Spot the difference? Yes, Isis is lying on the Star Wars blanket which is now resting on the new ceramic tiles in the room which will be designated Jennifer’s office. We moved there today because they’re now working on the master bedroom, its closet and accompanying bathroom. I wish I knew what going through her mind too. Is she sulking? Is she comfy? Is she on a low-level alert? What?
Yesterday’s announcement stating that Hulu ordered 20 new episodes of Futurama on the day Netflix released Disenchantment‘s latest 10 (making it the fourth season), sounded rather auspicious to me. Does this mean Disenchantment is over given how impatient Netflix is? They have cancelled shows as soon as they post a season, destroying any chance the story will develop any further: Hoops, Tuca & Bertie and Everything Sucks. Ergo, Groening timed the Hulu news as a “screw you” at Netflix? Why not. I can’t think of any show to come back after being cancelled twice (Fox in 2003, Comedy Central in 2013) which would give Groening some solace after his third original idea bit it. Personally, if Netflix did axe Disenchantment, move it to a more patient network, one not obsessed with impossible growth and hellbent on Chinese eyeballs.
Of course the turd in the punchbowl was John DiMaggio refusing to join. The issue is obviously money and I’m down with it. Disney owns the majority of Hulu, they can afford to give all the actors involved more. I don’t like how the press said the dispute is between him and show runners. I highly doubt David X Cohen and Matt Groening have any control of the show’s budget, the people running Hulu do. Whoever is being the stingy moron has certainly learned nothing about the past fights involving voice actors, namely Fox’s failed attempts at The Simpsons. The voice-acting world isn’t very large and they mostly stick together, meaning someone who could imitate John to get a close version of Bender, won’t audition. Long ago, I used to listen to Rob Paulsen’s show (Pinky and an army of others) and he said, whenever a voice actor sees an opening for a character that’s well known, they often contact the person who was doing it to find out why. Sometimes, the actor says, I’m retiring or they didn’t want me because they’re rebooting the show. In short, they get permission. If they discover the studio is looking for a scab, they work in solidarity. Hulu might find their willing stooge…for a while. I doubt the other cast members will endure it. I’m confident it’s all a bluff and Hulu will cave. If The Simpsons managed to get Harry Shearer back and he’s a prickly person, not just over money, numerous things; John DiMaggio is more reasonable. Good luck!
Oh yeah, to the naysayers who whined about how Futurama wrapped up neatly with “Meanwhile.” Suck it! It’s Science Fiction, a comedy and an episodic show. Besides, Cohen will be employing many of the same great team from the past seasons: Patric Verrone, Ken Keeler, Josh Weinstein, Mike Rowe and Dan Webber are my guesses.
I have hated the cops in general ever since I lived in Milwaukee. They were the police department I saw up close that demonstrated how they don’t serve the public but instead they are a little mafia. More correctly, a licensed group of brigands who obey their union leaders, certain rightwing politicians and/or a like-minded police chief. The Lawrencia “Bambi” Bembenek saga was a huge example of how corrupt the MPD are. Her first mistake was going to MPD’s internal affairs, they were part of the problem much like all Human Resources departments are. I had several interactions with them too. It was no surprise that Jeffrey Dahmer committed a successful string of murders there. MPD couldn’t catch a cold in the middle of Winter with their low IQs, bully mentality and cosa nostra subculture.
As for Austin? I’d say they’re only better by a tad yet they’re getting worse. They’ve been shooting people in the back, using excessive force on non-Whites for the flimsiest reasons on Sixth Street and during the recent protests, they’ve probably been using Benito Guiliani’s consulting and money-laundering operation. Although most unions are classified as Communist operations, thus, mostly illegal in Texas, the cops are allowed to have theirs.
With January 6th, it’s fun to watch cops’ heads explode on figuring out which side they should be on. On the one hand, the majority of Amerikan cops are MAGAts, sympathizers, White supremacists (Three Percenters, Oath Keepers, KKK, etc.) and/or former military vets. Even the non-White and a significant number of female cops tend to tow the Silent Blue Line.
So when a bunch of shitbags tried to overthrow the legitimate process for transitioning the presidency to the rightful winner, again, Grampa’ Brunch won by eight million votes and pulled off the Electoral College farce; we all know whose side they were on given their past behavior with BLM protests alone. Plus some of their fellow blue bloods and military comrades were amongst the Ammosexuals and Fat Guy Army. Then something unplanned happened, these terrorists attacked and killed cops. Personally, I don’t think they have much sympathy for Black cops or the DC PD given the city’s Democratic leanings. But one thing they won’t tolerate is any cops being harmed by the “civilians.”
I wish this were the turning point to start police reform and weaken their dirty unions; they make the Teamsters of Jimmy Hoffa look amateurish. However, the cartoon’s point from me is to show how full of shit the Republicans are with their sloppy verbal yoga. This was no discourse any more than Booth murdering Lincoln or Leon Czolgosz shooting McKinley were. The SCLM, the Democrats and the DOJ need to call these people by their proper name, traitors, scum and terrorists.
A rare moment of Isis being near me, overlooking my portable to see what I’m doing. Despite her resting jerk face, she’s actually relaxed and happy if she’s this close to me and her eyes aren’t bugged out, waiting for Metztli to attack. We’re at day three with the floors and the progress isn’t as easy to see since the contrast decreases.
Today we’re starting to see the baseboards going up. The original trim my carpeting and flooring had were really just cheap-ass spacers. In a couple areas, the baseboards will have to be redone thanks to drywall damage, weeks, months or years away. I do like how they’re coming together as goop will bridge the gaps.
We’ll wrap up today with how exhausted my three little supervisors were after lunch. That or the screaming from blood you could hear from the wealthy and rightwing moron ‘burbs regarding the recent water-boiling order. After the recent snowmageddon, it was advised to boil your water for two minutes before consuming it. Given this being Austin, there was a run on Top Chico and other bottled products which people shouldn’t buy when matters are going well; I’ll get to that later. The boil thing has been the third or fourth in at least ten years. It exploited what little the Republicans and NeoLiberals have put toward their precious infrastructure which is needed to accommodate the unsustainable growth they’re promoting. Anyway, it turned out the water safe the whole time. This cautious decision cost the head person’s job because you’re only allowed to be absolved of blame when poor people die from your incompetence.
Let’s close with Isis, Metztli and Agamemnon carrying out their quality assurance jobs when it comes to great places to sleep in the master bedroom before its floors are changed.
As you can see from the photo above of the room traditionally called my office (I need to come up with a better name), the crew knocked it out pretty quickly and well. What remains to be done: the baseboard, the grout which goes between the tiles and creates a mocha-colors spacing over the generic white (glue) and the tiling in the closet. I quickly moved my operations to this room so we could both work together: I can do my day job and the contractors work on the other rooms in the house.
Now the living room is spectacular as this will be what the majority of you will be seeing whenever I have you over in the future! It’s not as far along as my office. Spacers remain east side.
Meanwhile, Jennifer is tired of hotel living. I’m more mixed. The room and building are giving me flashbacks of my Marquette days in Tower and Mashed Hall. Both dorms were converted hotels the university bought to solve its housing issues, probably in the Sixties when enrollments were up and higher education was affordable. It would’ve been cool to have a kitchenette and it would’ve been disgusting at the same time. I was a young know-it-all and pretty likely to be the one responsible for all the dirty dishes piling up in the sink. The place fuels my stress eating. Hey, I’m going to enjoy this big-ass of crunchy Cheetos I scored at Costco while I watch the “new” fifth season of Rick and Morty! Nothing like an ice cream bar before bed! To accelerate my backsliding, my gym attendance streak ended because I had to be at the house at 7 AM to let the crew in. My mistake. I was here at 7 AM as per the NIST using the wavelength of Cesium. Had they told me 7 AM Austin Time, I could’ve slept in later.
Douglas was a huge pioneer in special effects, namely with Science Fiction. He cut his teeth with Kubrick via 2001 because the prickly director liked his work on a documentary for the World’s Fair about going to the Moon. This led to him lending his skills to other faves: Silent Running, The Andromeda Strain, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Star Trek: the Motion Picture and Blade Runner. Lucas asked him to work on Star Wars but Douglas turned it down because he had a prior commitment. Phew! At least it wasn’t, “That movie sounds like a piece of crap and it will fail!”
Thanks for everything Douglas! The movies you did work on definitely got Hollywood to put more money and effort into the special effects. The agro-ships from Silent Running remain awesome while your look from Blade Runner fueled numerous imitators.
The cold snap is officially over and after some veiled threats with the contractor, the new floor is under way. You’re seeing what little they’ve achieved with 2:30 PM start. Remember, we’re talking about Austin Time. To be fair to this crew, they were champs at moving all the heavy crap out of the way and tearing into the carpet I will never miss. The living room, kitchen and both offices are cleared. Since I already had the materials, they started mixing up the goop and we all came to an agreement on how the ceramic tiles were to laid down.
Below is the how it’s coming together with my hallway to my traditional office.
I’m pretty amazed with how quickly the glue stuff under the tiles dries. The grout, final goop between the tiles, will come later. I hope we’ll make more progress tomorrow as we’ll have a full day of work. Since we had a late start, they nicely stayed until 8 PM and I bought everybody pizza and chicken nuggets from Domino’s. I can already tell I’m putting on weight from the stress eating as I tried Sonic’s version of a patty melt to get me through the lunch hour as I pondered how much of my vacation I will have remaining when this whole frickin’ ordeal is over. The cats have begun to go stir crazy with their universe being restricted to just one room. My trio still has it better than poor Jennifer’s boys who are locked in Cheyenne’s bathroom.
Given all the hullabaloo about Neil Young withdrawing his tired, boring-ass music over Joe Rogan spreading his dipshittery via Spotify, I’m glad to announce my better, more intelligent stream hit a new milestone. KMAG now exceeds 16,000 songs to listen to. Sure the big streamers have over 20 times that, but let’s be honest, we know the majority of you only listen to less than 2000 possible things and it’s 90% of the crap owned by old farts (take your pick) and trust-fund babies (Taylor Shit and Mush-mouth Ellish) who don’t need any more money. Me? I love that the Mini shuffles away and the only guaranteed songs I will hear on a regular or frequent basis are the 35 new selections I’ve added no later than 75 days ago. At 16,000 entries, if I chose to have the stream just play from start to finish with its playlist which goes by alphabetical order, it wouldn’t return to the beginning for over 44 days.
Last month, the mixes returned through my podcast so you can get a tiny sample of the variety and joy! I know I’m not alone in the struggle to find new things. I caught the middle of an interview on Here and Now with the guest talking about how the wounded Music Industry is putting too much effort into the oldies. Eventually their inability to groom new material will bite them (and our civilization) in the ass. No kidding. I don’t understand how Amerikans are receptive to new TV shows through Netflix, Hulu, etc. while they’re completely the opposite when it comes to their tunes. Well, I do understand. New stuff needs trusted tastemakers or critics to introduce it with a accessible medium to communicate it. Radio is dead and will never be resuscitated, the government should start re-allocating the bandwidth to something more useful, screw Clear Channel. MTV gave up the role as soon as the Boomer Bands started making videos. Anything hosted through the Internet is too decentralized and overthrown as it spoiled the audiences, namely the younger generations who think music a right, therefore it’s supposed to be free. I’m up for suggestions to solve a multi-billion dollar dilemma.
Meanwhile, I’ll stick to my little tiny universe and share it with an equally interested audience. As the old saying goes in FM radio, the masses are asses and it explained why Guns n’ Roses sold millions of records.
I try avoiding schadenfreude or saying “I told you so,” but last Friday I was vindicated by what I’ve said about FeceBook for years, it’s a corporation worth nothing and built on sand, rainbows and bullshit. The svengoolies of Wall Street just took over a decade to figure it out and the pretend money making the Zuck a billionaire plummeted. It will take longer before the rest of the world catches up to finally figure out they’ve propped up another AOL or Beanie Baby Commodity Exchange. However, the first major crack has appeared as a significant number of people have chosen to erase their account like I did a few years ago. What got the fire sale into higher gear was the weasel in charge having to publicly say, Apple’s ability to let iOS users opt out of being spied upon affects the bottom line; aka, if people had a choice between being tracked in order to be targeted with an endless barrage of ads and being left alone, the majority want the latter. Well…no shit! Advertisers will now waste less money on the mentally and emotionally stunted Zuck’s con game and find other ways to badger us. I also think the other operating systems will follow Apple’s lead because it’s what people want. The lesson Zuck failed to learn was illustrated by another pundit, don’t build your house on land you don’t own! Once enough support pillars belonging to other corporations are yanked out from under FeceBook, the worthless site will join the graveyard with MySpace, AOL, GeoCities, Eight-Track Tapes, the Sony Minidisc and Betamax, Ford’s Edsel and the Ottoman Empire.
I can then hope the Hawaiians get their land back from the little creep and people communicate in something longer than a “like” or “tweet.”
At least the free square this year isn’t our two bigger assholes, Alex Jones and Joe Rogan.
Holy Shit! What a morning I’ve had. As if the super cold, shitty weather weren’t enough and a front-row seat to how severe Jennifer’s migraines are, I found out my next-door neighbor died suddenly. Initially there was a call from the area I ignored yet my iPhone didn’t brand it as a spammer so I called it back to get Cristina’s sister (Claudia) who wanted me to know Cristina passed away this week. The part frightening me was how she knew who I was…I was the last text message conversation on Cristina’s phone, something routine about the garbage can and how I told her about the dumpster I rented for the contractors. My immediate worry was another call from the police. Nope. Phew! Claudia wanted to just let me know what happened.
Here’s the part that really sucks. Cristina’s family only discovered her passing this morning, like the twilight hours (1-3 AM) after her not responding for several days. I explained to Claudia about how I had been living in a hotel lately and didn’t think anything was odd beyond her car being in the driveway; normally Cristina parks in the garage. However, I figured she had been working from home this month as her job rotates the employees between their offices and home at intervals. Besides, we could go days without seeing each other over the 18 years Cristina had been my neighbor. Why the car was outside? I dunno, maybe errands and there wasn’t any urgency. Meanwhile, the police officer he broke a window to get in deduced Cristina expired either the Sunday or Monday of this week while she was watching TV.
Let me answer your immediate questions you probably have. Cristina was around my age, possibly a tad older. She was in decent health and only smoked occasionally, I often could smell it when she was doing it in her backyard. No kids but there was an ex-husband who never came around. Ergo, her death was out of the blue. As per most US laws, an autopsy will done to confirm no foul play or CV-19 yet I suspect it was probably a stroke or a freak incident of “dying in your sleep,” the latter being code for a health issue too minuscule to catch in time nor matter.
Cristina’s departure really sucks! She was a cool neighbor. We got along over the 18 years. We even worked out a fair arrangement on rebuilding the fence and splitting the trash bill. She helped keep an eye on the house when I traveled to Vegas or had other long trips. I wish I met more of her family under better circumstances. My final concern will be what happens to the house. I doubt she had a will, another matter I keep procrastinating over. I would prefer a nice family member inheriting it over some vulture swooping in and converting it into an overpriced rental for several tech bros to lease.
Thanks for the last 18 years of being the better neighbor Cristina. My only regret is not having the house finished up enough to have you come in, socialize and share some coffee or tea with me.
We did have some freezing rain and sleet this Snowmageddon but nothing serious as last year. The roads did ice over which required some caution. I knew I needed to drive carefully, slowly and with greater effort. I wish the cats could stay in the hotel with us for a reasonable amount. Since I’m not a millionaire, I chanced the weather and roads to check up on them every day. This is when my NEST thermostat comes in handy, I can remotely check and adjust the temperature in the house to keep them comfy. Now if it would only follow the damned schedule I programmed into it; every morning, it jumps to 21.5° C to overheat the house (for cats).
Above is a photo to remind me of what I left behind which made me chuckle. I never had the good fortune to live in Chicago as my friends and brother did yet what those people are doing with their patio chairs happens in Milwaukee. Downstate in the less interesting Bloomington-Normal or Springfield? Only in the older, more established neighborhoods: my Grandma’s house, to some extent, my favorite house on Douglas Avenue. It’s unnecessary in Austin. We don’t have snow plows.
After today, the worst of this crap weather is mostly over. We’ll still have below zero in the evenings to freeze up all the the standing water that hasn’t evaporated. The roads will be fine as the ice will be gone and it dovetails into the supply chain recovering much faster to restock us in those vitals: toilet paper, Topo Chico and tasteless wonder bread. My ice scraper and gloves will go back into storage until the next time (aka, the floor of my car since the glove box is crowded).
The weather was much nicer in 1994 but I’ll take this dreck over what I left behind any day! The biggest difference is that this bitter, dry cold crap will be done and gone within a couple days, unlikely to return until November at the worst. During my high school days in North Dakota, this would’ve been a heat wave as I would through 5-10 stretches of the temperature not even getting close to 0° C from November until March. I will never forget how crappy it had been in Central IL during my final days. Christmas 1993 was just painful. New Year’s was slightly better. A couple weeks before I left, it had snowed so much in the Northeast and Midwest, the telephone lines the national ATM network depended on, broke. People couldn’t get cash for several days as those devices were modem-driven and the Internet remained a theoretical matter as Quantum Computing is today.
Given what a mess the floor situation is becoming, I don’t get to reflect nor celebrate this anniversary. Not a big loss as Patton Oswalt stated when it comes to birthdays not divisible by 10 after you turn 21. The materials are in the garage, the driver thankfully used Apple Pay which allowed me to send him a $50 tip directly without his employers trying to get a piece of it. The Contractor now said Monday is the best he can do. Thanks to the weather, he doesn’t want his employees to get killed driving to my house. At this point, I’d rent a van to collect them and take them home every day if it helped.
Now I need to breathe and remember the great advice Adrian Belew gave us all at the One World Theater in late 2019…wait to worry. When I kick back for year 29, I will have a great ceramic floor. Easier to clean. Easier to maintain. Looks great. Raises the value of my house. My favorite perk, I can finally buy a robot to patrol for light cleaning/dusting and see which of the five cats will hitch a ride, becoming an Internet/TikTok star. It’s about time one of those fuzzballs earned a living to chip in.
There’s a really comfy blanket in the box which is why Agamemnon prefers to sleep in it. Isis uses him as her electric blanket but only when she thinks nobody is around to go, “Ohhhh! How cute! I want to pet them.” Metztli remains the lone wolf who believes she can go it alone and remains atop the highest point in the dining room she can find.
Their cute antics tell me the cats are very aware of the Cold n’ Freeze Snap or possible Snowmageddon 2022 we’re expecting. It starts tonight/tomorrow morning. As a relocated Yankee, I know what to do already: have the faucets drip slowly, monitor my NEST thermostat better, fill up the tank with gas (we did have a long pause in the supply chain last year), have some water on hand if another boil order happens (another demonstration of Texas pissing away more on Billionaire Welfare and not infrastructure) and get some comfort food to pass the time. We were already staying in a hotel in anticipation of the floor work…HA! Well, at least the delivery person is coming for sure, he called me. One good thing about hiding out in a hotel, they tend to be some of the last places to lose power, heat and/or water. If they do, then we’re bordering on 28 Days Later shit.
As expected, there will be blitz on bottled water, wonder bread, milk and toilet paper. With the latter, whose the snowflake now? We could be invaded by those imaginary Soviet-backed forces from the universities (sleeper cells) and Latin Americans armed with CRT and still, they can’t wipe their butts with leaves? I for one am looking forward to all the SUVs and pick-up trucks in the ditch since these people can’t drive under 55. What I’m also anticipating is the Texas power grid to crap out again. Governor Shitbag and his Lab for Bad Ideas only gave the providers a stern lecture, fired all the political expendable people at ERCOT and said voluntarily winterizing stuff was the solution. We’re going to find out how much good will the greedy campaign-chest packers have for the people when we hit probably -4° C or lower for over 12 hours. How fitting we might be repeating the same mistakes on this Groundhog Day.
1997: The Simpsons introduce Poochie as a poke at toxic fans
A favorite episodes of the show which I still quote to this day, especially with burning hatred of the executive caste in all professions; they’re slowly killing civilization and I’m sure their ancestors destroyed every ancient empire with their idiocy. It has the great zinger spoken by the illustrated surrogate of writer George Meyer after Krusty, an early Lindsey Nagel (the stand-in for all Consultants and money-grubbing marketing types) and Roger Meyers Jr.
Excuse me, but “proactive” and “paradigm”? Aren’t these just buzzwords that dumb people use to sound important? Not that I’m accusing you of anything like that…I’m fired, aren’t I?
What I had forgotten upon rewatching this was the look on Lindsey’s face when the Bill Oakley surrogate responds to her:
Lindsey: …We’re talking the original dog from Hell!
Oakley: You mean Cerberus?
She gives the standard look of annoyance dumb people in charge make when you’ve exposed their ignorance and/or demonstrated how stupid they are in public.
Today The Hollywood Reporter interviews key people involved in the episode through a verbal history. It was a great read. When I first watched “Poochie,” I thought it was a hilarious take on how numerous hit shows that have exceeded a few years try to rejuvenate their popularity by adding a new character, often through the female lead having a baby, in what is commonly called Cousin Oliver Syndrome. Obviously it happened to The Brady Bunch during its last season which christened the term and still nobody learned as it continued with Family Ties, The Partridge Family, The Cosby Show, Growing Pains, Good Times, Full House, Happy Days and Beverly Hill 90120. Bob Newhart threatened to quit his hit show when the writers pitched Suzanne Pleshette’s Emily getting pregnant as he knew it was poison. Malcolm in the Middle used it to great effect when Jane Kaczmarek did get pregnant in real life since the last thing Lois and Hal needed was a fifth child given the parents’ precarious finances; plus the four existing sons were all hellions. With The Simpsons, they poked fun at how it’s a desperate move to revive the beloved Itchy & Scratchy cartoons while being oblivious to Marge renting a room to this young, hip guy named Roy. What made it funnier was how everything Poochie said in his debut were relevant catchphrases in 1993 or earlier; a nod to how the TV writers of the Sixties and early Seventies were behind the curve.
It took some years to pass before I realized it was also the writers giving the finger to all the toxic people on the Internet bitching about how the show had declined; in 1997, dial-up was the means and Social Media didn’t exist was we know it today. Those people were represented by the beloved Comic Book Guy with his newly minted catchphrase, “Worst. Episode. Ever.” Something the writers encountered frequently on the message boards. Bart and CBG’s interaction summed it up when it came to the toxic fans who are entitled, think they own the show, love to be armchair quarterbacks and are full of shit.
CBG: Last night’s Itchy & Scratchy was, without a doubt, the worst episode ever. Rest assured, I was on the Internet within minutes, registering my disgust throughout the world.
Bart: Hey, I know it wasn’t great, but what right do you have to complain?
CBG: As a loyal viewer, I feel they owe me.
Bart: What? They’ve given you thousands of hours of entertainment for free! What could they possibly owe you? If anything, you owe them!
CBG: Worst episode ever.
Twenty-five years later, it only got worse sadly. Obviously the Internet fueled it further as broadband became the norm. Phones and tablets pushed out computers. Social media successors Twitter, FeceBook and TikTok gave the less-computer literate the means to express their rage. However, there remains one constant. Some asshole saying The Simpsons got crappy after [Insert Season Number Here]. I continue to argue differently since I remember how disappointed I felt after watching the Ninth Season premiere, “The City of New York vs. Homer Simpson.” It was clever but I found very little funny so I thought it was a bit of a bust. A couple years later, I grew to appreciate it and laugh more. Ever since, I have defended the show by saying, some jokes take a little more time to age like good wine and/or our immediate expectations hinder the humor. Plus, the show belongs to someone else, today it’s the evil Disney Corporation. It’s not yours to dictate. All you can do is stop watching and maybe, just maybe they’ll pull the plug or something will happen to bring you back into the fold. Bitching is pointless unless you have pull. Besides, oh wise fanboy, how many imdb.com credits do you have compared to the writing staff? Yeah, I thought that.