From the Desk of…
My brain’s still not recovered from the eclipse. That, and I’m very tired lately. I’m also dumping way too much money into Kickstarters. No more! Well, maybe a few more.
Turns out your tax dollars are paying for Andy Ginther to have a PR firm write opinion letters and essays for The Dispatch under his byline. I’m sure a lot of people won’t care, but I dunno. It doesn’t seem like they’re really trying to have the PR firm sell the zoning plan. It feels more like they care so little about it themselves that they’ve outsourced public service. In the words of Dennis Reynolds, “I don’t care either.”
Hey, remember when they shut down High Street to do that Christmas market thing? Well, expect more of that. June, September, October, December… the damn Short North Alliance is turning the area hostile to cars! I can only hope they one day make it permanent.
Jason Meade, whose last trial for the murder of Casey Goodson Jr. ended in confusion, has a new date scheduled. Jury selection will be starting on Halloween! Spooky. Speaking of trials, the jury selection for Trump’s hush money trial, an actual criminal case against the former president, should end by the end of the week. Who can say how that’s going to end up? Well, I have some hunches, I guess.
The Brain Dump
reconnecting with my roots (drinking a flat Mountain Dew that has been out in the car)
soy loco por los cornballs
they should invent a car that lets me shoot cruise missiles at bad drivers on the highway
taste the meat, not the heat
too hot. quit screwing around with the thermostat
At the Movies
Two sidebars: 1) hey, that Fallout show’s pretty good. Makes me want to play that one game. Wasteland. 2) hey, that Criterion 24/7 is pretty cool. It’s like TCM, but I’m watching it! I just keep refreshing the What’s On Now page and tuning in when I want to catch something like Jackie Chan sliding through these lightbulbs. So, I’ve been watching lots of parts of movies.
The Hitcher (1986), dir. Robert Harmon ⭐⭐⭐⭐
the scariest part is when the dude has to remember several helpful phone numbers
Paris, Texas (1984), dir. Wim Wenders ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ ❤️
The first time I watched this, I turned it on at work and then was so emotionally devastated when it ended that I just clocked out and went home. Harry Dean Stanton... what a performance.
Robby Müller went crazy in this one.
Wings of Desire (1987), dir. Wim Wenders ⭐⭐⭐⭐
there are angels everywhere for those with the eyes to see
One Picture
This Bob Hope-mobile gives me an idea…
In closing,
I’ve fallen off a bit from the Sean Evans Hot Ones wagon, but I did make sure to catch the Conan O’Brien episode. You know, in reflection, Conan is one of my biggest influences when it comes to comedy. Much like Space Ghost Coast to Coast, I have a flashbulb memory of the first time I caught Conan’s show. The sketch, well, I don’t care to describe it in full, but it was a cutaway sketch where the on-the-scene reporter for that year’s patch of California wildfires was a, uh, bear. Listen, if you know your Conan, I don’t need to say much more. You already know where the sketch went. Between his show and his Simpsons writing, he’s easily worsened my brain for everyone else’s enjoyment more than a helluva lot of folks. In fact, I have within reach a pair of sunglasses that he wore while playing a guitar solo. That’s a story for another time. Anyway, around Wing #8, Conan said something that’s been rattling around in the old noggin since then. He starts explaining his full dedication to his comedy, and Sean uses the common expression “commit to the bit,” and Conan admonishes him. “It’s not a bit! This is life!” There’s something there, the interplay between life and bits, that I’m turning over in my mind. It reminds me for reasons I can’t quite yet articulate of Vonnegut’s stated moral to Mother Night: “we are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be.” You can watch him feel ashamed of his words and deeds in full here.
If that video wasn’t long enough for you, here’s a four-hour video about invisible walls in Super Mario 64.