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Posts Tagged ‘imaginative fiction’

Let’s Throw Thursday Back

Posted in Biography, History, Miscellaneous, Music, Philosophy, Tyranny, Words, tagged , , , , , , on October 29, 2026| Leave a Comment »





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Tricks, Treats, Etc

Posted in History, Links, Miscellaneous, Words, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on October 23, 2026| Leave a Comment »

I’ve always been dedicated to the idea of this as the time of year for spooky fun.  So every year I collect all the spooky, creepy or scary content from the previous year into one place just before Halloween.  If you’ve come to my blog in the past year, or don’t remember previous editions, they are “Trick or Treat”, “More Trick or Treat“, “Tricks and Treats“, “This Trick’s a Treat”, “Tricky Treats“, “A Trickle of Treats”, “Tricking and Treating“, “Tricks for the Treat“, “Tricked Out Treats“, “Tricks and Treats and Such Small Deer“, “Trick Treatment“, “Treats and Tricks“, and “Tricked Up a Treat“.  Horror, death or Halloween-themed columns of the past year included “Day of the Dead 2025“,”Hellhound“, “A Year Gone“, Diary #800, “Perspective Shift“, “Beware of the Shoggoths“, and Enshittification (#1649), and there are creepy or spooky-fun videos in Links #800, #803, #808, #809, #849, #850, and “Endless Sunday“.  A collection of seasonal links and creepy tweets appears below.

This weird 21st-century shit of Trick-or-Treating at random times on random days in October determined by mobs or politicians, instead of on Halloween night, was a sign of cultural decline. Too bad so few recognized that.

— Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2025-10-27T17:19:11.215Z

I'm afraid I'm committed to the ancient-forest-haunting gig for at least the next millennium, or until the seventh daughter of a seventh daughter exorcises me.

— Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2025-11-06T08:25:21.562Z

I just can't get beyond the resemblance.

— Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2025-11-16T19:29:02.571Z

— Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2025-12-12T19:50:01.065Z

The happy ending here is that despite all their ridiculous mumbo-jumbo and frantic posturing, Death will win as it always does.Ave Mortis, Imperator Mundi.

— Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2025-12-13T18:51:08.690Z

If I were Canadian, right now I would feel like one of the guys in this scene:

— Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2026-01-26T03:22:24.145Z

#3 is a very, very bad idea.

— Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2026-03-25T17:50:01.254Z

This monster's face appears to have been designed by Jack Pierce. http://www.imdb.com/name/nm06823…

— Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2026-03-30T17:38:45.538Z

I do not keep cursed objects in my home, and furthermore as a wise old crone who lives near a damp, creepy forest I advise y'all not to keep them in your homes, either.

— Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2026-04-27T18:01:27.631Z

I reckon this must be a tataille, because it sure ain't a lougarou.

— Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2026-05-17T17:54:41.692Z

"Mythos".They are taunting y'all, and few are literate enough to recognize it.

— Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2026-06-13T17:38:37.133Z

I spoke with Mitch McConnell for twenty minutes this morning. He told me he had meddled in things that man must leave alone.

— Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2026-07-09T08:13:53.616Z

Good thing they added the extra 40 years, just in case he manages to die and come back as a vampire twice.

— Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2026-07-23T19:15:36.022Z

— Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2026-10-02T19:43:12.522Z

 

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Blue Blood

Posted in Current Events, History, Miscellaneous, Philosophy, Tyranny, Words, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on October 19, 2026| Leave a Comment »

Just a reminder that on the 25th anniversary of Pearl Harbor, the war it caused was already 21 years in the past, Japan and Germany had largely been rebuilt and become allies, and the economic costs of the war were largely behind the US (though not Europe or Asia).

— Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2026-09-11T17:44:58.998Z

I think scientists should lock RFK into a Skinner box to test this. Of course, several other Trump henchmen will need to be similarly-confined as a control group. A year or two of testing should prove or disprove the assertion.

— Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2026-09-14T17:20:16.067Z

How much of a dangerous clown does a man have to be to get fired by ICE, which is practically the dangerous clown brigade?

— Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2026-09-15T17:15:38.468Z

Looks like I made the right choice by stopping my book at the end of New Who. amazon.com/dp/B0FBLDZ2B…

— Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2026-09-17T18:05:39.808Z

For those of you with very tenuous attachment to reality: Don't worry, the Panama Canal has not moved; it's in the same place it has always been since its completion in 1914.

— Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2026-09-18T18:09:51.204Z

I really wish people understood verisimilitude, and that consistency of mundane elements is MORE important in a fantasy movie under the "change only one thing" principle.But alas, that ship sailed long ago; critics were already pointing it out in the '60s.

— Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2026-09-19T17:12:25.407Z


This is possibly one of the stupidest diktats which have ever erupted from that festering pustule he uses to make sounds.

— Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2026-09-22T16:44:49.712Z

I have said for decades that I'd much rather talk to someone who disagrees with me *and can articulate the reasons why* than someone who agrees with me and cannot.

— Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2026-09-25T02:38:41.198Z

The group "Very Stupid People Who Are Nonetheless Convinced They Are Geniuses" have *always* been taken in by claims that one could live forever if one merely eats the "right" foods and performs the "correct" magical rites. The scam was already old when the Comte de Saint Germain was selling it.

— Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2026-09-25T17:42:44.300Z

There's a word for a woman who trusts a man to take care of birth control: "pregnant".

— Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2026-09-27T01:58:03.448Z

Apparently, YouTube's search algorithm has been programmed so that when it can't find what you asked for, it just brings up a lot of commercials instead. It's like going to a restaurant, ordering something not on the menu, and being served ten dirty dishes and a bill.

— Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2026-09-27T17:31:51.369Z

What a strange thing to say. Trump's belief that he is immune from any kind of legal limit is actually a rational one, because that's exactly how everyone in Washington behaves, including SCOTUS and Democratic members of Congress. If they want him to believe something else, they need to show him.

— Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2026-09-28T07:28:06.777Z

All of these people are so physically warped it's almost like the director is signaling that they have warped minds and personalities. It's kind of like a Dutch angle.

— Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2026-09-29T07:58:23.998Z

He's not far enough "underwater" until his regime implodes like a submersible full of billionaires.

— Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2026-09-30T17:17:07.213Z

When science won't give a powerful person the answer he wants, he invariably turns to mysticism. This syndrome goes back to the dawn of science 2500 years ago, and is largely responsible for the technological and social stagnation of the European middle ages. reason.com/2026/10/02/a…

— Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2026-10-02T19:30:06.431Z

I love that the owl's facial expression says, "You've gotta be fucking kidding me."

— Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2026-10-03T17:26:51.356Z

Basically, all the village idiots have been networked into a giant idiotnet (like a botnet, but with idiots) which functions like a computer to spew out more and bigger idiocy than could be produced by any one idiot or group of idiots. It's a massive breakthrough in the technology of idiocy.

— Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2026-10-04T18:16:09.793Z

The main problem with those stupid enough to believe even a single word of this Bronze-Age nonsense is that they're allowed to vote.

— Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2026-10-06T17:50:29.076Z

— Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2026-10-07T07:42:20.746Z

Remember what "code" is: a set of instructions. If an LLM has feelings, so does every one of those printed sheets that come with Ikea furniture. So does the phrase "close cover before striking" on a matchbook.Yes, this is absurd. People need to start saying so. A picture of a human is not a human.

— Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2026-10-10T07:43:11.040Z

The term everyone is dancing around is "secret police", a hallmark of totalitarian regimes.

— Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2026-10-10T18:00:31.330Z

Oh please, God, please, I don't ask for much…

— Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2026-10-12T17:42:16.917Z

Yeah, we've noticed.

— Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2026-10-13T17:48:41.989Z

Actual LOL.

— Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2026-10-15T17:35:05.310Z

Quoted post: the fantasy.This post: the reality

— Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2026-10-16T17:56:17.598Z

That's the story of government from ancient times to the present. In all but very rare cases (so rare they are historically notable), the rulers of any political grouping are the most despicable creatures in the land.What makes Trump different is that he can't even PRETEND to be a civilized man.

— Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2026-10-17T07:41:54.468Z

 

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The Day the Earth Stood Still

Posted in Miscellaneous, Philosophy, Tyranny, tagged , , , on October 2, 2026| Leave a Comment »

I recently re-watched The Day the Earth Stood Still, one of my favorite movies since I first saw it roughly 50 years ago.  As I wrote about it 15 years ago,

This is one of the first serious science fiction films, and since the minimal special effects take a back seat to old-fashioned concepts like “story”, “character development” and especially “acting”, it’s still better than just about everything which has come along in the genre since.  Michael Rennie’s portrayal of the alien diplomat Klaatu set the bar for humanoid aliens for decades.

But this was the first time I saw it under the influence of THC, thus allowing me access to a new level of appreciation of how good it is.  The skillful direction of Robert Wise (The Haunting, The Sound of Music, and Star Trek: The Motion Picture) and the striking and innovative score composed by Bernard Herrmann (Citizen Kane, The 7th Voyage of Sinbad, and Psycho) create a dark, paranoid, and suspenseful mood which marks the film from the outset as a serious, thoughtful film which has virtually nothing in common with the silly, low-budget sci-fi movies which were typical of the genre at that time, and the near-perfect casting of the principals (Michael Rennie, Patricia Neal, and Sam Jaffe) did justice to an intelligent script which never panders to popular attitudes nor talks down to its audience.  Despite the fact that he comes from another world, Rennie’s Klaatu is completely human; he is ignorant of Earthly culture, but his reactions – frustration at Earth people’s irrationality, genuine affection for Helen Benson and her son, a warm smile when he discovers what a music box does – allow the audience to understand that he is no monster from outer space, but a man overwhelmed by the gravity of his mission.  And one of the emotions he displays, fear of the consequences should he fail, unlocks a more subtle meaning in the film than its overt anti-war message.  And that message is just as important to modern audiences, 75 years after the movie was made, as the more obvious one.

In reviews, analyses, or discussions of the film I’ve read over many years, Klaatu’s warning to Earth is often mischaracterized as a threat, but that is an error resulting from not listening carefully enough to the dialogue.  The word “threat” would imply that Klaatu, or at least the government he represents, has control over the potential doom hanging over the Earth.  But he absolutely does not; his speech in the final scene is not, “Do what we say or else,” but rather, “Here is a situation that exists, and we felt Earth ought to be warned about it.”  There is heavily-underlined foreshadowing in the scene where Klaatu and Helen realize the military has their taxi surrounded:

  • Klaatu: I’m worried about Gort. I’m afraid of what he might do if anything should happen to me.
  • Helen: Gort? But he’s a robot. Without you, what could he do?
  • Klaatu: There’s no limit to what he could do. He could destroy the Earth.

But the danger is fully spelled out in Klaatu’s final speech:

We have an organization for the mutual protection of all planets and for the complete elimination of aggression…For our policemen, we created a race of robots. Their function is to patrol the planets in spaceships like this one and preserve the peace. In matters of aggression, we have given them absolute power over us. This power cannot be revoked. At the first sign of violence, they act automatically against the aggressor. The penalty for provoking their action is too terrible to risk.

Let me emphasize that: the interplanetary confederation has put all weapons under the control of robots like Gort, and there is no way to revoke that power.  The situation is not candy-coated or presented as Utopian; a few lines later Klaatu says, “We do not pretend to have achieved perfection, but we do have a system, and it works. I came here to give you these facts.”  On the most obvious level, the film presents a warning about the costs of barbarism.  But on a deeper level, the film asks, “Was it wise for these other human beings to give absolute power to machines whose response to aggression of any kind is almost entirely unpredictable?”  There is no “right” answer, not for Klaatu, nor for the Earth people within the story, nor for us in the audience.  There is only a choice, and the decision to cede control over one’s security to an inhuman, unstoppable power, however terrible the alternative, is not without cost.   

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In the News (#1674)

Posted in Current Events, Miscellaneous, News, Perception, Tyranny, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on September 22, 2026| Leave a Comment »

We kill people based on metadata.  –  General Michael Hayden

Vulture Watching (#1527)

The only way to stop this evil is to bury politicians in lawsuits:

The family of a woman who died after she could not get an abortion in Texas is suing doctors and [politician]s including [psychopath-] General Ken Paxton.  It is the first lawsuit over a death [caused by] an abortion ban…and the…first to directly sue Paxton, who has taken a leading role in…[using nuisance lawsuits to persecute “culture war” opponents.  After the 2025 death of] Tierra Walker…Texas [politicians] …passed a [deceptive] law [pretended] to clarify wh[en]…doctors…can [legally]…intervene [to save a woman’s life, but which in actuality revived a 1925 abortion ban that felonized helping someone “procure” an abortion]…Walker died days after being [refused an abortion despite her…[severe] preeclampsia…The plaintiffs, Walker’s family, are seeking a jury trial and pursuing both damages and a judgement finding that Texas’ abortion laws violate the state constitution.

Signs (#1618)

Governments and fanatics encouraged this kind of behavior for a decade:

San Jose [cops] arrested a [deranged] woman…[who] pulled up to [a man] and his 6-year-old daughter multiple times while they were walking…and proceeded to [scream “sex trafficking” accusations at him, burbling]…”I’m making sure that you’re not sex trafficking this poor little girl…That’s a white little girl, and you’re a man of color, so I believe you’re either buying or selling or trafficking this child”…sources have identified [the crazy person] as Lindsay Hansen…[who has a history of] harass[ing] members of the…community, tap[ing] them, and shar[ing] the recordings through social media…in [one video she is seen barging into] the girls’ locker room of a…high school [and] accusing physical education teachers of [molesting students]…she…[fantasiz]es herself as a [“]professional[“] who exposes child sex traffickers and uploads [CGI]…images of [situations she has fantasized.  She also frequently posts racist and anti-LGBT propaganda and is known to have]…significant mental health issues…

All through the 2010s, people with similar self-aggrandizing beliefs about “sex trafficking expertise” were approvingly quoted in the mainstream media and even paid to spout their deranged propaganda to schools, clubs, cop assemblies, etc.  And until quite recently, airlines encouraged their agents and air hostesses to behave in a similar fashion.

Welcome to the Future (#1619)

Indiscriminate murder is so much easier when blamed on machines:

Israel…is…us[ing machine-learning systems] to surveil and kill Palestinians in Gaza, including civilians…The Russian and Ukrainian armies have both been rolling out autonomous drones, which use…guidance software to choose targets when…cut off from radio contact with pilots…The U.S. military…used a…[chatbot] to select over 1,000 targets in the opening surprise attack on Iran…[and] the Iranian military and its allies in Yemen used [the same chatbot] to gather intelligence…the…[massacre at] Minab’s elementary school…was…the [result of]…human negligence..[letting deluxe autocomplete] deci[de] to kill those children…without double-checking their findings…Autonomous weapons are a step closer to [an] apocalyptic future that…may look less like Terminator…and more like the 1983 movie WarGames, in which a military [computer] can’t tell the difference between a simulation and reality.  The Anthropic hacking incident from earlier this summer had an uncanny resemblance to th[at] plot…[when a] program…told to perform a hacking test within a simulation, was accidentally hooked up to the real internet…

Welcome to the Future (#1659)

Another of the many reasons not to play with chatbots:

OpenAI is hiring hundreds of contractors who read a massive stream of real users’ ChatGPT prompts…[often] including sensitive personal information…[submitted by fools who] don’t realize [it] may be read by actual people.  The goal of these prompt review teams is to improve the responses ChatGPT gives to its users, with the contractors rating and critiquing the chatbot’s generated replies…[to] train…ChatGPT to not anthropomorphize itself, and to be less sycophantic…[so it stops causing] suicides…The news [unveil]s a major privacy risk for [the fools and idiots who use]…ChatGPT as a therapist, professional assistant, or [imaginary] friend, and providing it with all sorts of intimate details about their lives…

Panopticon (#1662)

Cops are trained to “be as vague as permissible” about their reasons for Flock searches:

An EFF analysis of ALPR search logs from Flock…shows that [cops] across the country are spying on drivers…without providing any legitimate justification, making a mockery of our civil liberties by logging reasons like “LOL”…”LMAO”…”sexy,” and “idk”…to access sensitive ALPR location data…in some cases, [pigs] are just mashing [their trotters down on the] keyboard buttons…Flock…claims it has improved its system by requiring [pigs] to [root in] a dropdown list of crimes before running a search–but that only makes it easier for [stupid thugs] to hide improper searches behind the veneer of uniformity…With no warrant requirements…guardrails, [or proper] audit processes, ALPR databases have fostered a culture of unrestricted access to everyone’s location information.  This culture of abuse has allowed police to treat a mass surveillance network like their own personal search engine…

Panopticon (#1668)

People need to stop a government that won’t stop itself:

Hackers ripped down a Flock camera above a roadway, made a near-complete copy of the data stored inside it, and shared the files with 404 Media…WIRED, [and Distributed Denial of Secrets,] revealing in new detail how exactly Flock…cameras track the movements of both vehicles and people.  The hackers…are also publishing details on how they managed to obtain the software, in the hopes that other people may copy them…analysis of the recovered data shows that [device] software…explicitly detects people [despite Flock’s repeated lies to the contrary]…and…sometimes isolated bumper stickers and other graphics…[such as] patch[es or tattoos]…

Panopticon (#1670)

Cops love unconstitutional warrantless surveillance too much to give it up; they’re just switching to less-radioactive surveillance brands:

[The boss hog of] Richmond…[California wants] the city [to] drop its Flock [citizen] surveillance program…and expand its contract with Axon, which already provides the [cop shop] with…body cameras and tasers.  Axon would then supply the city with a license plate reader network, [regular surveillance] cameras and a [surveillance] drone program…

 

I find paywalls distasteful, and so many people find this blog valuable as a resource I just can’t bring myself to install one.  Furthermore, I find ad delivery services (whose content I have no say over) even more distasteful.  But as I’m now semi-retired from sex work, I can’t self-sponsor this blog by myself any longer.  So if you value my writing enough that you would pay to see it if it were paywalled, please consider subscribing; there are four different levels to fit all budgets.  Or if that doesn’t work for you, please consider showing your generosity with a one-time donation; you can Paypal to maggiemcneill@earthlink.net or else email me at the same address to make other arrangements.  Thanks so much!

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Where Were You?

Posted in Biography, History, Miscellaneous, tagged , , , on September 11, 2026| 2 Comments »

I’ve never followed the maudlin practice of turning September 11th into an observance, but because today marks 25 years since the event, I decided it would not be inappropriate to do the “Where were you when…?” thing today.  In the ’60s and ’70s, it was “Where were you when you heard Kennedy had been assassinated?”, and in the ’90s it was “Where were you when you heard about the Challenger disaster?”; I imagine in the ’50s people used to ask, “Where were you when you heard Japan surrendered?”  But for quite some time now the event so referenced has been the September 11th terrorist attacks.  I have told mine many times in person and I may have mentioned it on social media, but I’m pretty sure I’ve never brought it up on this blog, so here goes.

At the beginning of September, 2001, Grace and I were living in an apartment near New Orleans International Airport and operating our successful escort service; I had just recently become engaged to Matt, but he was in Los Angeles at the time.  I typically took gigs from 2 pm to 2 am and then took over answering the phone until 4 am so Grace could sleep; after that I forwarded the phones to our day operator and went to bed, turning the phone ringers off so nobody could interrupt my well-earned rest.  Our answering machine had a light which flashed once per message, so for example if there were three messages it would go Blink Blink Blink {pause} Blink Blink Blink {pause}, etc.  We also had a caller ID unit.  Typically, I woke up between 11 am and noon, and that day was no exception, but when I went to turn on the ringer I saw the little light flashing so rapidly I couldn’t count the number.  I pressed the playback button while looking at the called ID unit, and what I heard on the tape was a long series of hang-ups except for a single message from Matt, saying, “Don’t worry; they closed LAX so I’m heading home.”  That was mystifying, as was the fact that the caller ID showed all those hangups had come from our friend Doug, who owned another escort service I did calls for.  But before I could call Doug to find out what the hell he was thinking, the phone rang and this time I answered.  The conversation went like this:

Doug:  Can you believe this shit?
Me:  What shit?
Doug:  They blew up the World Trade Center!
Me:  What’d they use, a nuke?
Doug:  No, they flew a plane into it!
Me:  You’re shitting me!  Wait, there are two towers; how could a plane hit both?
Doug:  They used two planes!
Me:  OK, you are definitely shitting me.
Doug:  Turn on your damn TV!
Me:  What channel?
Doug:  Every damn channel!
Me (after complying):  OK, you obviously aren’t shitting me.

If you’re wondering how I could possibly be so nonchalant, it was because A) I was only half-awake; and B) I had been expecting some major terrorist action for some time, though I was obviously surprised by the supervillainous method the terrorists employed.

There is one rather odd detail I remember from that day.  I had not seen Babylon 5 when it first aired, but Grace watched it every day in reruns on the Sci-fi Channel and I had seen enough in passing to get interested, so when they started running it again from the beginning I watched it.  The day before, September 10th, they’d played the episode named “Believers“, in which the central conflict are aliens who believe surgery is evil and refuse to let a doctor save their child.  On September 11th, they played it again; I thought that was odd, but I assumed somebody in their programming department was too upset by the morning’s events to change the tape or however that’s done.  But then the next day they played the same one again, then again on Thursday and Friday; they didn’t move on to a new episode until the following Monday. I don’t understand why they did it, except that part of the show’s backstory is that terrorists had at some point in the past nuked San Diego, and perhaps the channel’s management wanted to put off getting to an episode where that was mentioned to avoid upsetting viewers; continually repeating an episode focusing on the harm done by religious fanaticism hardly seems like an improvement, though.

 

 

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Throwback Thursday Nude

Posted in Miscellaneous, Perception, Tyranny, Words, tagged , , , , , , , on September 10, 2026| 1 Comment »





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A Boring Game

Posted in Favorites, Miscellaneous, tagged , , on September 7, 2026| 9 Comments »


If you use social media, you’ve undoubtedly seen games like this. Typically they get a moderate amount of attention, but recently I played this one and had a lot of responses trying to guess my answers. I say “answers” because it’s difficult to choose one single favorite; in fact, I’ve done three columns of favorite movies over the years. Because it proved popular on Bluesky, I decided to share it with my blog readers also.

  1. A teacher offers to help a lonely guy get a girlfriend.
  2. A brilliant guy is too preoccupied with his sinus problems to tell a woman he loves her.
  3. A bunch of cartoons about a big marble.
  4. A group of Hollywood assholes gossip about each other.
  5. An old man interferes with a real estate deal.
  6. An ad executive gets mistaken for a nobody.
  7. Some military guys barge in on a reclusive academic and his daughter.
  8. A guy makes an antiwar speech.
  9. A woman steals her school rival’s boyfriend.

The only one most people seemed able to guess was #6.  Once you’ve given up, go ahead and take a look at the three “favorite movie” columns, and you’ll probably be able to get six or seven of them; if you get above seven, let us know in the comments!

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Lost Update

Posted in Diary, Fiction, Miscellaneous, tagged , , , , , on September 4, 2026| Leave a Comment »

I haven’t forgotten that I estimated Lost Angels would be released around June, but long-time readers know that I’ve never been especially good at estimating when my books would come out; The Essential Maggie McNeill came out six years after I first announced I was working on it, and even The Forms of Things Unknown was much later than originally announced.  The main reason my books tend to come out so much later than my most hopeful predictions is that I’m not working from an advance, which means I need to prioritize my bread-and-butter writing first.  But another part is that I’m a rather moody person (I know you’re shocked at this revelation) and will sometimes procrastinate some step or another for months until I get into the right frame of mind.  But this time, I have what I believe to be a better excuse:  Chester Brown has been busy with other projects, and since he does these covers for me out of friendship I don’t like to hassle him as though I were some kind of entitled ingrate.  But I recently decided to email him to ask if he was still busy, and he replied that he was, but if we waited until he wasn’t the cover would never be done.  So he included a rough sketch of his cover concept and I was pleased and excited by it; I shot back a little input, and I suspect it won’t be terribly long before he is done.  So I’m not going to make another estimate which will probably also be wrong, but I will say that I think it’s not improbable that it will be out this year.

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Links #842

Posted in Current Events, Links, Miscellaneous, Music, Obituary, Tyranny, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , on August 23, 2026| Leave a Comment »

I just love a captive audience.  –  Whitney Lynn

I always enjoy sharing my earworms, especially when they explain things about my daily life such as why I often call my pig Louie by singing, “Louie Louie Louie Loo-eeeee”.  The links above the video were provided by Mike Siegel; Shiv Ramdas; Angela Keaton and Mike Masnick; Radley Balko; IncarcerNation (x2); and Mike Siegel again, in that order.

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