bee ended up getting a warning from Facebook because the Snopes dinged them as fake news. It was insane.

Trump and Ilhan Omar are both horrible, bigoted people, but they’re our horrible, bigoted people.

“Can the ACLU sue him for hate speech?” seems like something that should go in the hall of fame of dumb comments, but considering the ACLU’s regression, it may one day happen.

If someone can’t produce $15 worth of value an hour, it should be illegal to hire him.

All I remember about Top Gun is how I could never successfully land on the air craft carrier. But I think that was the NES game.
Seriously, landing on a real air craft carrier can’t be as hard as landing on one in the Top Gun NES game.

Raising the minimum wage is the perfect fake caring. It puts all the burden on a few businesses most of the wealthy left don’t care about, and if it just makes thing worse for the poor — as predicted — they’ll never know or care.

I’m not going to watch the Cats trailer and you can’t make me.

“So your 2020 choice: What’s worse — a socialist or a racist?”
“And we’re choosing who to send to prison?”
“No. Who will be president.”
“Oh.”

I swear, if voting were mandatory, you’d need to send the National Guard if you really wanted my input.

If Republicans all denounced a Republicans as racist, that might mean something. But Democrats calling a Republican racist is just white noise and doesn’t mean anything to anyone.

Just to update, Winchester is almost 6 months old now. According to his physical therapist, he’s tracking with typical babies on physical development (though I think his head control is a little behind). We just started him on solid foods, and he seems to really like bananas.

The hierarchy for him is still Mommy >>>>> Daddy, but I’m working on it.

The biggest lie of any politician — and the one you should absolutely not fall for — is “I know what I’m doing.”

I’ve never quite understood what “Seb Gorka” is and you’re not going to make me find out.

My prediction for 2020 is that no matter who wins, we’re going to end up with a worse president than we have now.

If you want to chill about politics, you just have to learn to accept that things are going to be bad no matter what. It’s like when I’m stuck outside in a downpour, I don’t run. You’re going to get soaked either way, so might as well be calm about it.

Am I missing something, because it just seems really weird that someone from Somalia is obsessed with Israel. What is even the relation between those two countries?

I haven’t finished reading The Brothers Karamazov yet, but I’m pretty sure Hellbender is better than it. I’m over a thousand pages into that Russian novel, and I’ve only laughed out loud once (“we’ve adopted the metric system, you know”).

Maybe it’s a little late to ask this, but what is Elvis’s song “Hound Dog” about?
I think I got the gist of “Jailhouse Rock,” though.

Trump might be the most successful president ever, as he’s kept all his campaign promises: wrestle an alligator, bomb Belgium, tax cut

Man landing on the moon ten years before I was born felt like this promise during my childhood of great things to come… though it never did. Perhaps my children are of the generation that will go to Mars, though.

If you’re obsessed with banning plastic straws, you’re not an environmentalist. You’re an irritant.

Oh. Good. They’re making more Marvel movies. I like those.

I didn’t get The Brothers Karamazov. I thought it would add up to more. The trial part at the end lost me. And despite the length, I didn’t feel I got to know Ivan well enough.
A few parts evoked real emotion, but it was all disconnected. And I liked the sentiment it ended on, even if I didn’t really get how it tied into everything.
And again, despite the length, I think my novel Hellbender has a thousand times more laughs.

Saw Justice League as it was finally available to rent digitally after HBO or Showtime or something had it exclusive. It was entertaining but dumb.
The villain, Steppenwolf, was like the uber generic villain. Almost felt like a placeholder. “Interesting villain goes here.”
And one of my main takeaways was that, while I like Amy Adams, I do not like her as Lois Lane. She’s too soft. Lois is supposed to have a hard edge to contract with Clark Kent’s midwestern earnestness.
Anyway, the whole thing just felt like they didn’t try very hard. Villain wants to destroy the world for some reason, so they had to stop him—which mainly meant waiting for Superman to show up. He kinda disproved the whole “we need a team” thing. Just need Superman.

What I also just saw, though, was Shazam. That was fun and very enjoyable. Funny, but also got superhero chills at one point (I think I’m borrowing that phrase from Half in the Bag).
Superhero chills is that feeling you get when the hero is finally stepping up to be the hero he’s meant to be. I like Marvel movies, but they seem to be missing that. Last other example I can think of with that was Wonder Woman.
Next movies I’m waiting to rent digitally are John Wick 3 and Endgame—though that one might finally trick me into buying it digitally so I can see it weeks sooner.

Mr. Rogers is the Chick-fil-A of people.

“Ha! AOC was crying over a parking lot!”
POLITIFACT: “False, haters, we checked a satellite image and it was an empty road.”
I might be paraphrasing
James Taranto, but fact checks are like editorials but dumber.

“Wow. AOC is crying completely real tears over what she’s seeing. Should maybe we point the camera at it and take a picture?”
“Nah. I don’t see what that would add to the story.”

Reviews are important. You can tell me how great my novel is, but that doesn’t help me — I already read it and know it’s great. You need to tell other people. So I can get their money.

If you didn’t know, lots of episodes of Mr. Rogers Neighborhood are available to you if you have Amazon Prime.
For if you’re sick of the kids watching ponies and bad CGI and whatnot.

So is that Harriet Tubman movie a prequel that takes place in the John Wick universe?

BTW, I think Rutger Hauer’s Blind Fury is a fun movie if you haven’t seen it. It’s sort of an American version of Zatoichi with a blind Rutger Hauer taking on mobsters with a cane sword.
He got blinded in Vietnam and the natives there taught him to use a samurai sword for some reason even though I don’t think that’s a thing in Vietnam. It has John Locke from Lost in it (but he’s a coward).
I think I first heard of the film as either Siskel or Ebert listed it as a guilty pleasure. I also remember there’s a scene where thugs try to steal a car from an old lady and she pulls a gun on them, causing them to complain about the need for gun control. Subversive!
I liked the Blind Fury so much, I bought it on DVD a while ago but had to buy it as a double feature with Rutger Hauer’s Omega Doom, which is yet another Yojimbo ripoff but extremely terrible.

For the Nintendo Switch Lite, if it’s handheld only, is it really a “Switch”? What’s it switch into?

Can you vehemently oppose Trump without becoming worse than him? The evidence keeps point to “No.”

Everyone should just lackadaisically oppose Trump like me, the smartest, most reasonable man on the internet.

The only thing Jim Hopper did wrong was not shoot even more Commies. #FatRambo

For you youngins, Commies were the Nazis of the 80s.

Both political parties are falling apart and it’s great. How do we keep that going?

How come you can make like hundreds of different cheeses out of cow’s milk but only the one out of goat’s milk and it can barely hold itself together? What’s wrong with goats?

So who is the best Stranger Things character? It’s Dustin, right?

Some people get upset if they have a child with Down syndrome because it’s not what they’re expecting, but let me tell you: No child is going to be what you’re expecting. They’ll all be much more than that. No person is small enough to fit in your imagination.

The Lion King remake does seem like the most pointless of the live action remakes (which are all already kind of pointless) since it’s not really live action, but just an inferior type of animation for telling the story.

My 3yo is becoming so bossy. Whatever happened to that #BanBossy campaign where they tried to teach little girls to stop being so bossy?

Man, just stepped outside for a minute. Thank you air conditioning. #Blessings

It may be out of fashion, but I still blame all our societal problems on hippies.

So is there like “progressive privilege” where if you think you have the right politics, you feel like you can get away with any behavior?

The “AR” in “AR-15” stands for “AR-15 Rifle.”

With the way Trump has completely torn apart both parties, is he the worst president ever or the greatest president ever?

Little more than halfway through The Brothers Karamazov now. Plot-wise… it’s a little meandering.

The Democrats tearing each other apart, calling each other racist, has to be one of the most delightful things I’ve seen in politics in ages. It’s like all the angels in Heaven are smiling down upon us.

I don’t know why Shakespeare is considered so great. I read through one of his “comedies” — A Midsummer Night’s Dream — and I only laughed out loud twice. I literally laughed more times watching The Hangover.
Maybe Shakespeare is good at some things, but I really doubt he could have gotten hired to write for something like 30 Rock.

The “AR” stands for “Aramalite” which is German for “assault rifle.”

What would happen if Armalite made an AR-16? Society would collapse!

My 3yo kept begging me to play Mario with her, and I am not made of stone.

Scientists theorize that an AR-27 would be dangerous enough to destroy the whole universe.

Believing there are experts who can confirm what the correct politics are is a childishness on the level of believing in a tooth fairy.

So are really the only two choices people crammed into horrible detention centers or open borders?

Personally, I’m fine with tons more people coming here, but it’s like with people coming to Texas from California: Remember why you left.

Funny how The Brothers Karamazov talks a little bit about the folly of equating and Christianity and socialism. Eh, nothing new under the sun.

Man at supermarket was apologizing for his kids’ behavior (which I didn’t care about). Found out they’re his grandkids whom he had gotten out of a shelter in another state. Wish I gave him more words of encouragement; hardly a greater good you can do than give kids a good home.
It’s tough being a Christian and an introvert. You want to lift people’s spirits up, but you’re not very good at it.

I hate to say it, but my 3yo’s drawing of our family is a wee bit creepy.

Didn’t help that when she handed it to me, she whispered, “Seven days.”

*Democrats tear each other apart, calling each other racist*
MOST REPUBLICANS: *sit back laughing*
TRUMP: “No one is paying attention to me!”

Instead of apologizing for his tweets, Trump will just wait until everyone’s forgotten about it because he’s done something even worse.

So it’s over halfway through The Brothers Karamazov that you finally get plot stuff happening, most of the book so far just being setup (though it does kind of warn you about that).
My opinion so far is that Dimitri and Grushenka are perfect for each other as they both cray cray.

Funny how The Good Place started specifically saying it’s not the Christian version of Heaven, but after 3 seasons it stumbles on to why you need Jesus.
“It’s impossible for anyone to earn their way into the Good Place!”
*Jesus appears*
“Exactly. But maybe there’s another way.”

Maybe the House of Representatives can pass another resolution broadly condemning hate and bigotry without specifically naming anyone.

In case you didn’t know, I write for The Babylon Bee. If you see an article from them that makes you say “Man, they’ve sure gotten political. I miss the old Babylon Bee,” I wrote that!

We’re not getting rid of anyone here in America — the racists, the commies, the trolls — and we’re just all going to have to learn to live together. We’re going to keep moving into the future, and it’s no man left behind.

Re: this article, I’ve noticed that while you see a lot of criticism of Christians, you see little criticism of Jesus. That tells me people don’t look at his words very deeply, because if you’re not a Christian, you disagree with him on some big things.
Jesus had a lot of haters in his day, but now we act like everybody’s cool with him. But they ain’t.

This impeachment stuff is starting to be like when they kept teasing that Niles and Daphne were going to get together in Fraiser. I don’t what season finale they’re saving that for.

There are lots of bad racists out there, but part of the problem is the left doesn’t have any language left to describe them that they didn’t already use up on Mitt Romney.

I’m doing it. I’m reading The Brothers Karamazov.
I usually take no more than 10 days to read a book, but I’m giving myself twice as long for The Brothers Karamazov. Light summer reading!

Every dentist office I’ve talked to seems confused about their being dental insurance on our medical insurance even though pediatric dental has been an Obamacare requirement for years (my sister has it and she doesn’t even have kids).
It’s fairly useless since it doesn’t kick in until you meet your medical deductible, but hey we did that this year thanks to the NICU in January.

What happens if some hate groups adopt the Nike swoosh as their symbol?

I hope the title of Trump’s parade is “Tank You for Your Service.”
I guess even more clever if it would be a parade of tanks from all the different wars and they called it “Tanks for the Memories.”

Republicans are going to get the monopoly on American flags and tanks and Democrats are going to get the monopoly on feeling bad about everything.

So what’s happened here? Betsy Ross once made the “OK” symbol with her hand?

I’m still having trouble buying this “the Betsy Ross American flag is racist!” is a real thing and not just a bad right-wing parody insinuating the left hate America.

With The Brothers Karamazov, everyone has this big two part name I have no idea how to pronounce that I just recognize by sight. Everyone also has a nickname which is used interchangeably to keep you on your toes. Still, 100 times easier to read and follow than The Silmarillion.
I’m reading the Constance Garnett translation, which is a very old and traditional one but I’m finding it quite readable.

We should plant the American flag on more things in space than the moon.

We can’t take American freedom for granted. We must constantly hunt down commies and nazis and imprison them in the Phantom Zone.

When they said Trump was going to have tanks, I assumed all of D.C. was going to be flooded with tanks, them rolling over cars as America-hating weenies fled in terror.

There’s not a better era or a better country to live in, you lucky people you.

I always mute instead of block. It’s hard to imagine someone doing something so bad I would deny them my tweets.

Arguably, Communism is worse than Nazism because after the Nazis murdered millions, people were like “This is a really bad thing” but after Communism murdered millions, lots of people are still like “This just needs a few more tweaks.”
It’s like we have a bunch of political raccoons rummaging through the 20th century’s trash.

Complaints about capitalism are always on the order of “This goose that lays the golden eggs bit my finger. Kill it!”
“Sure, I’m unimaginably wealthy compared to how I used to be, but my finger hurts. This is a complete failure of golden egg-ism.”

Why won’t Pelosi step aside and recognize that the future of her party is young, moronic antisemites?

Don’t you love politics? It’s all about rooting for the terrible to be able to stop terribler.

Stranger Things 3 definitely gets extra 80s points for adding a Soviet threat this time.

My infant eyes saw the last six months of the 70s, which means I’m part of the greatest (recent) generation, Gen X. We got a little angsty in the 90s, but other than that we’ve done nothing wrong and are pure and blameless.

I love Erica, the nerd-hating Commie-fighter. “Can’t spell America without Erica.” #StrangerThings3

I enjoyed the second season of Stranger Things, but it definitely made some missteps (I think the biggest was having Eleven be separate from everyone all season). The third season has been pure fun so far, though.

*our 3yo dumps Honey Nut Cheerios all over the counter and floor*
“What are you doing?”
“I’m just making me an hors d’oeuvre.”
*she notices our confusion*
“A snack is an hors d’oeuvre.”

This Bible verse made me laugh out loud today.
Proverbs 23:13 “Do not withhold correction from a child, For if you beat him with a rod, he will not die.”
There’s a lot of hand wringing now about spanking, but the Bible is all like “Eh, it ain’t gonna kill him.”

Every day, Win grows more powerful.

Stranger Things 3 harkens back to when Americans were tougher and if a small town got invaded by Commies—like in Red Dawn—they just handled that themselves and didn’t feel the need to get the government involved.

Future generations will have technology and advantages we can’t even imagine that they’ll whine about and take for granted.
If someone from 200 hundred years ago suddenly got the life you have right now, he’d be more ecstatic than someone winning a hundred millions dollars. So can you be just a little bit happy about your good fortune?

I have a new novel out!
It’s called Hellbender. It’s more satirical than my previous novels. And @AXECOP made the cover. But it now. Only $4.99 for ebook (cheap). If you get the paperback, Amazon will give you the ebook free.
Trump is not mentioned in it. So if you’re like “I need more things to be all about Trump!” then I’m sorry; I have failed you.
What it does have is robots and katanas and Satan and explosions and a cube with bunnies on it — all quality story content that is lacking from the novel I’m currently reading, The Brothers Karamazov. So buy my novel now!

The dream is one day the American men win the World Cup and then like half of the U.S. is completely unaware of it.

The Brothers Karamazov is interesting, but the patronymics are starting to drive me a little crazy. It seems like such a cumbersome way to talk to each other. If there’s only one Dimitri in the room, you don’t have to keep saying “Dimitri Fyodorovich.”
Maybe I should try the patronymic thing. That would make me Frank Frankovich.

Stranger Things 2 wasn’t bad, it just was more of the same and didn’t have the specialness of the first season. Season 3 recaptured that charm, though. It was excellent.
And I completely forgot about The Neverending Story song. That used to be such an ear worm.

My fear was that when Eric Swalwell dropped out, two new candidates would enter the race making the Democratic primary like a hydra.

Just for fun, I wrote a free short story called “The Demon Capitalism.” It’s sort of an exploration of the Faustian bargain at the heart of capitalism from the perspective of a struggling, feudal-era farmer. Very intellectual.

Man, some people get angry when you make fun of soccer. It’s either that or ignore it. Making fun of it seems more respectful — it’s acknowledging it exists.

I wish a cat fight is where you threw angry cats at each other.

How could lots of people die from repealing Obamacare when there wasn’t some big drop in the death rate when it was enacted?

Trump has been baited into treating soccer as if it’s a real sport.

I remember trying to watch soccer when South Africa was hosting the World Cup and they had those vuvuzelas buzzing constantly over the slow-paced spectacle and they were all like “We enjoy this!” Then it became clear: Soccer is just a joke the rest of the world plays on the U.S.
Yes, the whole world is like “Soccer is the greatest! We all love it!” and then they laugh and laugh every time they trick an American into watching it. We keep falling for it. That’s why the World Cup is every four years–give us enough time to forget last time we fell for it.

What are they going to ask Mueller?
“So what did your report say?”

Things sound horrible, but I can’t trust anyone who is telling me it’s horrible, so maybe it’s not as bad as it seems.

I don’t care who is president as long as the majority of Americans are clear he or she is a dishonest idiot who shouldn’t be trusted.

Bernie Sanders has not promised to refrain from burning down the whole convention with his psychic powers if pigs blood is dumped on him.

I think the only question for me with the Democratic primary is will the eventual winner be so terrible as to actually get me to vote for Trump.

I don’t really get the whole citizenship question thing.

The citizenship question seems like voter id in that a small, vocal group is like “This is the most racist thing ever!” and most Americans are like “That isn’t already a requirement?”

When there’s a good quote I want to use in a speech, I always google it to make sure it wasn’t first said by Adolf Hitler.

The far left keep demonstrating they’re far more hateful than their targets. And the thing is, no one is afraid the KKK are somehow going to seize power again, but they are afraid the far-left might manage it.

I don’t know how much you’d have to pay me to watch one of these primary debates. I might watch the general elections ones considering whoever the Dem nominee is. The ones between Trump and Hillary were entertaining.

To use a reference all of American can get, The Office, the Democratic debates is like a debate of a bunch of Michaels and Dwights with a couple Kevins thrown in and maybe a Toby (though he doesn’t stand a chance).
Man, I would vote for a Stanley. “Keep cool with Stanley.”

If after the debate, Kamala Harris says “Hey, would you all like to go score some drugs together,” don’t fall for it. She’s a narc.

They’re all idiots, so the goal should be to elect the one most likely to do the least amount of damage. I think hands down that’s Yang.

BTW, I’m still willing to be elected president if you want. On day one, I’ll find a nice quiet place in the White House and get to work on my novels. If you leave me alone, I’ll leave you alone.

So is any Democratic candidate going to be honest enough to say “Let’s have open borders!” or are they all just going to weasel argue for that?

If I was a super villain who wanted to starve billions, I’d lobby to make food a “right” and have government take over food production.

I’m hearing rumors Swalwell has surged to 0.2%

Marvel needs to space their movies better. There was no way to see Captain Marvel on video before seeing Endgame in the theaters and now spoiler filled Spider-Man: Far from Home is out before Endgame is on video.
(there was no way for my wife and I to see Endgame in the theater with a newborn so still waiting for video)

That Yesterday movie looks neat, but the universe I’d do best in would be one where no one has ever heard of The Simpsons. I’d be the funniest person ever. Though I assume that story would end with me being murdered by John Swartzwelder.

Billboard I just saw:
California too late.
Texas still great.
Vote Republican.

The left reduced the term racist to mean “someone I disagree with” and they’re quickly doing the same for white supremacist and white nationalist.

I tried watching that Neo Genesis Evangelical on Netflix, but it was a cartoon.

flammable : inflammable :: fascist : antifascist

Just seems like so much work to be garbage people like the Charlotteville nazis or the antifa. Not only do I not want to be a horrible person, but I’d also rather stay home.
Are all the worst people in the world extroverts?

There are lots of ways to be as morally awful as a white supremacist, and there’s no reason for the far left to explore them all.

If I were president and met with Kim Jong Un, I’d probably strangle him. I’d bet the press would have a field day with that one, but I’d have a good explanation: “He was within strangling range.”
Actually, if I were president, it would probably be a good idea to keep me away from all foreign leaders. I don’t care for them. As the leader of the U.S. government, I almost wouldn’t like myself (except I’m pretty awesome).

So has anyone confirmed that Nike pulled an American flag show because Colin Kaepernick complained? It sounds like satire.
And I thought Kaepernick’s whole schtick was that he was against police injustice or something but wasn’t against the U.S.?

I’m still skeptical of this whole thing. It still sounds like something some right-wing rag made up. “Kaepernick hates America so he made Nike stop selling the shoe.”

If we don’t win this ladies European kicky ball challenge, will we be able to celebrate our country on the 4th?

Juneteenth probably should be a federal holiday. Could replace another; never really understood what Labor Day is.
Speaking practically, though, we need more holidays in the first half of the year. That’s a big holiday barren wasteland.
And give Harriet Tubman her $20. I dare say, she deserves it more than anybody. This is supposed to be the land of the free, and that’s what she fought for it in the most oppressive of conditions.

I’ve lost of track of who we’re supposed to be surprised by when we see them act like a mindless partisan hack.

Everyone wants to murder the goose that lays the golden eggs because it squawks too much or something.

They should issue every American a badge. That way if bad things go down while you’re in another country, you can just pull out a gun and if anyone looks at you funny, you hold up your badge and say, “It’s okay; I’m an American.”

Paid off the NICU bill. The baby is officially ours now!
I remember when Winchester was in the NICU and for a moment thought about how this was really going to hit our savings. And then I realized how stupid that thought was because what in the world was I saving for more important than this?
There’s a train of thought that things like health care are so important that we shouldn’t have to pay for them, but I’m not sure that’s wise. It’s probably good to directly pay for the important things. It’s a blessing of the money we make in this modern world.
I mean, how many people in the past wish they had the option to pay money to keep their children from dying? That’s not something to take for granted.

The left are really condemning themselves arguing that Obama was running a concentration camp but they didn’t feel like mentioning it until now.

“But avoid foolish and ignorant disputes, knowing that they generate strife.” 2 Timothy 2:23

Maybe the modern left is so bad it makes Biden wistful for segregationists.

Killing people in response to a drone being destroyed does seem disproportional. I’m not sure what you do, though. Maybe break into the homes of all the leaders and smash their stereo systems.

“How many people will this kill?”
“150, sir.”
“How much did that drone cost?”
“$240 million.”
*Trump does some quick math, counting on his fingers*
“That’s only worth killing a eighty people over. Call it off!”

Maybe you should reexamine your universal health care system when it’s constantly ordering the death of people’s kids.

There are a number of things missing in Breath of the Wild that I’d like them to include in its sequel.
1. Fishing pole
That is all.

Soon.

I feel like I’m in crazy town. The problem is that college costs have skyrocketed versus inflation due to government interference in loans, and the solution people are proposing is to have the government pay off those loans, giving colleges even less incentive to cut costs.
There would be no student debt crisis if colleges hadn’t been fueled into an inflation of costs. If you’re talking about loans and nothing about making colleges reduce costs, despite all you posturing about caring about students, you are a bad person and making things worse.

I don’t care for my wife’s new policy that giant wolf spiders are to placed outside alive since there is only one person in the house thought qualified to wrangle giant spiders.

If you ask, Kamala Harris is legally required to tell you she’s a cop.

Pretty much everyone who opposes abortion opposes it for the extremely obvious reasons. If you feel the need to pretend they’re not sincere, then it’s your viewpoint that isn’t on solid footing.

The only way I’ll be for forgiving students loans is if it’s the colleges paying back the money.

I am a wise Gen Xer, and have seen many things in my four decades on this earth. Please listen attentively as I lecture you.

AOC is very stupid, but she is a politician and thus also very dishonest. But since she’s so stupid, she’s dishonest in a very transparent way. She’s the Jussie Smollett of politics.

In fairness, it seems like there’s few criticisms of her that don’t also apply to Trump.

Women soccer players should earn the same as male soccer players: nothing. Why would we pay people to play soccer?

I think I’ll start my own social media platform. My rule: Adolf Hitler isn’t allowed on it. You may think it’s unfair to single out one person like that, but I think I have a good reason. Because of the genocide.

This caused a lot more questions than I thought. People were asking if my just banning Hitler meant I’m okay with all the others who have committed genocide, and the answer is no. I guess I’m just not familiar with all the people throughout history who have committed genocide.
So I’m updating the policy to the social media platform I’m theoretically creating: Anyone who committed genocide will be banned. I hope this is a clear rule that people understand.

Okay, the rule of no one who committed genocide being allowed on my social media platform was not as clear as I hoped. I continue to get a lot of questions about it.
I thought there was a clear cut definition of genocide, but many people dispute what is and isn’t technically genocide. Also, you know inevitably some person is going to say “Sure, I killed a lot of people, but it had nothing to do with ethnicity.” How can I disprove that?
I could ban everyone who committed murder, but that’s quite a blanket ban and I’m not sure I could be a successful site with a ban that broad. Have you heard of a social media platform that bans all murderers? I certainly can’t think of one.
I’ll have to think further on this and see what rules I can come up with that aren’t far too broad but can be objectively enforced.

I’ve reached a conclusion about my social media platform. I’ll either need to:
A) Ban people by rules that are somewhat subjective and I will get them wrong at times
B) Allow Adolf Hitler on my site
I don’t like either of these options.
I’ve decided to take the cowards way out and not make a social media platform. Sorry. I never said I wasn’t a coward. If I was asked to storm the beaches at Normandy, I would have said, “Can’t. I don’t like sand.”

I don’t think I get enough credit for my remarckably close spelling.

If you’re not outraged, you’re not paying attention. Good for you. Getting outraged and paying attention are both stupid.

You’re going to miss Trump when we once again have a president where every tweet goes through a committee.

Maybe–just maybe–the people doing Handmaid cosplay and warning Trump won’t peacefully leave office are being a little hysterical.

Remember that movie Shaft starring Samuel L. Jackson?

I follow politics far more than the average person (not a brag), and I honestly have never heard of a number of the people in the first Democratic presidential debate.

I’ve heard they’ve rented out a stadium for the Democratic presidential debate but they’re not sure where the audience will sit.

Weirdly, my 6yo son having a talking Black Panther toothbrush that urges him to brush for the good of Wakanda feels like culture appropriation.

Maybe there’s a lot about economics I don’t understand, but didn’t Rambo shoot all the socialists back in the 80s?

I like the smaller, handheld versions of people. They take a lot of maintenance, but they’re worth it.

MY BRAIN: “Hatler!”
ME: “Huh?”
MY BRAIN: “It’s like Hitler, but with a hat.”
ME: “Wha… What am I supposed to do with that?”
MY BRAIN: “Hatler!!!”

“Is he better or worse than regular Hitler?”
“Undetermined!”

Just beat July on Pandemic Legacy Season 1. I’m really curious what’s in that box you only open if you lose four games in a row. Maybe it’s a 20% off coupon for Candyland.

It’s really a pretty bad idea to look to either the government or corporations to enforce morality.

Watching Captain Marvel. Brie Larson did her best to make it sound tedious, but I hear it’s a solid mid-grade Marvel movie, so I assume I’ll enjoy it.

My wrist started hurting and I don’t remember injuring it and now my back’s hurting and the only explanation I can come up with is I’m now 40.

Watching the last half of Captain Marvel. I hope her friend dies to teach the daughter a lesson for encouraging her mother to do something dangerous.

I get why people don’t like Brie Larson in this. Her delivery makes me think of Data from ST:TNG if he were constantly making humorous quips. At times it almost feels like she’s never acted before.

Captain Marvel proved to me that a CGI rendering of a woman is just as capable as a CGI rendering of a man.

Yeah, I get the problem of her being overpower now so they have to come up with convoluted reasons she can’t be around to just solve every problem. Does she have a weakness like Superman, though? Maybe being told she’d be prettier if she smiled more.

Anyway, all caught up finally for Endgame whenever that’s available on video. Then I think I’m done with Marvel movies. Except for the next Spider-Man movie; that looks fun.

The penalty for flag burning is smoke inhalation.

You want your kids to be smart and successful, but I wonder if we place too much emphasis on that. Now that we have Winchester and I don’t know what he’ll be capable of, it’s made me realize how hollow some of things we take pride in can be.
I mean, if my kids end up wildly successful at whatever careers they choose, but they aren’t kind people, I would not be happy. And it makes me think am I emphasizing that enough? Am I being that example to them?
The example I want my kids to follow—the example I wish I could be to them—is that of Jesus. Sacrifice and concern for others. All the other stuff is nice, but not as important.
This is all just to say I don’t know what Winchester will be capable of with his Down syndrome, but I know he can still be a better man than me. And it will be my goal as a father to help lead him there, just as it will be with my other children.
Anyway, happy Fathers’ Day. It’s not a responsibility to take lightly.

Shooting a flag with a gun is not a protected form of speech unless it’s a California flag and you’re in Texas.

The lesson with the SJW religion is never apologize. There is no point, since they have no sacrament of forgiveness.

Everyone is so hateful, and what’s ironic is so many claim they’re fighting against hate. Like start with the man in the mirror, dude.
Not hating isn’t easy, though. You want to just say other people are bad and you’re righteous to scream at them. “Love your enemies” is still a radical statement.
We’re a country of 400 millions weirdos and we ain’t getting rid of anybody. Hating each other just makes things more difficult.

I never used the n-word and can’t understand using it. When I saw Pulp Fiction as a teenager, during that scene of Quentin Tarantino berating Vince and Jules I was thinking, “Hey, there’s a nicer way of phrasing all that.”

Apparently we were always using the term “concentration camps” for lots of things that didn’t have anything to do with the Nazis and I just missed that my first 40 years.
Isn’t it easier to just admit AOC is a dummy instead of constantly twisting yourself into a pretzel for her?

The left seem very confused today. I’ve seen
A) Concentration camps aren’t that bad and don’t just mean Nazis
B) Auschwitz wasn’t a concentration camp
C) The detention centers started under Obama are the first step to the next holocaust

Twitter should be nothing but AOC and Trump saying idiotic things and pundits explaining why what they said isn’t idiotic.

“We have concentrations camps at the border. This dehumanization is exactly how things started with Nazi Germany. We’re on the path to another holocaust. Anyway, who’s feeling like sushi tonight?”

Amazon is constantly sending me boxes filled with guns and ammo. I guess I signed up for some subscription service and I can’t figure out how to cancel it.

What we should be at war with is the idea we’re at war with each other.

FUN FACT: Alaska doesn’t exist. It’s just a state the U.S. made up as a tax write off.

The longest twitter feud I was in lasted three tweets. That’s how long it took the person to admit I was absolutely right and he was wrong to ever disagree with me.

Rambo doesn’t even need to fight in his new movie. I’d be happy for a whole film of just old man Rambo ranting about Millenials.
“They complain about college debt, but when I was their age, we paid our debt in blood on foreign soil!”

Even better idea: Rambo runs for office.
He used to fight Commies on the battlefield, and now he has to fight them politically.
“I knew someone once with economic ideas like yours. I blew him up with a grenade attached to an arrow.”

Ultrasound must have really changed things for fathers. Seems like the child in a pregnancy would feel pretty theoretical until quite late in the pregnancy without it.
I remember when I first felt like a father. 8 week ultrasound with my first. It was a lot more than I was expecting. Not just a heartbeat, but actually moving around, waving really tiny arms. There was the new life I was responsible for.

That Old Town Road is quite an ear worm. I don’t know if it’s rap or country, but I like it.

What are some extremely popular things that everyone else likes that you also like? I like Marvel movies, The Beatles, and Coca-Cola!

“I have a plan! I’ll take money from other people and buy you free stuff with it!”
Wow. What a plan. What a genius plan.

Kind of funny how Sylvester Stallone had two popular franchises that each start with a movie trying to be a serious film and then all the sequels become schlock until Stallone revisits it decades later trying to make a serious film again.

I remember the Ebert review of First Blood Part 2 remarking how he was really surprised they would just release a mass murderer like that, but then I actually saw the first Rambo movie and he only kills one person in it (by accident).

Maybe the ones who have to constantly watch themselves so they don’t accidentally humanize… well… humans, aren’t the good guys.

If you feel very strongly people should earn at least a certain wage an hour, make a business and pay people that.

“National security is at stake. We need the best on this.”
“CIA?”
“The best.”
“Seal Team 6?”
“No. The absolute best.”
“A team of street racers who used to steal DVD players.”
“Bingo.”

I’m starting to think I should do like a swear jar, but it’s a politics jar where I have to put a dollar in it every time I tweet about politics.

I like wearing a Henley because even though I’m just being a slob in T-shirt and jeans, I look more sophisticated because buttons.

I’m 70% sure Eric Swalwell is just an Andy Kaufman-esque bit. It’s too genius to be done by accident.

I don’t even understand caring about that Pelosi video.

Why is everyone trying to destroy David French? He said be nice to people? Is there video of this, because I don’t want to join the mob unless there’s proof.
I have a great way to bring down David French. I went through Game of Thrones and counted every single boobie and… Oh. Someone already beat me to it.

I’m officially an adult! 40 years, man! I have so much wisdom now to impart to young people, but it’s mainly that they should shut up because I’m tried of listening to them whine.

Don’t trust anyone who dislikes dogs or Dwayne Johnson.

Did there used to be something else that journalists did other than try to get videos they didn’t like taken off the internet?

I find it very insulting people think journalists can do my occupation.

So the answer is I can drink an espresso at 10pm and have no trouble going to sleep. I think I now just drink coffee to maintain normalcy.

Trump can only have one more term as president of Earth, but there are no term limits for president of Mars.

It actually took me a second to figure out how to misread what Trump said about the moon and Mars. I guess I’m just used to his garbled style.

Time to peruse social media and make a list of all the people I want thrown off of it.

I don’t want to just save the environment; I want to invest it and earn interest.

2020 election should be a lot of fun. Whether Trump is re-elected or if we get a new president, both possibilities seem like a big surprise. Neato!
Whatever happens, I’m sure I’ll have lots of fun at the expense of the head of state. If you’re going to lead the free world, you’re going to get ribbed by me. Watch out!

So now Mars has stolen the moon. Thanks, David French!

Social media is a publisher, not a platform which means there can be a RICO prosecution against them under the Logan Act.

Ah man. I just realized that now that I turned 40, I’m probably too old for Space Force.

Soon the living will envy the canceled.

Got a 4K TV for my birthday. Man, I can’t believe I ever thought 1080p was impressive. 1920×1080 is a gutter resolution.

I like how hotel fanciness just abruptly ends at the stairwell. The whole place looks like a million bucks and then you decide to skip the elevator and it looks like they used whatever paint was cheapest at Home Depot.

Other thing about the fancy hotel: It had single-ply toilet paper. Everything else about it was top-notch, but that part made me feel like I was in the Soviet Union.

People are a burden in the sense that gold is heavy.

I tried watching The Handmaid’s Tale, but I couldn’t take it seriously with all those women constantly dressed up like idiot protesters.

I’m not exactly sure who should be the most offended party in a comparison of AOC to Trump.

I pulled out my iPhone 5S for the first time in a long time. It’s hard to believe that 4” screen used to be the biggest iPhone. I now feel like Andre the Giant holding that thing.

The thing about a Frozen sequel—what percentage of that movie’s popularity was the song Let It Go?

Winchester is a dapper little guy.

Pay AOC $15 an hour.

Know what you call a congressman earning $15 an hour?
Overpaid.

Without political cartoons, how will we know what Saint Peter says to people at the pearly gates when they die?

We used to have water cooler shows–shows basically everyone watched and then would discuss around the water cooler. This era ended, though, when people stopped drinking water in favor of chugging Mountain Dew Code Red.

I don’t want more modern nazism or communism. I want to leave those things in last century.

Solar energy isn’t renewable energy. Once the sun runs out, we have no idea how to make a new one.

Been wanting to show my kids the moons of Jupiter, but it’s been cloudy every night. I don’t know who to complain to about that.
A local news story said Jupiter is so close you can see all 79 of its moon with binoculars. They might want to recheck the science on that.

Biden can’t cure cancer. The guy has been in government since 1970; I’d be surprised if he has enough practical skills to tie his own shoes.