I'll be back on August 7th for the IWSG.

Well, it's been a chaotic month both in politics and in local events. On the national stage we have an attempted political assassination, and we have a president choosing to serve only one term and leaving democrats in disarray. On the local front there are wildfires burning that I can see from my house, and every single day is 100 degrees, and it feels like I live in a convection oven.

So I think this is a good time for me to take a blog break.  I will be back on Wednesday, August 7th for the Insecure Writer's Support Group. Maybe that extra time will grant me some perspective on what kinds of things to write about. Wishing all of you well out there :).

Most people in America do not really have a choice when it comes to investing in the stock market.

I don't really invest in the stock market anymore unless a 401K through my employer counts. I think it does, but it's not really money that I can touch until I'm much older than I am now. And even then, there will be hoops to jump through because 401K money is one of those things that is both yours and isn't yours simultaneously. For one, you can't withdraw any of it without paying a hefty penalty due to certain restrictions around age and hardship. Additionally, when you do finally qualify, there is a maze of paperwork that needs to be filled out and verified in order to start disbursements. Finally, the balance may be affected by whether or not you are vested. "Vesting" applies to employer contributed funds which may operate on a schedule. So, if the funds aren't "vested" then your balance may not reflect how much money that you actually have.

However, when I think about how our financial system works in this country, putting money into the stock market as opposed to putting money elsewhere doesn't seem to be an actual choice in the way that it used to be. The one caveat to this is if you are already somewhat wealthy and have privilege. In other words, you have a choice of one thing, not two. If you don't choose the one thing, then you remain exactly where you are at in life with no ability to pay end-of-life bills.

For example, I'm looking at the future, and how much end-of-life care costs out of pocket. My father is in a nursing home, and we pay roughly $7500 a month out of pocket that is issued from his estate. My father was a chemical engineer in his heyday, and his entire estate...all that he worked for in life...will got to a C.N.A. who gets a salary to wipe his tush and take care of him around the clock. For clarity purposes, I'm not complaining about this at all. This is how the system works. I will inherit nothing, and dad will be taken care of for the rest of his days. What is the alternative to this? Well...the alternative is not being able to afford any of this and being broke and then the system kicks in and dad gets put on Medicaid and he lives in a nursing home that accepts Medicaid. The end result is the same. He gets the care he needs and the C.N.A. makes the money to wipe his tush and take care of him around the clock.

My point: I either invest in the stock market now to be able to afford the $2,000 a week it will require to take care of me in the last ten (or more) years of my life and eventually go broke. Or I don't invest in the stock market and stay broke and in the last ten years of my life I get cared for in pretty much the same way. The difference is that private care as opposed to that paid by Medicaid tends to be better. I know that my dad's private nurse we hired definitely spoils him, and he loves that. I'm just glad that his estate allowed him this opportunity to exit life on his own terms and with a luxury that few others will ever be able to afford.

So, then my choice is a choice of one thing. I can either shoot for the better luxury care, or I can do nothing and end up with the Medicaid care. Because of this reality, there's really no downside to choosing against putting your money into the stock market. If you lose it all, you just end up poor anyway and on Medicaid. You would have gotten there if you had done nothing. It's the same destination you win if you decide to take a risk and lose everything.

This "reality" of how all of this works is so frustrating to me. Capitalism seems to tout its ability to provide choices to its subscribers. But when it comes to investing in the stock market, there is absolutely no choice for many of us unless we are already independently wealthy. At that point, you could choose to just sit on your cash, or you could choose to spend it on this or that. Whatever. It doesn't matter because your "end of life" years will be as luxurious as you want them to be, or they will be as terrible as you want them to be. But for everyone else in America, the default is only terrible. If you want anything else...you've got to risk it all. That is the only way to reach for something better. Your income will never be enough to guarantee that you can hire a care provider to pay for that level of care (It's basically $2,000 a week now...what will it be 20 years from now?). So, you are literally forced to invest even if you don't want to, because the default is just a standard line of "it will be terrible for you."

I'm not certain why our system is set up like this. Why did anyone think that this was a good thing, and that a choice of "one thing" is all that you get? Anyway, everyone who reads my blog should know that I'm no fan of capitalism, however, I do abide by its rules. I'm just choosing to air a particular criticism against this system that was put into place long before I got here. What would I think of the people who set this all up? I'd call them manipulative and evil. But, I'll play your game. I've got no other choice. I embrace my "choice of one."

Quantum computing is terrifying and it doesn't seem to be on anyone's radar.

So, I started listening to the Star Talk podcast this last week. It's hosted by celebrity astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson as he tackles subjects that are (quite frankly) really interesting. There's usually a guest of extreme scientific note on the show and a comedian who is there to lighten the mood and to represent "all of us" out here who have trouble with these kinds of concepts. But there was one episode of the show that kind of scared me. It was one that is all about Quantum Computer. You can find it HERE if you'd like to listen to it yourself. The ad-free version has commercials, but you can skip through those easily and get back to the content.

On this particular episode, the guest star was the authority on quantum computers, Dr. Michio Kaku. This guy has more scientific cred than just about anyone, and he really knows what he's talking about on levels that few are prepared to understand. But he's also a great communicator and can boil things down very easily for dummies like me. Now, the reason I clicked on this particular episode was because I was curious. I'd heard that quantum computers "were coming." And I like technology, so I thought, wouldn't it be nice to know a little bit more about this tech that may be "around the corner" so to speak. The answer to me was: uh...I'm sorry I clicked on that. I think I would have preferred to remain ignorant. Now...I'm full of worry.

So if you don't know, I'm going to try to boil this down in the way that Dr. Kaku did. I may fail, but here's what I grasped from the podcast. A quantum computer right now looks like a chandelier with hundreds of cooling pipes. At the bottom is a box that contains the electrons that do the computing. In order to get them into a proper state to be programmable, it requires a temperature close to absolute zero. What is the benefit of doing this? Infinite processing power, which is just crazy to imagine.

The way we do things right now is through transistors. Things are either a "0" or a "1." That's it. And it is through those two choices that all of the computers that we all use everyday now, work. Problems are solved like a rat going through a maze. You make a choice, it ends up being the wrong one, and you backtrack and make another choice. This is also how we do chemistry and how we figure out new medicines. People use petri dishes and take really good notes and observe. It is trial and error, basically "0" and "1."

What a quantum computer does is "0 and 1" and then "every other number in-between." So it's infinite. Dr. Kaku said, if there is a thing that has a trillion combinations, it will do all of those trillion combinations at once, in the time you snap your fingers, and spit out the right answer. He said that the first quantum computer will make all encryption, all passwords, all secrets that are protected by any kind of code completely obsolete. Everything will be laid bare. So there is an arms race going on between the different governments of the world (and the corporations) to make the first programmable quantum computer. There is already a prototype of one that you can play with online right now. But it doesn't have the programming language yet to make it do what people want it to do. However, I think that's just a matter of time. So I suddenly thought of all of our banks being rendered wide open with everyone able to access our funds, to read everything including any state secrets, to suddenly know about every single missive sent between people even on apps that claim they are heavily encrypted. It is all wide open for the world to see.

I myself don't think I have any particular secrets to keep. However, I work hard for the money I have and if it can just be emptied out and my balance go to zero, I thought, "How am I going to survive?"

I kind of wish that people wouldn't go around making these kinds of things. But there is no way to stop them. So, the rest of us just have to live in the aftermath of these creations and hope for the best. It wouldn't worry me so much if I could count on people to "do the right thing by me." But if it's one thing I've learned...people never do the right thing by me.

Here are my thoughts on Amazon Prime's sophomore outing of Invincible

There are spoilers for Invincible season 2 in this post. Proceed with caution. I finally got around to finishing up Invincible season 2 on Amazon. It's been out for a few months now, and following its mid-season break, I just hadn't circled back to it until this last week. Now that I have finished season 2, I'm glad that I did. Overall, it is a much slower season than the first one was. However, I think the character writing in this season was pretty strong. All of the characters seem to have much more agency, and I also enjoyed the ongoing theme of Mark fearing that he could turn out like his dad (Omni-Man).

I also love the animation and how bloody it gets, as well as how suddenly characters seem to die. That makes the silliness of the names like "Rex-Plode" or "Dupli-Kate" seem less silly as you watch these characters die on screen. There were also some real "Easter Eggs" in this show this season that I was wondering how they accomplished. For example we saw what might be "Spider-Man" and what might be "the Batman" but it is a dubious connection at best. So maybe "plausible deniability" is how they get away with that in a kind of "crossover." It was still fun though to hear Mark say Aquaman's line from Justice League, "I mean your a man that dresses as a bat...."

By the time I finished the last episode in the season, I felt like the show was in a "we're building for bigger things later." This makes me think season 3 is going to be pretty spectacular, and I wonder if we will see a certain rape scene in the show that I've heard is in the comic books. Seeing as it is pretty gory as is and that it doesn't seem to be pulling its punches, my guess is that it will end up being animated. For those who don't know, it touches on subject matter that media rarely addresses, especially with male victims and female perpetrators. The character in question is Anissa who is one of the Viltrumites...basically a very powerful being similar to Superman. She is a villain and an antagonist and she already beat the crap out of Mark this season, giving him a black eye and probably a few broken bones. Apparently she sexually assaults him in the comics. There are some though who say that it shouldn't be shown. My own opinion on this is that it should, because you just don't see that kind of thing happening to men on film (and it does happen to men). For example, I have a male friend who was raped by a former girlfriend of his, and he is still dealing with the trauma and she is still walking around free as a bird because no one will believe him.

Overall, season 2 of the show took time to linger. It took time to invest in character growth at a reasonable pace. I sometimes think that media has trained people to expect lightning fast development in 12 episodes or less without giving the audience time to actually process the story. The only thing I was disappointed in was the villain Angstrom. There was one episode to build him up as a villain and then one episode to quickly knock him down again. Ultimately, he ended up feeling a bit pointless, as if the whole season could have been done without him and not much in the plot would change. Certainly, nothing in the middle episodes was related to him at all. Anyway, I guess his abilities opened up both the multiverse and time travel, which will probably factor into future seasons. If anything, Angstrom's only reason to exist was to push Mark into new moral territory where the "villain" was a lot more gray. Ultimately, his powers are too "op" and too universe-breaking to keep around. So, that's why the made the Marvel and DC jokes/easter eggs and then killed him off. Just my opinion, anyway.

Anyone else watch Invincible season 2? If so, what did you think?

Here are three answers that surprised me when I saw them online.

There are a lot of weird answers to situations I've come across lately that took me by surprise. In this post I'm going to share three of them with you.

1) I come across an opinion that "people who are economically challenged (read as poor) may not be the best people for leadership." My take: This sounds ridiculous, and it sounds like it is also discriminatory. But...what answer do you have for this statement?

Their answer: people who have experienced poverty long-term probably have suffered a lot of trauma. Trauma over time rewires the brain. You can have personality disorders and other things as a result of trauma. If the trauma was severe enough, that person may not be the best to select to lead others. My take: Uh...damn...this caught me by surprise, and it actually makes sense. But can it be backed by evidence? I have no idea. But it still shocked me that the answer was so coherent.

2) Another opinion: do you want to know if someone is wealthy? Do they have a clean house? This is a better tell than their Gucci handbag. My take: wait a minute? I would think that conspicuous wealth is the Gucci handbag or the expensive bling. Explain yourself. 

Their answer: it takes a lot of work to keep a house clean. If they aren't doing it themselves, then they probably can afford a cleaner. Cleaners these days (just for one day a week) is about $800 a month. So, if they have that kind of extra-spending cash, it's probably a good sign that you're dealing with someone who has wealth to spare in order to hire help. My take: okay, I wasn't expecting that. But it seems like a good "tell" to see if a person you are dealing with has some extra resources lying around. Do they live in a clean house? Interesting.

3) Here's another opinion I read online: homeless people in Salt Lake City are getting more aggressive and it is making me afraid. Does anyone else notice this and offer an explanation? Here was my take: personality disorders and stress combined with low ability to emotionally regulate can make anyone aggressive (as well as hot summers). I think this is probably normal, but I haven't noticed an increase in aggression. 

Their answer: people are inherently tribal. The thing that keeps people civil is civilization. When civilization breaks down, people form tribes as small as two, and nothing else matters outside that tribe. That's the way people are. What you are seeing in homelessness is the breakdown of a society. Civilization isn't working for those folks, so being civil is also out the window to anyone who is not part of their tribe. My take: damn...once again...this answer surprised me. But yeah...you can see this in war-torn countries where warlords rise up or where gangs take over when a state fails and collapses in on itself. People are tribal.

What do you guys think of these answers? Any of them shock your previously held beliefs?

How important to you are the answers in a story?

I read an online homage to Ridley Scott's Alien (the original), which has spawned a lot of sequels. In this article that I stumbled upon (in my daily browsing), the author claimed that it is still a perfect movie. I also agree with this statement. However, they pointed out something about its storytelling (that I hadn't quite noticed before) that may be the main reason it is a perfect movie. It sets up a bunch of mysteries and it never resolves them. It also explains that for these same reasons, Prometheus is a failure of a story. It seeks to answer those questions set up by Alien.

So, this was a weird but important take on storytelling that I wasn't prepared for: knowing the answer spoils the story. But in most situations, this seems to be true. In Alien, we are introduced to a crew on some kind of industrial vessel that gets diverted to answer a distress beacon. We later assume that the distress beacon was from an alien vessel, and then the android on the ship ends up being a villain because the company knew that there were creatures on that planet, and the company that built the android wanted a sample brought back to them.

But there are never any answers given in any of that. How did the company know that the alien vessel was on that weird planet? Why did they want a sample brought back? And so on and so forth. As human beings, I think that we are programmed to want to follow questions back until we either come up with nothing, or an answer surfaces and then we can find some level of satisfaction and move on. But in storytelling, it is probably better to have an arc where you set up mysteries and just never resolve them. For example, in Amazon's Open Range you have a big hole in a field that has no bottom and allows people to time travel to different eras if they fall in. Answering the "why" as to this thing's existence just ruins the show. You can't be bothered by "why." It's better to have people just react to the weird thing that makes no sense. This also probably takes a big burden off the author or the "idea creator," because they don't need to know the "why" and the "how." All that matters is that the mystery "is."

I think that this is the genius of the X-Files, and why it worked so well. They had an alien arc that ran across the show's life, interwoven with "monster of the week" episodes that wrapped up nicely in an hour. However, it can also be overdone. Some people (like myself) do get annoyed with shows or movies that continuously introduce more and more mystery without ever fully resolving anything. Lost is probably the best example of this kind of storytelling.

Some people like to refer to this kind of tale spinning as "high concept." As a refresher, high-concept narratives are typically characterized by an overarching "what if" scenario that catalyzes the following events. Jurassic Park and its sequels are "high concept" in that it takes a question of "what if we could clone dinosaurs?" and then proceeds to answer that question. But in my experience, most high concept storylines write themselves into a corner, and then they can't figure out where to go with the story to make it where you care about the characters enough to keep coming back. In other words, it becomes more about the concept that it does the characters. And then they have no idea how to answer all the many questions that pop up in any satisfactory way. The Walking Dead is a perfect example of this. I read Robert Kirkman's explanation of how the zombie apocalypse started and he said that it came from outer space. He decided never to answer the mystery of how the zombies all started, because doing so lessened the story.

So, having said all of the above, I'm wondering: how important to you are the answers in a story? Are you okay with endless mysteries just so long as the present narrative of people/characters dealing with those mysteries is interesting and well-written? 

What word processor do you use to write with?

I hope everyone who visits my blog today has a wonderful July 4th. Along with it being "America's Birthday," it is also time to do the July 2024 installment of the Insecure Writer's Support Group (sign up for it at this LINK). This blogfest was started a long time ago by author Alex J. Cavanaugh. If you have never checked out his books, you should.

So, what is the Insecure Writer's Support Group anyway? Allow me to explain.

What is the purpose?: It is to share and encourage. Writers participating in the IWSG can express their doubts and concerns without fear of appearing foolish or weak. Those who have been through the fire can offer assistance and guidance. It’s meant to be a safe haven for insecure writers of all kinds.

When do we post?: The first Wednesday of every month is officially Insecure Writer’s Support Group day. On this day, you should write your thoughts on your own blog. Some examples of what to write might involve talking about your doubts and the fears you have conquered. You could also discuss your struggles and your triumphs. Another idea is to offer a word of encouragement for others who are struggling.

Along with your post, you should try to visit others in the group and connect with your fellow writers. A good rule of thumb might be to aim for a dozen new people each time. When you return comments, you will find that you gather followers and connect. So, prior to that, you will want to make sure to link to this page and display the badge in your post. These are the digital breadcrumbs you will leave behind that make certain others can find you in the huge ocean that is the internet.

The X handle for the Insecure Writer's Support Group is @TheIWSG and the hashtag everyone uses is #IWSG.

The awesome co-hosts for the July 3 posting of the IWSG are JS Pailly, Rebecca Douglass, Pat Garcia, Louise-Fundy Blue, and Natalie Aguirre!

Now, every month, the IWSG announces a question that members can answer in their IWSG post. These questions may prompt you to share advice, insight, a personal experience, or a story. If it does, you could totally use this as your post. But you should remember that the question is optional.

July 3rd question: What are your favorite writing processing (e.g. Word, Scrivener, yWriter, Dabble), writing apps, software, and tools? Why do you recommend them? And which one is your all-time favorite that you cannot live without and use daily or at least whenever you write?

For me, it is Microsoft Word. I think it is an indispensable tool now, and I know how to format everything. I make it so that my spacing between lines is automatic, that the indent is automatic (I don't press the "tab" button anymore), and it has some fantastic a.i. driven spell check as well as "document review" editing options. I never use a.i. to write. However, I would be a fool if I didn't use its power to read my document and look for errors. It does this literally for free. I'm old enough to remember when people needed to hire editors to look through their stuff. This new way is incredibly good, and I think it is better than trying to find someone who will take the time to go through hundreds of pages of material looking for errors. It's also extremely easy to format things for online publishing, like Kindle or Lulu. The only downside to Microsoft 365 is that it requires a subscription now. But I've installed some copies of it on computers owned by friends, and they've paid me a modest sum, so the cost is relatively modest.

Thanks for visiting, and may all of you find the word/writing processors that suit your style.

 

House of the Dragon season 2 is off to a strong start.

House of the Dragon is so damned good. Now that I've stopped nitpicking things as much as I did when I was younger, I can fully appreciate just how far we've come in our entertainment options to actually have a fantasy series that looks as incredible as House of the Dragon. I mean...it looks better than movies with $200 million dollar budgets looked back around year 2000. And we get this weekly until season 2 ends for the price of a subscription to Max.

I've only seen two episodes in season 2 thus far, but both of them just hit the ground running. The first episode fed right into an assassination plot that was as gruesome as Game of Thrones could plaster on screen, and then this went into another assassination plot. Out of all of the new and returning characters, I think I dislike Otto Hightower the most. The civil war in House of the Dragon is entirely his own making because he assumes that the Realm won't accept a female heir to the throne. In my opinion, Rhaenyra would definitely have experienced a ton of sexism and low-level resistance to her rule, but that would have passed with time and reminders of the power of dragons.

Otto's weakness (which I will go into in just a minute) is also why I kind of despise him as a character. He's a fantastic political mind, but it's cold and calculating. When it came to his own daughter, he just pimped her out to the king so that she would be queen. However, the king was a decidedly gross individual and House of the Dragon never failed to remind us of how gross he was. 

Otto always fails to understand the people who are close to him. Examples are ignoring the fact that Aegon is completely unsuited to rule. Another example happens after the assassination (done by Blood and Cheese) of Aegon's heir happens in the castle. Otto decides that displaying the dead body through town would garner a lot of sympathy, even though the two women he commands to ride on the wagon behind the funeral procession don't want to do it.

Anyway, the season is off to a strong start. Anyone else care to weigh in?

Lately I've been planning a fantasy trip to Japan.

In the past couple of weeks, I've been keeping notes on places to go and see in Japan should I decide to take a trip there in 2025. It is likely to happen, because my roommate has declared his intention to climb Mount Fuji. My roommate is not in very good shape, but I've decided that I like him enough that it would be fun to watch them succeed at this personal goal. However, I have no intent on joining them on a climb to the top of a mountain. That doesn't sound at all fun to me. What does sound fun is doing a few events with them, and then striking out on my own to see other places. Google translate has gotten really good, and I think that I could navigate the systems there a lot easier than I could the last time I was in Japan decades earlier.

When I started writing notes down, it was a "tabula rasa" or clean slate. So anything goes really. I just wanted to start listing them so that I wouldn't forget about them. Up first is a visit to a museum that is showing this thing called Team Lab Planets. It's some kind of exhibition of rooms that have all kinds of light all over the floors, the walls, the ceiling, to give you some kind of immersive "otherworldly" experience. It sounds like a lot of fun, and it is in Tokyo.

My second thing that I want to go and visit is Ghibli Park, which is a new theme park that opened (rather low key but I guess it is very popular) that celebrates Hayao Miyazaki's lifetime of work, including homes and buildings that are from his many animated films that you can actually walk into. That sounded like a lot of fun and an entertaining diversion for an afternoon (should I score myself a ticket, which I've heard can be a bit difficult). 

Another thing on my Japan trip list is a visit to Hotel Hoshi in Komatsu. This is on the side of Japan (northern side) that faces the Sea of Japan. It is billed as the oldest hotel in the world, and it has many hot spring type baths that one can enjoy. Additionally, while staying in Komatsu, there is a theme park called Yunokuni-no-Mori. Once you enter the gate, you can choose a craft to participate in from the many rooms in the buildings...and you basically do that craft for an afternoon. The types of crafts they have are making a wood block Japanese character, a music box, etching glass, glass blowing, making a candle with colorful waxes, moulding dyes for t-shirts or handkerchiefs, drawing with paint (called cashew) to make these things called maki-e, engraving characters on a diamond shaped glass board, making handmade soba noodles, putting plants inside of bottles for small terrariums, crafting insects out of bamboo, making handmade sweets of Ishikawa, or using gold leaf to adorn a thing (like a plate or a box or a cup), trying your hand at the potter's wheel, or using bean paste to fill a Doryaki skin.

In Osaka (at about the same time I plan to arrive in Japan) they are having a six-month world expo (formerly the "World's Fair"). If I go to this (which I probably will) there will be some irony. You see, when I was 13 years old I visited Japan with my mother (1985) and we went to a World's Fair there. They only have them every five years or so. The last one was in Dubai. The irony "may be" that I've been to two world's fairs in my life and both of them happened to be in Japan. I think that would be a funny coincidence.

In the Kobe area I would like to go to the Godzilla museum. They reportedly have a life-sized godzilla head that you can zip line into, but the weight limit is 250 pounds. I'll need to drop some weight to be able to qualify, and I'm working on that right now. Hopefully, I'd be able to make the goal weight and get this experience in the books. Additionally, in Kyoto there is an alleyway called "Pontocho" that is supposed to be one of those old-world streets where you can get food from street vendors like you see in movies and television shows that are set in Japan. I think eating at one of those would be a lot of fun, and it isn't something I'm familiar with.

Even though I haven't made any exact commitments or plans, talking about this trip with others seems to bring out the worst in the "well-heeled." Last night (for example) I just mentioned that I was interested, and this guy who I just met (he's Meg's friend and Meg is a good friend of mine) had to interject with all of his insights and "You have to do this in Japan" stuff that was just really off-putting and irritating. 

He whipped out his foldable phone and started showing pictures of him eating kobe beef, followed with questions like "Are you going to try kobe beef?" and when I said..."I don't know. Maybe." He immediately followed up with, "You better bring your money then because it is expensive! But look at this! and look at this! and look at this!" I had so many eye-rolling moments, mostly because he really drifted across the line of "informing" to "bragging" and I'm not a fan of braggarts. I'm not sure why people act like that, but it's like they are waiting to vomit their trips all over a stranger for some reason. I just want to say, "Dude...I'm happy you had a good trip. Really, I am. But I really don't give a shit what you did. Those are your memories, not mine." Of course, I didn't say that, but I wanted to.

Anyway, even though I've made no concrete plans, it is still fun to think about and imagine myself doing some of the activities that (on paper) look fun for a kind of relaxing trip. And yes, if this post makes you want to brag about your trip to Japan in the comments, you have my permission. Who knows? I might learn something.

I never would have thought that shades of gray was a Star Wars thing until recent times.

When I was in college and playing the West End Games version of Star Wars (it was a lot of fun), I would explain to the uninitiated a few ingredients that are essential to any Star Wars tale. The first of these is that it is a story of good versus evil. I'd reiterate that there are "no shades of gray" in Star Wars. You are either just really good or you are the most evil thing that has ever existed. The second thing that I would tell people is that, in Star Wars, things like capital ships are enormous. Scale is exceptionally important. So you want things to be so big that when they are in orbit around a planet, they create an eclipse. That's just a "rule of thumb."

So here I am in 2024, and none of those things I used to tell players in my Star Wars games make any sense anymore. Star Wars now is about moral and ethical discussions. It's an infatuation with "the gray" in everything. On one hand, I think that it is good for Jedi characters to be fully realized people and not just cookie cutter good guys. It's also excellent for the Sith to have motivations for what leads them down that path or to point out things that they care about that drive their actions.

However, at the end of the day, I have a difficult time reconciling modern Star Wars with what I used to believe about it. I used to believe that Star Wars existed in a universe in which there is a Light Side of the Force and a Dark Side of the Force. The Dark Side was spoken of in terms of aggression, selfishness, hatred, a thirst for power, and general bad feelings. A fall to the Dark Side was considered a tragedy and a fallen Sith finding their way to the Light Side was called a "redemption arc."

But in 2024? Things are a lot different. In 2024, Jedi can be complete and utter assholes. A Dark Side user can be a hero because they are an assassin that gets rid of problematic Force users who profess outward virtue but did a lot of terrible things that they kept secret. There's lots of projection that the characters who are (by definition) good are actually very bad and do terrible things. And now we have a group of characters who are by definition bad (they are literally villains) who have really good points and are actually good?

Anyway, all of these complaints about the latest iteration of Star Wars, which is called The Acolyte, don't make me want to stop watching. It's a gorgeous show, and I think I just like watching Star Wars characters interact on screen. It's also interesting to see Jedi as galactic peacekeepers who are so overpowered relative to the average person that they rarely ever need to use their weapons. Instead they all seem to know kung-fu. Maybe this is a nod to the "style" over "blunt tools" that Obi-Wan once spoke about to Luke Skywalker regarding the elegance of the lightsaber. In any event, its entertaining. I just am continuously surprised by what I'm seeing and wonder how I could have gotten the "Star Wars formula" so wrong.

Let's talk about season 3 of Bridgerton

Dearest Gentle Reader..., we need to talk about the beautiful end of season 3 of Bridgerton. For long-time followers of my blog, you may know that I am heavily invested in Bridgerton. The story always sweeps me away, and Bridgerton is so good at reducing me to a crying slob on the couch because these romances are so good! But, that doesn't mean I am without criticisms for the show. There are a few things I'd like to point out, so if you are a Bridgerton watcher, these may make sense. If not, these could be spoilers. However, I'd argue that if you haven't watched Bridgerton by now, you probably won't.

First off, this season was all about Penelope Featherington and her dual identity as Lady Whistledown. I was surprised that they went there, and with such vigor as to expose Penelope completely by the end of the season. I was also surprised that it all worked out for Penelope, and I was worried that it would not. The Julie Andrew's narration adds a lot to the show, and I think if it were to disappear, I would miss it. However, this is Bridgerton and a sad ending to her fairy tale romance simply wouldn't do. The final lines delivered by Colin Bridgerton to Penelope, wherein he decided to completely stand by her side and tell her that she was the most courageous person he knew was incredible. It was one of those deliveries that you wait an entire movie to hear. Needless to say, if you like well-scripted writing, you should watch season 3.

But I do have questions. First, why did the printer guy say Lady Whistledown was a redhead when Pen clearly pretended to be a servant girl, Irish accent and all?  Wouldn't they have otherwise said that "her servant is a redhead?" It became a huge leap in logic that Cressida immediately figured out that Lady Whistledown was Pen, and the boy so easily suspected that the printer's servant was the author herself. If you think about previous seasons, you know that Pen had partnered with the modiste so that she wouldn't be the only one dropping the issues off.

However, the writers did treat Colin really well by clarifying who he is through many scenes. For example, when he criticizes Eloise for acting like the rest of the girly girls, she retorts that it's because she has no more appetite for fighting social pressure. And then she points out to Colin that he has done the same thing by putting on a manly guise to appease the Ton. Additionally, when Colin reminisces about his childhood, he alludes to the self-consciousness of adulthood and emergent worries about what people think. He then claims to have transcended that, but all he does is reveal a lot of insecurities. This puts Colin on a journey to accepting his real "dorky self" as good enough while we also see Pen accepting herself as being inseparable from Lady Whistledown. It all comes together so brilliantly.

I also loved that Pen walked down the aisle to a classical version of "Yellow," which was a nod to Pen's yellow dresses in previous seasons. That was really cute.

And thus, season 3 has ended and left me for wanting more. I wonder whose story will be told in season four? Maybe Eloise? I've never read the books, but I think it's time for Eloise to have her story (if there is one that has been written for her).

I'm surprised that Scooby-Doo's overall message was never challenged by anyone in its many iterations.

Scooby-Doo has a lasting legacy as a cartoon. I used to enjoy watching the original cartoons when I was a kid. But now that I'm older, I'm kind of digging a little deeper, wondering what this cartoon is about. Without talking to the actual creators or looking at a pitch meeting for the show, I think there are a variety of things one could say about it. For example, it's about kids solving mysteries but a ton of those mysteries have to do with the supernatural. And the end result for as many episodes as I can remember was always the same: some person (human) was the threat, and they were using the supernatural to frighten or endanger a person or a group.

However, if one goes back and watches many of those original episodes, there are lots of unexplained supernatural gags. For example, Scooby transforms his appearance with a magic book, or there's a talking skull. The supernatural definitely exists in Scooby-Doo. It's just depicted as being harmless. So, it would be erroneous then to say that the show was about "dispelling the supernatural."

I think that Scooby-Doo as a concept is one of the most versatile franchises out there. At its core, it is just Scooby Doo and Shaggy and his friends (most of the time they are Fred, Daphne, and Velma) solving mysteries. Then you just add in a very basic characterization of being afraid of ghosts and monsters and being hungry all of the time due to "drug-related munchies". It's extremely easy to build different character personalities based on those traits which is why each interaction has the characters the same on the very basic level, but they end up different overall because each show can give them depth and personality in other ways.

So you could do Scooby-Doo but Isekai

or, Scooby Doo Noir 

or, Scooby Doo Into the Dooby-Verse

And you literally could just keep going. In a way, it's kind of like Monopoly the board game in the sense that you could have hundreds of different versions of the game and just keep selling it to new people. They've even got a new "anime" version that is coming out in the next year. As a huge lover of Japanese folklore, I'm looking forward to seeing what they do with this. They could introduce the tricky shape-shifting kitsune, the beautiful yet deadly yuki-onna, the powerful and proud wind gods that are the Tengu. 

Anyway, it kinda looks like they are definitely continuing to embrace the supernatural. But there will probably be lots of humans who are revealed to be the real threat. It's weird to think that this is a cartoon that has been broadcasting that message to children for a long time (humans will deceive and lie to you), and no one's had an issue at all with it, especially since many of the villains under those "supernatural masks" were white men. I think that it is still relevant decades after that first episode aired on television is pretty telling and may say a lot about the people who pitched this show oh so many years ago.

Netflix's Arcane returns for season 2 in November. Is it enough for me to forget the election?

A few years ago, I became a fan of the League of Legends hit show on Netflix called Arcane. The trailer for the second season has finally dropped (I'm embedding it below). This is one of those shows that is rare in its quality, and because of that (I assume) it has taken years for the animation studio to release a follow-up. But it's also the last season of this particular storyline in this world, and I wasn't expecting that. However, there are going to be more stories that are told on Runeterra, and I think that seems like a really good way to develop this world. Afterall, I wasn't so much intrigued by the characters in season one (primarily Vi and Jinx) as I was intrigued at the world I was seeing. They also aren't continuing with the "Arcane" branding. My guess is that this decision is to avoid confusion.

The media landscape doesn't tend to have many long-running scripted shows these days, nevermind the rare anthology series. What does seem to be in abundance is plenty of shared universe storytelling. So, given this trend, I think having every region get its own "[insert brand]: A League of Legends Story" will be much clearer about what is going on to a layperson (like myself) than letting Arcane run for 12 seasons with a constantly rotating cast.

All of that being said, the trailer looks fantastic. I think that they're definitely leaning more and more into Vi being conflicted over the things that Jinx is doing. And I wonder how things will end as I'm not familiar with League of Legends lore. I guess we shall all find out come November :). Maybe it will be enough to get my mind off the election.

I'm in my fifties and I've learned that having people in your life is a luxury requiring both money and hard work.

I'm in my fifties now, and I think I want to share some of the things I've learned about people in my home state. I'm zeroing in on it like this because I don't really interact with any people who aren't in my home state, so painting with a broad brush is not something I want to do. Anyway, here are three things that I've learned (you can call it wisdom if you like) regarding my interactions with folks in my locality:

1) People are really difficult to live with. There is so much mental illness now, that I don't think I can even understate this. I don't know if there is more now than there was a hundred years ago, or fifty years ago. But right now in 2024, everyone has got some kind of disorder, and it is used to explain unpleasant behaviors galore. "Oh that person is a complete asshole? It's because they have PTSD due to microaggressions around gender ideals and patriarchy. That's why they broke your coffee pot, didn't tell you, and left it for you to discover on your own."

However, none of this "knowledge of whatever disorder you have" ever helps. The unpleasant behaviors continue until you kick that person out of your life. You just know that the reason you kicked that person out of your life is because they had "this and this disorder." Or...whatever. Calling a toxic waste dump by its name does not make it any easier to live with that specific toxic waste dump, and people (in general) are really difficult to live with if they have any of the many personality disorders or dementias identified by the DSM. Finding a person who doesn't have some kind of damaging personality disorder is like finding a flawless diamond sitting on the ground.

2) Entertaining people for a night in your home is really expensive, and its a ton of work. First off, you need a place that's big enough to entertain a handful of people. Houses work well, but I've come to realize that not everyone owns a house and they are becoming rarer and rarer as the price of housing soars due to people squeezing every last drop out of everything so that they can "have enough money that the many problems created by living in our society no longer apply to them."

But if you are fortunate to have the space (I am one of those people), a lot of the times, the friends I invite over are clumsy (and I assume that this is probably the case with other people who "dare to entertain." These "guests" aren't aware of their flailing limbs when they are excited, or they aren't aware of their environment. These are just a couple of examples.

The result is broken furniture, broken glasses, broken plates or bowls, loud crashes as trays come plummeting to the ground, pictures hung askew because someone's backside was too large, stains and spills, couches that can't put up with the weight of obese people, and other such nonsense. In the end, it costs lots of money, and things need to be replaced or repaired, and its on you to replace them since "you were the one to have people over." Furthermore people don't seem to be aware of how much things cost. Someone admired my dining chairs and asked how much I paid for them. I replied, "800 dollars." They asked, "for the whole set?" I said, "No, $800 a piece." My desk chair over there was $2,500." That's when they kind of blink, stunned, and then maybe treat something with a little more respect.

I will say this, I'm glad I invested in quality furniture because it has gotten hammered over the years, and it is still holding up. A lot of people wouldn't be in this situation, and their furniture would just be a pile of garbage at this point. And my friends that I invite over just play Dungeons & Dragons. It's not like I'm hosting an indoor hockey tournament.

3) I think that the loneliness epidemic in the United States can be attributed a lot to the fact that no one wants to entertain anymore because they can't afford it, they don't have the space, and it's a lot of work to clean up after people. So they just choose to go it alone.

I remember from my youth that people always had my parents over or I went to places that entertained. But those days are gone. They don't exist unless I'm the one putting it together. I'm fortunate to have the space and the money to be able to entertain, and because of that, I have a pretty good social network. But the work is pretty intense. Cleaning up after people consumes probably six to seven hours a week of just constant toil (this on top of my forty hour work week). Washing things, putting away things, organizing things, repairing things, etc. There are times when I think: it would be so much easier just to not ever invite anyone over. But there would be nothing else that fills the vacuum that I fill in my friend's lives. In other words, I think the social aspects of the community I belong to would probably just fall apart.

TL:DR: Having people in your life is expensive (having friends is a luxury?) and takes a ton of work. If you aren't willing to do the work and you don't have the money to clean up and repair everything that gets broken, then you're probably going to be lonely. Anyone else discovering this truth about being an adult in the United States?

We are living in a day and age where Dune apparently is going mainstream. Did I get that right?

There's going to be a Dune prequel, set 10,000 years before the events of Paul Atreides. I think that this is a strange decision. I read the original Dune book when I was a teenager, and I could never imagine that Dune would have a moment where it went mainstream. Called Dune Prophecy, this series by Max seems to want to explore the events unfolding with one of the Great Houses (Harkonnen) and the Bene Gesserit. If I remember correctly from my "Dune lore," this will put the timeline right after the butlerian jihad and the beginning of the spacing guild. Spice was only a recreational drug, and there were no Navigators and faster than light ships ruled the universe.

One thing that Dune does have going for it is that its lore is very rich. After the sisterhood, it might be fun to see the Mentats, the Spacing Guild, the Ixians, and the Tleilaxu...maybe all of the ones I mentioned given their own seasons. Or I might be reading this thing completely wrong, and it could be just a tightly told tale that spans three or four seasons before telling some other story.

Anyway, I'm going to link the trailer below. Any of you Dune fans out there care to weigh in? It's certainly going to be worth watching when it arrives later this year.

What can the IWSG offer to its members that it already isn't offering?

Hello again. It's been a while but May ended up being a bit of a handful for me so I'm glad I stepped away from blogging. The first thing that happened was that one of my roommates decided on a whim that he was going to buy a Tesla. And a friend also approached me about their car being completely broken, and them having no transportation options. I owned a 1997 Ford F-150 that I decided to sell to them to solve their issue. And that freed up a space in the garage for the roommate to be able to park the new Tesla that literally showed up 12 hours after they made the decision to buy it. Then they hired an electrician to install a charger in the garage, I had to help them get contractor bids to do that work, and now they are doing some kind of "anime" flavor wrap for the car featuring two anime girls fighting each other with swords. And then my commuter car broke down (after I sold the truck) when the serpentine belt fell off. So I had to get that fixed. Anyway, May had its challenges!

Now it is June 2024, and I'm hoping that it is a lot quieter. So far, so good. And with June comes a new opportunity to write a post and participate in the Insecure Writer's Support Group. But before I get around to answering the monthly question, I'd like to tell you a little about what the IWSG is so that you can sign up for it yourself if this is a think that appeals to you.

What is the purpose of the IWSG?: It is to share and encourage. Writers can express doubts and concerns without fear of appearing foolish or weak. Those who have been through the fire can offer assistance and guidance, and it’s a safe haven for insecure writers of all kinds.

When do you post?: The first Wednesday of every month is officially Insecure Writer’s Support Group day, however, I've missed it a couple of times and then just post on the following Friday.

What do you post?: Well, the official guidance is to post your thoughts on your own blog that have to do with writing. For example, you can talk about your doubts and the fears you have conquered. You could discuss your struggles and triumphs. You could offer a word of encouragement for others who are struggling. You could visit others in the group and connect with your fellow writer. If you do this, you want to aim for a dozen new people each time and return comments. At its roots, the blogfest is about connecting with others. In order to do that you need to leave "virtual breadcrumbs." So, be sure to link to this page and display the badge in your post. And please be sure your avatar links back to your blog. Otherwise, when you leave a comment, people can't find you to comment back.

What is the slogan of the IWSG?: Let’s rock the neurotic writing world.

Does the IWSG have an X (Twitter) handle?: Yes! It is @TheIWSG and hashtag is #IWSG.

The awesome co-hosts for the June 5th posting of the IWSG are Liza at Middle Passages, Shannon Lawrence, Melissa Maygrove, and Olga Godim!

The June 5th question - In this constantly evolving industry, what kind of offering/service do you think the IWSG should consider offering to members?

I think the IWSG already fulfills what it can. Social media is just that: social media. It isn't really capable of doing anything physical like building a house or fixing a broken car. What social media does offer is the answering of questions and the sharing of ideas and resources. And the IWSG fulfills this role already in its monthly correspondence and communications and hosting of the blogfest. So, I'm not going to suggest that it do anything new because I think it is already doing what it is intended to do at its maximum.

Anyway, thanks for visiting. I look forward to seeing how other people approach this question. My guess is that there will be some who want help with the minutiae of the business-side of writing. Things like: editing, beta-reading, marketing, obtaining an agent, and other kinds of computer work. But that "work" is not something that I feel a blog like the IWSG is meant to be able to assist with. I'm going to use a metaphor here. What the IWSG can do (and is already doing) is print plenty of "recipes." But "cooking the dinner" is unfortunately left up to the individual person to be able to do on their own.

I'm taking a blogging break for the rest of May. I shall see you in June for the IWSG post.

I'm taking the rest of May off from blogging. Life has gotten a bit stressful, and I have some roommate issues that keep cropping up (living with people is challenging but I did sign up for this...willingly I might add). So, I'm going to take a bit of a blog break and see you guys in June. Perhaps by then things will have returned to normal, and I can concentrate on plodding along in my life. Right now, it feels like a new hurricane of chaos lands about every week. That's part of the issue of living with someone who has severe ADHD I suppose.

I plan to return to blogging for the Insecure Writer's Support Group in June. See you then.

The FX Shogun series has ended and I really liked it a lot.

I finished watching FX's adaptation of James Clavell's Shogun, and I'm now ready to discuss it so here is your obligatory spoiler warning :).

First off, it was just really good throughout its narrative (one of the best shows I've ever watched). The first six episodes or so of its ten episode run hold closely to the material within the book. The last four deviate quite a bit from what Clavell wrote, but the spirit of his words is still there. The finale in particular hit some really solid notes for me, because it just was so beautiful. It was a perfect conclusion, really, to the story that the showrunners wanted to tell, and their attention and dedication to detail paid off in spades. Here's a few trivia tidbits that might interest you: 1) all of the kosodes used in the show were authentically recreated using period materials by 200 experts in kosode design, 2) the language spoken was faithful to the kind of language spoken from that era, and 3) the soundtrack took five years to make because they wanted to make sure that all compositions were faithful to the musical instruments that were available in Japan in 1600.

Maybe part of me wanted to see the Battle of Sekigahara (you don't see it). Looking back on this decision, I think it was the correct one to make. I think it would be difficult to justify a huge amount of money spent for our eyes to enjoy a battle that would have contributed nothing to the story except some gore. As Toranaga pointed out in the finale to Lord Yabushige before Yabu's seppuku moment, the outcome was inevitable. What the showrunners opted to do was offer a glimpse into Toranaga's mind, which (arguably) was the most intriguing aspect of the show. If I were to use a chess metaphor, Toranaga sacrificed his knight, his bishop, and his queen all so that he could achieve a checkmate from which his enemies could not escape. Additionally, Mariko was the definition of a brilliantly written female character, and a lot of kudos should go to James Clavell because she is equally this brilliant in the novel.

The most beautiful aspect of the finale for me was how Mariko's death touched dozens. She was the true heart of the story, transforming everyone through her life and her death. And she did the only thing that could be done in Toranaga's unique situation, moving the other regents to side with Toranaga against Ishido, or to make them withdraw the armies of the heir on the battlefield of Sekigahara (which delegitimized Ishido). Because of Mariko's sacrifice, Lady Ochiba (who ultimately made the decision regarding those armies) had no choice but to withhold them or lose family honor.

In the book, Toranaga is a man of great discipline and willingness to wait until his opponents make a crucial tactical error. In the show, Mariko ends up being the "Crimson Sky" event that hands Toranaga the Shogunate. In the book, "Crimson Sky" is an attack on Kyoto to control the Emperor and get him to declare him Shogun. It is not an attack on Osaka to defeat Ishido. But I think the important thing to understand from the way both of these events transpire is that the end result remains the same, and that the character of Blackthorne (Anjin) and that of Lord Toranaga are fundamentally cut from the same cloth. They are both unpredictable, because they are interested in all kinds of information and able to think and plan outside the context of their own cultures. This is then summed up when Anjin declares to Toranaga that rebellion is always dishonorable "unless you win."

Lord Yabu (easily one of the best characters in the show) asks Toranaga, "How does it feel to control the wind?" Toranaga replies, "I don't control the wind; I only study it." If you haven't given the television series a watch, I highly recommend that you do so.

In today's Insecure Writer's post I answer a question about distractions and whether or not they bother me.

Hello and welcome to May 2024. Things are getting weird in the United States (or at least in Salt Lake City), but that is too big of a topic to tackle in a blog post or even a hundred blog posts. Instead, let's talk about the Insecure Writer's Support Group, and how today is a celebration of its continued endurance in what remains of the blogging sphere of social media.

What is the purpose of the IWSG?: That's a good question. It is to share and encourage. Writers can express doubts and concerns without fear of appearing foolish or weak. Those who have been through the fire can offer assistance and guidance, and you should consider it a safe haven for insecure writers of all kinds.

When does the IWSG post?: The group posts on the first Wednesday of every month (unless you forget which is what I almost did). This day is officially Insecure Writer’s Support Group day. Ideas for those posts might include the following: 1) talking about your doubts and the fears you have conquered, 2) discussing your struggles and triumphs, and 3) offering a word of encouragement for others who are struggling.

To be considered a good blog participant, you should plan to visit others in the group and connect with your fellow writer - aim for a dozen new people each time - and return comments. This group is all about connection via networking. Be sure to link to their page and display their badge in your post. And please be sure your avatar links back to your blog. Without those breadcrumbs, it is difficult for others to locate your blog and comment back.

The IWSG has a motto. It is "Let’s rock the neurotic writing world!"

The X (formerly Twitter) handle is @TheIWSG and the hashtag everyone uses is #IWSG.

The awesome co-hosts for the May 1st posting of the IWSG are Victoria Marie Lees, Kim Lajevardi, Nancy Gideon, and Cathrina Constantine!

Now, every month, the brain trust of the IWSG announces a question that members can answer in their IWSG post. These questions may prompt you to share advice, insight, a personal experience or story. If this is what you want to do, then go right ahead. But remember that the question is optional. Here is the May question, and yes, I'm going to answer it.

How do you deal with distractions when you are writing? Do they derail you?

I am not good at dealing with distractions. So yes, they do derail me. I think the key to this is to just draw boundaries and to shut the door. I have a specific example, but I'm not going to write it here in the off chance that they read it and become offended. I will say that some of the worst distractions I've ever come across are caused by people who talk incessantly about one thing for ten hours straight and just blather on and on and on, and this is usually a result of severe and unmedicated ADHD or something similar. Anyway, may that specific circumstance never find you when you are trying to write :)

Thank you for visiting, and I hope your May goes swimmingly.

You won't understand 3 Body Problem until its fourth episode but you should stick with it. The payoff is spectacular.

I've been making my way through Netflix's 3 Body Problem, which is an adaptation of a science fiction novel I had never even heard about written by an author named Liu Cixin. After watching the episodes that are available on Netflix, I gotta say that I'm hooked. However, it took a long time getting there (longer than most series that hook me). It wasn't that the series didn't have much going on. It absolutely did. Rather, the problem for me was that for the first three episodes, I had absolutely no idea what was going on. So consider that conundrum: how many people stick with something after three hours, and they still can't explain to another person what the show is about? That's literally what I faced with 3 Body Problem. But it did get there, and the payoff was huge as my mind was blown about the whole story, and how it connected to everything that I'd seen in those first three episodes. Now, I think of it as a brilliant piece of hard science fiction, one in which I eagerly anticipate the next installment.

On that front, I have heard that the streamer has yet to confirm more seasons to adapt. It is a series from the Game of Thrones showrunners, David Benioff and D.B. Weiss, so I think it has a good chance to get more seasons. But Netflix has a way of canceling things early. I hope that this doesn't happen with 3 Body Problem as I'm now invested and want some resolution on the things that unfolded plot-wise that I shall not go into in this post. Rather, I'd try and convince you that you should watch at least four episodes. If you're like me, you will be completely lost in the first three. It is the fourth episode where the light turns on and you go, "Oh wow! This is what they've been building to?" I think it is worth the wait, you just need to extend the storytellers some trust that they won't leave you hanging like Lost did for many folks.

In many ways, 3 Body Problem is borrowing from what Asimov and Herbert started with a story that is set to unfold over centuries rather than in a single lifetime of one protagonist. I also look forward to seeing how the storytelling evolves to keep us rooting for a single protagonist (or even if this is that kind of show). However, they have already laid the groundwork to propel one or more of these protagonists forward through the centuries to monitor the scale of the project that is at the core of 3 Body Problem in ways that strike a similar tone to what I'm watching in Apple TV+'s adaptation of Asimov's Foundation. With a television series and unlike a book, many people desire some kind of character continuity. With the way that Liu Cixin has approached the telling of this tale, it is apparent that they are embracing only hard science fiction processes that can exist within the framework and upon those ethereal layers within which science plays on the margins. So you get quantum entanglement for example, with computers that can talk to each other no matter how far apart they are. Impossible for us with our current level of knowledge as a civilization, but not impossible for aliens who are far more advanced than us.

The only thing that isn't fresh with the ideas presented in 3 Body Problem, is an obvious one. The question of "Is the human race worth saving?" is at its core. And this kind of question annoys me. Of course it is, although humans are far from perfect. If humans did become extinct then there would exist no possibility of growth and improvement. And as far as the San-Ti go (these are the aliens who are the villain of the story) if they're willing to wipe out an entire species in order to steal their planet, then they are not more worthy than humans for sure. And this then leads me to think: why don't they just take Mars or some other planet? If they are capable of making a journey across the stars and have that kind of technology, terraforming shouldn't be all that difficult for them. But...whatever. The story has got me intrigued and hooked in all of the right places so I won't question the motivations of the villain of the story other than: they are bad and they are coming (similar to "Winter is coming"). And the visuals that I've seen this first season are impressive as hell. It's difficult to remember a season one that looked this lavish and this good on its debut.

Jerry Seinfeld says that the movie business is over. Do you agree?

Jerry Seinfeld has a new movie out that I probably won't go and see as I was never a big "Seinfeld" fan. But he did say something in the news this week that caught my eye. Here's the quote:

"They [people who make movies] don't have any idea that the movie business is over. They have no idea."

When asked to elaborate, Seinfeld then said, "Film doesn't occupy the pinnacle in the social, cultural hierarchy that it did for most of our lives. When a movie came out, if it was good, we all went to see it. We all discussed it. We quoted lines and scenes we liked. Now we're walking through a fire hose of water, just trying to see."

So, I think I understand what Seinfeld was getting at here, but the comparison or use of the "fire hose of water" metaphor has got me a little confused. What do you think he means? Here's my take: a fire hose throws out a ton of water, and what he's saying is that there's too much volume coming out and too many options for people to watch. As a result, everything is just getting sopping wet and there's no rhyme or reason for what gets produced and what doesn't get produced and because of that, no one cares. Does that sound about right?

But even if I don't understand completely what Seinfeld is getting at, I do want to say this: watching shows (for me) has never been so fulfilling. Here's a slice of what I rate as "incredible" that has come out in just the last ten years:

1) Breaking Bad

2) The Mandalorian

3) Game of Thrones

4) The Expanse

5) The new Dune movie and its sequel

6) Foundation on Apple +

7) Avengers: Age of Ultron and Avengers: Endgame

I feel like I'm living in the golden age of science fiction, fantasy, and comic books. However, is Seinfeld right? is the movie business over? Is he being literal about "movies" as opposed to "television", which I'm lumping together as synonyms of each other? A show is a show, right? And show business is show business? 

A.I. is everywhere now.

Watching a.i. take over everything that I see has been really weird and unsettling. Whenever I spot it "in the wild" as it were, I know that the people who used it are just "phoning it in." Here's some examples.

1) Recently, Wizards of the Coast who owns the Dungeons & Dragons intellectual property had to fire an artist because they had hired the artist to produce illustrations for one of their books called Bigby Presents: Glory of the Giants. The reason? They had used a.i. to produce more than ten images for the book, and they hadn't disclosed that at all. The images look great by the way. However, there was an uproar once it was "discovered" by a clever spot person who knew what to look for when it comes to a.i. images. What's the fallout going to be over this? Well, in the short-term the company fired that artist and ordered the digital version of the book to be redone with art from another artist. However, this is simply a company choosing to do the right thing. I mean...the a.i. art was good, and it passed in front of a lot of eyes before it was caught. I also understand why the artist chose to do it: money. Imagine getting like ten to fourteen images done in a single night and then just collecting a big paycheck from a company that just wants to do the right thing. But the message is also clear on this one: why do companies even need artists anymore? If they chose to do the wrong thing, then they'd just end up with more money in their pocket.

2) I see books all of the time on Amazon or on Reddit or on Facebook and the art for the covers looks really great minus maybe a few tells: an extra finger that most people might miss or a dragon's tail that is duplicated. Click on the comments and you see people asking why the self-published author used a.i. art for the cover. Well...I'll tell you why. It's because it actually does look professionally done, and if the author had even a smidgeon of talent at photoshop and also had attention to detail, they could have corrected that extra finger and then it would have been indistinguishable from a piece that might have cost $2,000 to have done by a real artist five years ago. What's the fallout for this? How do we know that half the book (or more) wasn't also written by a.i. if the cover was done that way? And why should we be concerned? Because there's no effort in it. The person is just phoning it in. This is the way our society is going: low to no effort and people are phoning things in from their place on the couch and expecting to get paid. Maybe the late Janet Reid (from Query Shark) passed away at the right time as it's obvious that the literary world she so loved has gone into the toilet. Also, I mean no disrespect to Janet Reid by making that comment. She was a titan among literary agents out there and did a lot to help struggling writers who legitimately weren't "phoning it in." I've heard stories where she attended writer's conferences and sat outside the conference hall to hear pitches from every single writer who wanted to pitch something to her before she left.

3) Real Estate Agents who saw their commissions cave-in within the last year (and who have dangerously bloated lifestyles) have turned to consulting as a gig to try and replace some of that lost $40,000 a month they were used to for basically doing nothing. Consulting (if you don't know) is one of those jobs that really appeals to narcissists who want big bucks for low effort stuff, and there's always a sucker willing to hand over their money because they followed/benefited from one of the four rules of getting wealthy in the United States:

1. You inherit the money. If this isn't an option see number 2.
2. You are smart and clever enough to be a really successful criminal. If you are too stupid for this see number 3.
3. You have a good idea and then you take that idea and you outwork everyone else. You don't let any single person outwork you, and you sacrifice everything to keep working on it. If you don't have the spark and the drive for this see number 4.
4. You are pretty enough that people will give you money for your favors. And yes, "favors" is a euphemism.

So what do consultants do? Well, they used to try and offer some wisdom into whatever their specialty is. But I know a few of these former real estate agents who turned to consulting and their websites are all a.i. garbage with things posted on the blogs they threw up there that clearly were written by ChatGPT. How? I can spot the tells. So basically, they are phoning it in too and hoping that ChatGPT is good enough to land the big whales who want to benefit from ChatGPT wisdom. But what could possibly be the fallout for this? As soon as those "whales" with money find out that it's just ChatGPT, they may (in fact) decide to take the advice of ChatGPT instead of paying a consultant fee.

This is just three examples of how a.i. is really saturating everything. But I'll hand you a few more. It's difficult to find actual art anymore. Everything you google is just a.i. art now including things I see a lot on DeviantArt and Artstation. I read more and more articles everyday that seem to be written by a.i. appearing on Facebook. How do I know? There's no depth. There are just so many people using a.i. that I wonder if any of it has any value, because it is so easy to get your hands on a.i. stuff. Adobe Firefly has advertisements that tout the built in a.i. features that allow you to be a "better illustrator." Give me a break. Having a.i. draw the picture for you is just a gussied up paint by numbers. I think the biggest thing that is shattering in my head about this whole a.i. takeover is that the caste system of the United States no longer makes sense to me. It used to be that I'd do this little trick in my head and convince myself that rich people were people who had talent. That little trick is dying because of a.i. and now all I see are people who were just lucky. That's it. Luck. And that's a bad reason to use to explain to a struggling person why they are struggling. "Sorry man, you just drew the short stick, you know what I'm saying? Bye, Felicia. However, you are in my thoughts and prayers." This is basically the new reality of America, and I wonder if anyone is going to do anything about it, or are we all just going to start accepting this new reality as a group and just phone in everything from now on?

So many avenues where people used to be able to make money are going to dry up from all of this. And the irony of it all is that this is probably the worst time for something like that to happen, because everything is just costing more and more and more.

If Warhammer 40K was supposed to be satire it fails miserably at this.

There was a controversy lately that popped up in the Warhammer 40K community. It involved what my friend summarized as "buzz from right aligned, anti-woke fascist misogynistic man-babies over the game, because they included a female 'Astartes Custodes' in a game manual." He went on to say that these people see the "crippling authoritarian xenophobic race of man [in the game] as right up their alley because they envision themselves to be a space marine and not a sump-diver." But, you actually don't need to know what any or all of this means to read this blog post. Rather, what I wanted to talk about is something that popped up in passing in an article about all of the above, where a writer claimed that the game of Warhammer 40K got its start from satire aimed at the British, especially their noble classes. When I read those words, I was like...whaaatttt?

This idea that the Space Marines from Warhammer 40K were supposed to be a satirical read on the British actually kind of blew my mind. This then led me to understand just how bad a vehicle satire actually is. Allow me to explain. In order for satire to be effective it needs to be understood. But just like any form of humor, it can fall flat depending on who is consuming it. For example, I had some door-to-door salesmen knock on my door earlier this week and they opened with a joke. "We were just at your neighbors and they said you are having a party so we are here for that." I looked at these two young men strangely and said, "There's no party here." And then one of the salesmen said, "It's a joke. I'm trying to be funny. And then he went into his sales pitch." Needless to say, they didn't sell me anything, and I think the experience all around was what I would call "flat and a waste of time for both of us." But it wasn't completely useless. It was just the latest example of how a joke isn't funny to some people. You need to know your audience.

I think satire is this same kind of thing. Furthermore, without having written satire, I can say that my experience with it is that effective satire needs to be a one and done thing. That's kind of what Saturday Night Live does with their skits. It is rare for them to revisit a skit, and when they do, it is never as funny as the first time that they do it. So for the most part, a lot of their skits are "one and done." If not, then they certainly try to change up the situation so that it at least is different the next time you see it.

But the idea that you could set out within the framework of capitalism and create a game that you expect people to buy from you over and over with new rules sets and new miniatures, and painting guides and literally a whole community and expect everyone to buy into this as "satire" feels like a disastrous idea. And it has been, as the company, Games Workshop, is in a bit of a pickle with its fanbase that it has carefully curated and grown for decades to become a billion dollar company.

You see...the people who love the game like all of this authoritarian and fascist stuff. And the "Empire of Man," which is categorically evil (if not one of the lesser evils--but this is debatable) is their kind of jam. Furthermore, Warhammer 40K also got "cool." So you have all of this "Nazi-esque" stuff, and it's all brightly painted, intricate, has some incredible lore, and on top of that...yeah...it's cool. It's the same kind of cool that any of us who have watched World War 2 films feel when you see a sharply-dressed and handsome Nazi soldier in uniform and you think, "I hate that I find that visual attractive, because it is evil." From the standpoint of making money, it's absolutely a "no-brainer" for the company because people will buy stuff like this. It is appealing. It looks cool. It's fun. However, from the view of those who would like to remove money from the equation and just live in a healthy society...it is so anti that. So what has actually happened is that a company set out to satire and lampoon a thing and their message got lost but they made a ton of money and managed to make evil look like the ideal. That is so weird to just think about.

For years and years the community around this game has grown, and it has attracted more and more people who have a safe space to discuss all of their ideas about fascism because they assume that everyone that plays this game must be like them. And you know what? This is actually a good assumption. It is logical. Why wouldn't it be that unless it was blatant satire? But that satire message is so buried in history that it surprised even me when I learned about it just yesterday. This "joke" was not done well at all. In fact, it may be one of the worst jokes ever told.

It will be interesting to see if Games Workshop can even deal at all with its toxic fanbase. In capitalism, you are dependent (as a company) on your supporters. If you've made all of your supporters fascist and you want to preach the opposite of that, you will go out of business. They don't want to go out of business, so my guess is that they will just have to swallow all of the crap that takes place on their message boards and just sally on, making money, and hoping they don't do anything to piss their base off. And meanwhile the rest of us get to hear about the consequences of all of that, because there is no place for bravery to stand up for things like morality in capitalism. There is only profit.

 

I hope that Halo gets renewed on Paramount + for a third season.

I never played the HALO games that were kind of ubiquitous with Microsoft's XBox ever since it was launched a few decades ago (boy that makes me feel a bit old). I remember saving up money for my original XBox and being excited that "Microsoft was going to make a console." Anyway, having not played HALO but being a little familiar with the intellectual property, because I had friends who played, made me very interested in watching the show on Paramount +. 

I thought that the first season was really good science fiction, unraveling a mystery about an object that was genetically connected to two human-like individuals. It also introduced us to a race of brutal space-faring monsters called "The Covenant" who are nothing less than spectacular in their efficiency and strength. It is difficult to find any sympathy at all with the Covenant due to this fact, which I think is the point since the human characters are the ones the story definitely wants you (as a viewer) to feel sympathetic toward. The human characters consistently show empathy, camaraderie, and are thrust into high-stakes situations which look impressive, keep you on the edge of your seat, and pretty much demand that you root for the underdog (the humans). By contrast, the Covenant members we've seen so far just hit really hard and are extremely difficult to kill. They are fast, lethal, and there hasn't been one yet that has shown even a shred of decency and empathy. I think their very name is supposed to conjure fear (and it does do this), because you know that beating them is almost impossible.

Amidst all of this are the Spartans, who are genetically enhanced superhumans wearing armor that takes them from an "already mythical" status and raises them to the level of a demigod among normal humans. They are Nietzsche's Übermensch, who by merely existing to make war on the Covenant, give all humanity a profound meaning for their existence in a fight against a common foe. Watching the Spartans engage the Covenant on screen is as incredible as it was watching Jedi's fight with lightsabers when I was a little kid, or like watching superheroes punch each other in any kind of Zach Snyder fight scene. They just come across as so strong. But the writers of the material know that they can't have too many of these Spartans around or then the Covenant doesn't seem nearly as threatening. So they know to keep the numbers low on these specialized forces so that only a few of them can exist at a time, and thus humanity is consistently on the defensive against the creatures that the Covenant uses against them.

I definitely understand the appeal. I guess that in the game version of HALO, you never get to see Chief's face. This is what we call a "character sleeve" in fiction. It allows the player to insert themselves into the story. It does a neat little trick by allowing the player to envision themselves as having all the power of this superhuman at their fingertips. And all the killing that's done on screen doesn't matter because the Covenant "had it coming" due to their no mercy tactics and lack of any version of human empathy or pity for the weak.

I actually love that they decided to remove the helmet for this adaptation of HALO (which hasn't been popular with the video gamers who are watching the show) mostly because I wanted to relate to the character of the Master Chief, and I wanted to see just how human he is. Those are the kinds of characters I can sink my brain into, and in this aspect, the Master Chief is an excellent protagonist. Yeah he's as strong as ten silverback gorillas put together. But he also is really astute, has empathy, good judgment, and good character. In many situations, he might be considered a Mary Sue. However, he falls short of this in that the writers do have him get beat up and smacked around a lot to remind us that he isn't invulnerable and that he isn't a deus ex machina.

The second season is much stronger than the first. I was entertained in every single episode, and I looked forward to the next, and I hope that it gets renewed for a season 3. Supposedly, it is getting a lot of views on Paramount +, so the chances are good that it will be renewed (but streaming is also rather weird when it comes to what gets canceled and what gets renewed). Have any of you bothered to check it out on Paramount +? If so, what did you think?