Netflix

Stock down almost 50% in one year since the market realized it's really just Seinfeld reruns and slop.

Question

Why hasn't AI made the deli counter any faster? 

AI Weak Sauce Argument

Just as a thought experiment: why is our imagination of AI creativity limited to writing novels and making movies or TV shows? If it were a truly profound technology, shouldn't it be doing something humans cannot do? Why can't it imagine other art forms and create those?

And ps - as far as I can tell, it still hasn't written a hit book, movie, or tv show. 

Andrew Sullivan Pod

Had a young guest who works in politics say the last time she felt true, unadulterated joy was in 2008, when Obama won the Presidential election. 

This sad statement alone is why people need to have kids. Sure, they are expensive, a ton of work, and a pain in the ass a lot - maybe even most - of the time. But parents experience significantly more joy on a daily basis than any Presidential election outcome. Trust me. 18 years is a long, avoidable, joy dry spell.

Logging

Film: The Mask 

Kids liked okay, adults didn't. Could be used in a screenwriting class to discuss character duality.

Contrast

The cult of women in Vegas screaming about an absurd, fake accusation of rape at Cornell versus Tesla flipping a car. That's the choice we have. 

Counter-protesters should show up to these anti-Elon protests with pictures of the flipping car. 

Cost 

It's cheaper for LA film students to go home to China to make short films than to shoot them here. 

We're cooked unless we get our act together.

The Tesla Flying Car

If your reaction to the Tesla flip is "I wouldn't use it" or "so what, Elon does bad things," you can safely assume you are part of the problem.

The Most Shocking Element

Of this Kelly Clarkson story is that she has 8 million fans on Instagram willing to go to the mattresses for her.

Logging

TV: East of Eden

I don't understand the glowing reviews. Opening episode is cringe on its own terms. But the true flaw is the contempt for the original work. Turned a biblical epic into a millennial attempt at romance fiction. I needed to return to the book to remember why the Cathy character was so memorable...and indeed they screw the pooch with her depiction. They turn her from a monster into a victim. But the plot only makes sense when she's a monster. This is a character who we learn at age 16 murders her parents because they begin to deduce what trouble she is and want to restrict her freedom. A pure wolf in sheep's clothing. But in the show, she's a victim of abuse and grooming and awkward male longing...and then she kills her parents because her father spanked her. Huh? What? I was completely baffled by this choice given how she's portrayed in the show. I mean, totally crazy and nonsensical. And then...oh god...then they seem to be doing this thing about her and Charles being in love. Good lord. This is a character who from an early age discovers she can use sexuality for power. What a fascinating discovery! But no...they underplay this at every turn...she uses sexuality as a survival skill. Much worse. Many other deviations in the work, all of which make the character work more shallow. Charles intends to kill Adam one night, but can't find him. Gone. Adam discovers prior to his death that his father is a fraud and hence, he becomes a wayward soul but in the show, he only discovers this after his father's death and so his waywardness makes even less sense. I grasp some of these developments may be not so easy to dramatize for the screen but it gets me wondering why adapt East of Eden at all...

My guess is Florence Pugh and Zoey Kazan could not relate to Cathy or perhaps lacked the imagination to. They don't know what Werner Herzog calls the "ecstasy of evil". Read more male authors.

AI Doom

Now I'm more worried about AI engineers than the AI. 

I'm Telling You

The people building AI are insane. Several reports say that AI engineers are taking up smoking as a signal they believe AI will cure cancer.  Video link here.

If someone takes up smoking, it should be for any of the following reasons

1) It's cool

2) It will help them get laid

3) It makes them think better

4) It allows them to chill out

5) It's fun

But the fact they are doing it to show "their chips are all in" on the thing they are building is downright psychotic. These people are going to all end up on rafts floating down the river covered with tiny rainforest monkeys. 

AI

If you saw some of the stuff I saw with AI, you would sell your stocks and run for the exits. Warren Buffett would be outta here.

Psycho

These are the types of people building AI. I don't know what to say, but maybe I'll let them speak for themselves (or at least with a little AI help):

We opted for surrogacy, because while it felt worthwhile to take time away from work to care for our child, it didn’t feel worthwhile to take time and energy for pregnancy and birth (something I always found horrifying in the first place). The journey was long and annoying,4 but we eventually hired a wonderful lady who became pregnant with a little boy last spring.

 

Moron

This El-Sayed character seems to think the US should basically not support our friends and allies in the world. He phrases it like "involve ourselves in conflicts," but if we don't involve ourselves, the rest of the world will shape the order to their desire. And we should stand by and just do nothing? This man is a lunatic - unclear whether a total idiot or actually malicious. In practical terms, it makes no difference. 

Hamas on 10/7

In hindsight, he questions the timing of it but not the act. Good to know. He also cites the figure of 1 million Algerians sacrificed to decolonize. Interesting that they use Algeria as the model. Someone should point out - the French had a country to return to. Israelis do not. Terrible strategic logic. 

9/11 and 10/7

Super clarifying moments. There are people who want us dead. They lived far away on 9/11 and used an ingenious move to get some of us. Now they live among us, and thankfully, so far, they are too cowardly to act on their own and just want to cheerlead. But they are working their way up to it. The rest of us should remain ready. 

Zidane

GOAT.

Poor Folks

A bunch of old blue dog democrat Michigan Jews discuss being unable to fathom voting for Sayed. 

Obama campaigns for the guy. Tells you what you need to know.

If Only There Were Signs

Palestinian flags were everywhere at the Paris protest.

Nobody pays attention to history - the Palestinians tried to take Israel, Lebanon, and Jordan and were subsequently expelled from all of these places. Nobody in France bothered to pay attention, I suppose...

In fact, you might say the Palestinian flag doesn't represent a nationalist movement at all, but rather resistance for its own sake. Anarchy. Imagine if Palestine were a state...oh wait...we can. It's called Gaza.

Worries

Definitely more worried about Russian plagues, the Young Socialists turning our cities into dumpster fires, Iranian missiles and terrorist attacks, and psychotic women worming their way into my family than AI doom.

Communication

Have tools like Slack and document comments improved or worsened workplace communication? Seems worse than I remember...

Student Riots in France

Maybe the US obsession with youth sports is better than the alternatives.

You Don't Hate the Media/Liberal World Enough 

LA Times reports on this Bay Area story about Chinese in-laws shooting the "husband" of their daughter in a custody battle.

Because the "husband" is trans, the children are only biologically related to one of these parents. Yet, the article makes it seem as though both parents are parents. They aren't. And they don't mention which parent is the biological parent or if the kids are adopted, for example. Totally preposterous.

Logging

Film: 28 Years Later and 28 Years Later Bone Temple

I suppose it's interesting that they're shooting these films on iPhones and treating them like a Marvel Universe, but very little of the character stuff makes any sense to me. In Bone Temple they do this new move I can't stand, the "sympathy for the monster" - as seen in Frankenstein, Predator, King Kong...  The moral imagination of Hollywood today is pretty slim. If someone had the balls, they'd just get it over with and make a sympathetic Nazi movie.

Plane Hijacking

If any country in the world had to deal with what Israel deals with, it would react similarly.

Only country in the world where, for 75+ years, you've had about a billion folks and their governments lining up to voluntarily kill you. 

You'll notice a big "no comment" all day with the folks who only want to talk about Israel, Palestine, genocide, and Netanyahu. Fascinating. 

I Stand By Klobuchar  

I supported Klobuchar in 2016 and stand by my endorsement!

It's very hard for a Democrat to keep their head these days and she seems like she's managed to do so.

"Genocide" 

If Israel were perpetrating a genocide, why would Hamas use civilians as human shields? They wouldn't need to. They use human shields to win a propaganda war against Israel.

Eminem on German TV 2009

Try to beat this AI.

Thing I Learned Today

France went deep in debt for the American War of Independence, which in turn led to the French Revolution because they couldn't feed the people.

Women's Right to Vote

This is so much more fun than reading the same content on Twitter. 

NY Times top 100 TV shows of the 2000s

Here's the list. Not terrible and nobody cares about my take, but I'm gonna give it anyway!

1. Breaking Bad

Fair.

2. The Wire

Fair.

3. Mad Man

Nope. 

4. Succession

A little high.

5. Fleabag

No complaint.

6. Game of Thrones

Fair.

7. Veep

Too high.

8. 30 Rock

Fair, deserves credit for injecting life into a moribund form (sitcom)

9. Curb

Fair, deserves a boost for enduring relevance and singularity of vision and production process.

10. Atlanta

DEI, but I like the show.

11. The Office US

Tough one...I give nod to Office UK for originality but an argument can be made for Office US. Deserves bonus for talent identification -- what others went on to do post-Office.

12. Arrested Development

Fair

13. Girls

DEI

14. Friday Night Lights

Fair.

15. Six Feet Under

No context for having an opinion.

16. The Office UK

See above

17. The Americans

Seems a bit high

18. I May Destroy You

DEI

19. Chernobyl

Nope

20. The Crown

No context for having an opinion.

21. The White Lotus

Fair.

AI Worries

I'm more worried about Russia invading NATO and China building a huge nuclear arsenal than AI. 

US-China Relations

You know, it might be interesting if the MSM actually reported in detail about the Trump-Xi meetings as enthusiastically as they report about Cambridge professors or child murderers -- you know, about the things that impact the entire structure of global governance. 

Interesting Hot Take

About the possible reindustrialization around AI.

Maybe AI will build new iPhones right at the corner store.

I Believe It

US military using Xbox controllers to shoot down Iranian drones. 

McDonalds

Doing poorly. 

I can't remember why, but I recently downloaded the app and it gives me a free medium french fries every week if I purchase something for $1. I traditionally don't go to McDonalds very much, but find myself grabbing this free french fry most weeks since. I don't see how they can do this. 

Logging

TV: The Pitt S1 E1-12

A watchable cliche of every liberal platitude under the sun with inexplicable hospital gore. Is there a raging white racist? Of course there is. But in case it wasn't clear he's a bad guy, he sucker punches an old woman later in the season. Is there a gay couple having a baby with a surrogate? Of course there is. Is there a heroic black man who saved a woman from a subway train? You bet. Are there autistic characters? Many, in fact. Is there a reference to Thanksgiving being really bad for the Native Americans? Uh huh. Is there a female doctor doing IVF? Yeppers. Is there an incel who does a mass shooting? Looks like it. Does Noah Wylie give a speech about how young men are alienated because they're not in touch with their emotions? You betcha. 

Reality

We can safely assume Trump didn't want this Iran war, so the question becomes why he did it. Two options:

1) He was persuaded by hawks and Israel

2) He looked at intel that suggested they were close to a bomb and a ballistic missile combo that would be game-changing

My guess is the latter. 

Palestinians

Could "win" with one simple strategy: demand voting rights. No one in the West would oppose it. But it tells you something important: they choose to name their children Yahya instead.

Drugs and Hormones

Those who claim Lindsey Clancy went insane from taking too many weird pharmaceuticals and had a strange hormonal situation also advocate using hormones and pharmaceuticals. Make of that what you will.

My Favorite Meme

Is this one...the fake video game sunglasses indicating badassery. 

"So a chad is like...a normie dude."

My favorite version of course are the old Stannis the Mannis memes.

I'm Not Single...

But if I were, my only non-negotiable criterion would be that she doesn't post about it online.

That's One Angle

DSA political candidate interview.

News person: What do you say to the public about being a thief and a criminal?

Candidate: It's a good thing, actually. 

All this started with the tattoos. Mainstream LARPing being a prisoner. I blame Allen Iverson.

Nicole Hannah-Jones Article

I'll applaud one aspect: it was truthful. She almost puts it together. But we should stop there. For someone in her position to be so lacking in common sense for much of her adult life is truly astonishing.  She denigrated and called racist all the people who got to where she is now intellectually. Her own daughter, at age 10 or so, figured out what everyone knows - certain schools suck and can't be fixed in a timely enough manner for it to matter to the current student population.

But the truly most ridiculous thing she writes is being totally in the dark about how her daughter thought she knew math, but actually didn't. One of the reasons Asian kids seem to do well in school is that no Asian-American parent would ever let this happen. And truth be told, very few just above-average, college-educated folks of any color would either. Personally, I don't trust the schools, so I'm quite on top of various subjects, including math. But even if you were the type of parent who wasn't too on top of it, math comes up in daily life and in basic things like board games and discussions. Even things like long division, which her daughter didn't know. I find it almost hard to understand how a parent could be so blind. She interacts with her daughter, doesn't she? Did she not notice her multiplying and dividing up things wrong all the time? I just find it very confusing.

I Take Back

Anything negative I've ever said about AI videos. 

The Replies

Just reading the replies - solid comedy.

Interesting Take 

On JD Vance.  

My gut instinct is that he's not Presidential material. Rubio and DeSantis both fit the bill better.

Question: why isn't DeSantis more popular nationally? Is it simply his height? Guy gets elected in Florida and seems to govern well there...whereas Newsom governs terribly and is somehow a leading candidate? Is it really just height?

AI Doom

I thought we could always just unplug it, but what do I know? The main problem seems to be bad human actors using it for evil ends, but the same processes of crime and deterrence would work, right?

Also, what happened to global warming?

I Don't Know

Who is Macklemore?

Exaggeration

Mamdani hires an advisor who was a former editor for a gay communist magazine. I always thought the term was a funny exaggeration for a liberal, but I guess it turns out to be a real thing!

And Leverage

DHS has come up with an insane proposal to deport legal immigrants immediately if they lose their job - eliminating a 60 day grace period.

Can you imagine the power now held over these folks by some shithead boss?

Google

When you Google "Sydney Sweeney controversial new ad," you can't actually watch the ad, but instead only get reactions to the ad. Modifying search parameters doesn't help. Tells you something.

Logging

Film: My Big Fat Greek Wedding

A shockingly racist, anti-white film that reinforces the Great Replacement Theory paranoia. 10x worse than Get Out.

Also, not very good.

Film: Miss Congeniality 

On the other hand, a delightful star vehicle for one of our national treasures, Sandra Bullock. All-around characterization is much better than you would think for this sort of film - up there with Clueless and Devil Wears Prada as one of the best fem-comedies Hollywood has produced in the past 50 years. Hilarious depiction of male workplace dynamics. Actually pulled off the frumpy/violent/gross ugly duckling-into-swan transition. Hard to do. Perfect role for Ben Bratt. Michael Caine is excellent. Candy Bergman has the best line of the film: "I've been dealing with women like you my entire life...feminists, intellectuals...you know, ugly women."

The Crazy Plan

It seems to me that Lindsay Clancy's defense went with what I'll call "the crazy plan": find crazy jurors who'll sympathize with his crazy client. Crazy plans, however, have a way of backfiring because crazy goes both ways.

Europe's 2-State Solution

Hate to break it to them, but Bill Clinton tried this in the 90s, and the Palestinians rejected it. Instead opted to up the ante on suicide attacks.

But good luck this time.

Vote No On Everything

LA steals money earmarked for fire victims to pay families impacted by ICE raids. I don't see how this is legal.

Okay...

"Phoebe Bridgers Praised by Fans for Showing Leg Hair and Pit Stains at Glamorous Venice Film Festival."

This makes the applause for "Free Palestine" make more sense.

Data Centers

I've got no POV on the issue, but pretty obvious the "concerns" about water and power generation costs are wildly blown out of proportion because folks don't like the vibes.

Logging

Film: The Drama

Couldn't finish. I am not a millennial and struggle to relate to their worldview. The big first act "twist" was such a boner killer. No, I don't buy that her character did what she said she did. And even if she had...maybe so what? I don't know. Millennials want to give Mao and Stalin and communism a big "pass" for murdering millions of people, but this one character "plans" a school shooting, doesn't even do it, and this is some sort of unforgivable transgression? Then the filmmaking takes a turn with flashbacks, unclear POV, and inserting the actor at a different age playing Zendaya alongside the wedding planning. Nah. Sorry, just not into this at all...

So I watched The Last Samurai instead...

Film: The Last Samurai

Man, I miss these mid tier historical melodramas...not great movies or cinematic masterpieces, but just the scale and commitment and attention to certain values and representation at the movies - there's a quality to these kind of films absent today. On some level, it's a more satisfying and impressive "movie" than even The Odyssey. Easier to watch, following, take something from, and even maybe learn something about the world (dare I say). And here's the thing: it's not even that good. But it's competent. And the older I get, the. more I can appreciate it.

PS - Tom Cruise here getting some reps for his Top Gun Maverick role

Things To Know

The Russians wanted to nuke the Chinese in the 1969 Sino-Russian war, but the US told them not to.

Is it possible the Chinese are encouraging Russia to fight in Ukraine, not to deplete the West but rather to deplete Russia? If you're a smart Chinese strategist, do you fear the US - a country that buys all your shit and basically makes you rich? Or do you fear a nuclear-armed neighbor who sits on some of your stolen land and also happens to possess two things you need - a lot of water and a lot of oil?

If I were a Chinese grand strategist, I would rather peel back the parts of Russia they stole from me and get access to cheap oil and water rather than get bogged down in a civil war against Taiwan. 

Jobs

Being an adult, homeowner, and parent means you are taking on several additional jobs, including estate planner, gardener, housekeeper, cook, nurse, driver, financial advisor, bike repair technician, sports coach. I'm sure I'm missing some...

Logging

TV: Seinfeld episodes 

The Smelly Car...watching it this time around and having some experience now with BMW...I think what everyone thought was BO in the episode was actually a funk coming from the A/C condenser that gets moisture and is very difficult to get rid of.  

If Not One Thing, Another

To get a lawn and backyard working...huge expense -  designing, grading, planting, caring...get the water schedule right, adjust for weather, mow correctly, replace dry patches, figure out the fertilizer needs. And then: raccoons come and dig up the sod looking for grubs.

No rest. 

Logging

Film: Onslaught

Not great. Or even good. 

Conservative Move

Honestly, one of the best moves conservatives could do would be to get The Fountainhead on public school reading lists.  

Not South Park

Hasan Piker gifted a hat from Satan's school of gay communism. 

Umm kay.

As Good As It Gets

I never loved the film and, in particular, didn't like the line, "I think of a man, but I take away reason and accountability," because I didn't find it true. But now...looking mighty prescient. 

I'll Stop

Can't tell why this Lindsay Clancy thing keeps grabbing my attention, but I'm beginning to understand why they did the Salem Witch Trials. 

What Is This?

Somebody made a video map of NYC with AI.

It just looks like Minecraft. 

I'm definitely missing something because I see this and immediately think what a waste of time.

Careful

Climbers plan trip using AI, get stuck. 

AI do not understand physical reality, people.

Sad, It's True...

Matt Walsh on Lindsay Clancy and the psych drugs. 

Of course the great irony is that like 95 percent of the women blaming psych drugs for Lindsay Clancy murdering her children are also on psych drugs themselves. They supposedly believe that these drugs can cause you to annihilate your family and yet that hasn’t stopped them from taking the drugs. And they certainly aren’t calling for the drugs to be banned. In conclusion, they’re totally full of shit.

My suggestion for all our problems: exercise and read more. It would work! 

That's a Take, I Suppose...

Why don't all these white women showing up for Clancy support black women?

Also

I hate thinking about all this, but if Lindsay Clancy was experiencing so many troublesome thoughts and needed help, why couldn't she just isolate herself from her family and kids? Like, just go run off somewhere. 

Logging

Film: Wayne's World

Excellent and a bit innovative. Mike Myers = Gen X genius. 

Goals Get Smaller

As you get older...I am now highly focused on keeping my grass green and healthy. 

American Women

If one of the goals was to see a female president-elect, this outpouring of support for Lindsay Clancy isn't helping the cause.

The Straits

Months ago, I theorized Iran closing the Straits would backfire because, once used, threats lose power. First, it would force all their adversaries to find workarounds. Second, the unknown ramifications suddenly become known and get priced in. 

It now appears the US dredged a channel in Oman to bypass the strait.

Apparently, this channel cannot be seen from Iran and thus allows Persian Gulf oil through, while Iranian oil gets stuck in port due to the US Navy blockade. 

Wow. 

That was quick. I figured pipelines across the desert to the Red Sea would be the solution. But they found an even better one.

I just learned yesterday, there was a similar instance in history when this occurred: during the Suez Crisis in the late 50s and early 60s. Egypt took control of the canal and closed the shipping lanes to the Persian Gulf, thus flexing their territorial muscles for political and foreign policy objectives like Iran of today. What happened? Global ships found an alternative route around the Cape of Good Hope in Africa, but to make this route economically viable, they started building "supertankers," enormous oil ships. And guess what they found? It became cheaper to transport larger distances with supertankers than with smaller ships through Suez. Woops! Egypt ended up screwing themselves over in the long run.

So be careful how you play your cards. 

This Won't Work

Pheromone maxing. 

Logging

TV: Lucky pilot

An impressive accomplishment, the show combines the worst elements of woke entertainment culture with the worst elements of action-crime shows into one pile of dog shit.

Elements of woke: very angry female protagonist who is highly competent and better than all the men at men stuff; short-haired black female important character with power, hateable white man character, miscellaneous other minority cast to check all the diversity boxes with zero personality otherwise... 

Elements of shitty action-crime: generic "stole money from the wrong dudes" plot; overuse of flashbacks - even flashbacks within flashbacks to both a) give us a jolt of action and b) garner sympathy for the characters; chase sequences with zero intensity or physical logic - the FBI are literally 10 feet away from Ana Taylor Joy in a casino and lose her somehow because she goes into a big room and later, are missing a key (how did ATJ who doesn't even work at a casino get into the door, I have no idea); pure logic fallacies - suddenly at a rest stop, a single lone FBI agent shows up to chase her? Where did this one FBI agent come from? A lot of the crime stuff is quite astonishing, really. We don't even know how she stole the money. Also, the FBI exposition dumping is beyond...there are numerous little dialogue exchanges telling us exactly what we already know about the situation like -  "damn, this is a big room" or "he left without her"  

Good cast, though.

I Agree With This Take

Michelle Obama trying to be funny about not missing her children. There is a line between "feminism" and being hateful and angry that is often hard to distinguish. The feminists will say, "we're angry for a reason, since we do all this emotional labor, etc." Maybe so. But at some point, when does this veer over into I'm angry and I'm gonna use this feminist skin suit as an excuse? Because there's gotta be some women in the world who possess enough resources, privilege, opportunities, connections, respect, etc where you no longer get to claim the bitterness, right? I dunno, like maybe a career woman who went to Princeton and Harvard, who lived in the White House for eight years, who had a huge Netflix deal...just thinking out loud here...

Logging

TV: Silo S1

Decent TV.

 

For The Record...

I reserve my allotments of empathy and sympathy for the moms who don't murder their children.

Danish Dating

You would know some of this if you watched the film Klown.

Will Turkey and Pakistan Help?

Saudi preps for renewed war against Houthis. 

The Hollywood Bowl

Is right next to the dump we know as Hollywood. And yet, when you're there, it's one of the nicest, most pleasant civic experiences one can have in LA.

This means to me that LA is capable of having nice civic places. So why isn't more of LA like the Hollywood Bowl?

Robot Olympics

Like the rest of you, I'm enjoying a few clipped videos of robots doing crazy shit. But I gotta say: I don't get this whole thing. They created a robot that runs faster than Usain Bolt? Who gives a shit? An ebike goes faster than him too. Just because the robot is shaped human-ish this becomes a proper comparison? Why not just put the robot up against a Honda?

What goes on in China is so bizarre to me. Here's an interesting little clip on the broader Chinese perspective and what's happening with their economy over the past 25 years. They shifted from manufacturing into real estate development post 2008. That lead to this huge property bubble and many Chinese folks were completely wiped out of their savings/retirement because they had invested in real estate. And this bubble was popped by the government, and now they are shifting all resources into AI, EVs, and robotics. Hence, the Robot Olympics. So I guess I see all this as similar to the real estate thing...when I was in China, I saw these huge massive buildings in the middle of nowhere with no one living in them. No grocery stores around, no schools, no one had money to buy the apartments. I asked, who owns these places? They say "people in Beijing," This would be like someone in DC owning a luxury apartment in rural Tennessee, but with no infrastructure around it as an investment. Do people do this? How would it ever pay off? Now, with the robots shaped like humans. Does anyone want this?

I saw someone saying they'd play tennis with one of these robots. Really? How much would one cost? Would you pay 100K to play tennis with one? 10K? Rent for $50 a hour? How about hitting with a 15-year old from JV team and pay them $15 a hour if you have no other options...

Logging

Book: A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms by George RR Martin

I think it might be his best. 

As highly rated as he is, he's still underrated. 

Film: The Odyssey

I foolishly saw this in 70mm non-IMAX, only realizing it when I got to the theater and was like, "WTF is up with this normal-ass movie screen."  

The film had some incredible sequences. While watching the Cyclops section, I couldn't stop thinking, "why weren't people talking about this portion of the film?" I thought it was incredible. Finale sequence with the suitors is terrific as well. The sack of Troy. But when strung all together, the film suffers from repetition. Too many sequences of - guys arrive on shore, find problem, run back to boats. Too much Odysseus and Calypso discussing his memory loss and return home. Too much repetitive dialogue across different scenes of characters banging home certain thematic messages. And finally, I didn't vibe with the idea of Odysseus's guilt about using the Trojan Horse. Bro, you were at war. You fight to win. It just didn't feel like either the world of the Greeks or the world of today, if you get down to it. It feels to me like the attitude and thoughts of a person who spends too much time sitting in a chair. 

The movie needed a Harvey Weinstein pair of eyes. There were sections in the middle where I felt myself wanting to sleep. I don't understand 3 hour films. I don't want my legs to feel stiff or to need to pee during a movie. A 3 hour film guarantees these things. This film could've easily been 2 hours and probably would've been better for it. If The Searchers could do it, Nolan could do it. 

I wanted to write more on this, including commentary on the crazy Emily Wilson review but...

I Believe This

20 million Americans still watched Seinfeld on Netflix in the first half of 2026.

That means the reason folks aren't watching Hollywood films and TV has nothing to do with video games, the internet, or anything else -- it's all content quality.

If I were in charge of Hollywood, I'd fire every executive in town tomorrow and hire random people from the street. They couldn't do worse. 

Start Investing In Ourselves Again

In my perception, the US stopped investing in ourselves a long time ago and thought we could succeed by consuming instead of building.   

All one needs to do is look at what fields our "top" graduates go into. Hardly any of them build anything except software; Silicon Valley, and that's just one narrow type of thing we use in this world.

Weird Shit

A lot of weird stuff is happening -- women supporting Lindsay Clancy and throwing ice in tubs -- all the psychologists must be sleeping on the job.

The Leftovers

These women supporting the child murderer seem straight out of The Leftovers. 

I might need to move.

Nice Kid

Details on this Karmelo Anthony kid...

If you listen, people tell you who they are.

I'm So Confused

Is this really a thing- women filming themselves throwing ice into bathtubs and posting it online?

True, Evidence Can Be Found on Reddit 

If Lindsay Clancy had methodically strangled and killed three puppies, instead of her own children, almost all of the women defending her now would instead be calling for her execution.

Dreams

I'd like to be more like the people who just write 4 or 5 stars on letterboxd for all the movies they watch. I think that's an achievable goal. 

Liberals

I'd be more sympathetic to liberal social and legal positions if the vast majority didn't always turn out to be lies and misrepresentations.

For instance - remember that guy, Kimar Abrego Garcia? The MS-13 guy? Well, the above link tells us why they thought he was a human trafficker. In other words, he was.

This Cofnas Clown

Now, everyone wants to discredit Cofnas...  Polite suggestion: maybe catch Arday's lies before the clown does? 

When the institutions behave like fools, we become reliant on the kooks to speak the truth. Another case in point: Royce White and Enis Kanter. 

Logging

TV: Silo S1

Pretty good, actually. 

Sympathy for Arday

Much ink was spilled over how the world mistreated Arday and thus contributing to his suicide. Many folks offer their own accounting of blame. Bravo to them. Curiously, no one did the same over Jeffrey Epstein. Why not? Was not his suicide a similar scenario of intense public shame? 

I can hear the retorts - Epstein was a criminal; Arday was but a fraud. Yes, on a moral accounting ledger, there seems to be a difference. But then I see these other things out there - the requests for empathy from therapists and other leftists about this woman who murdered her three children, the understanding and fandom around Luigi, and the comparable *lack* of sympathy for Charlie Kirk's death. And I wonder...are any of these moral questions, really? I'm not even sure they are political. My suspicion is that they are aesthetic. 

My sense is AOC might ride her newly found singledom (and suggested availability) into the Presidency and Taylor Swift will never be as popular again. But if AOC were to get fat and ugly, she will lose her popularity and Mandami will take up her mantle.  

Jew, Kurd, or Uyghur

Who would you rather be?

Two ethnic groups without a state, beloved by the international community. One ethnic group with a state, power, and hated by the international community.

Get it if you can.

This Is No Joke Pretty Rad

Kristin Bell shows up at a Savannah Bananas game and does some Frozen song and Dirty Dancing. 

This is what Hollywood should be doing. Touching grass, meeting Americans where they are, doing things big and small and fun and silly. I don't know why in the hell we ever thought it was our business to change the social order, comment on politics, or become this vehicle for social change. Who asked for it? 

Logging 

Film: Miami Vice

While Heat, The Insider, and Collateral are better Michael Mann movies, Miami Vice is his greatest work of art. 

I feel like I'm watching an impressionist painting or listening to a master jazz musician play a familiar song in a totally unusual way...you think it's a crime epic, a franchise reboot, a police procedural, or an action film. None of the above. It's an experimental film. 

First, the screenplay structure. It has all the components we're familiar with - the undercover cops get their mission (inciting incident), they go deep undercover in false identities (upside down world), an unlikely love story emerges as a B-plot, they uncover a rat, the bad guys get ahead of them the problem, we get an "all is lost" moment when one of their team is taken hostage right before the 3rd act turn, a showdown in finale. But the reason why many folks didn't "like" the film is because all of these major structural moments are completely deemphasized in the storytelling. The moment they discover the rat in the FBI office is basically a throwaway, almost expositional beat. Most viewers probably won't even notice it during the first watch of the film. The "inciting incident" is almost completely buried because it comes right after an intense emotional moment when their old CI (John Hawkes) throws himself in front of a truck. The "all is lost" moment is almost vague, with the shots of the white supremacists holding Trudy in the trailer park - you can't see their faces at all, rendering the situation mysterious and from Trudy's blindfolded POV rather than an emotional crisis for Sonny and Tubbs. None of the structural turns are uplifting or cause "oh shit" moments of reversal that we are accustomed to from "good movies." The movie doesn't care about the plot. I'm not even sure the movie cares about character development or the relationships. What the movie cares about are moments. Moments infused with different types of emotion, each like a moving painting that accumulates into an experience of the artwork, it is these moments that we remember from the film -- the opening impressionistic montage in the club, where we don't get to see any of the main characters head-on; we just get glimpses of them working. The streak of blood on the freeway, the brief interludes of "reality" that occur in the shower, their criminal contact (Nicolas) on his couch, a thunderstorm in the deep, deep background. Jose Yero watching Isabella and Crockett dance, with "cuts" of other people passing the frame, of Montoya's back of his head, the speedboat to Havana, the private jets floating in the sky, the Haitian gangster waving Crockett and Tubbs to the basement meeting, Gong Li in the yellow light of the limo driving away, the FBI agent exploded by .50 bullets through a car, the Chinese man carrying a USB through Ciudad del Este. These are all moments that leave a mark on us - they capture paranoia, fear, envy, horror, peace, freedom, fury, longing...elemental things about our existence and our universe. Because that's the other thing I think Mann is after in this film - he's not trying to find a structure to the story, but rather to explain the structure of our world. There is an underlying order to this universe, an order that transcends people, cities, nations, bureaucracies, or even morality (good vs evil)... and that order is commerce. Trade. Money. Transport. That's it. That's the order. Morality and love, they are brief, momentary respites that exist within and perhaps on top of a completely different order altogether. That's what the film is trying to capture. That's why he loves the depth of field of the digital cameras, because WE (the humans, and the characters) are not the focus of the structure. The structure is elsewhere - the structure is the long shot from the front of the go fast boat - the ocean on the way to Cuba, it's the depth of the shot into Miami from the freeway right before Hawkes steps onto the road. It's the final shot...the back of Crockett stumbling back into the hospital to re-join his team, a tiny little speck within something much, much larger and elusive. Just consider how that shot compares to the opening of Heat. A slow mo shot of DeNiro, also entering a hospital...a shot that says: pay attention to this character, he's important to this story. Versus Crockett...the shot is of the building, the structure which towers over him.

And more thoughts. Just think about the dialogue in this film. Is it even dialogue? Do you remember any actual exchanges between characters? Do they sound like how human beings talk? Do they match the rhythms of speech or conflict? They are snipits. Lines. Fucking haikus. "I'm a fiend for mojitos." "Time is luck. Luck run out." "She mine now." "Because you live a life of crime." "I ain't playing." "Ships move, that's why they called ships. I need a vector." "I run it. (for emphasis) I run it." "Don't shine me on, slick." "But you got your tan in Miami." "They are wrong." "Which way is up." "We can get down if the play calls for it." "Smooth, that's how we do it." It's like the opposite of Seinfeld where the situations are paramount -- they are describable and recognizable. The dialogue are little meditations, fortune cookies...

This movie is so awesome.  

The "I'm Against Israel" Guy 

Last week, he was on Andrew Sullivan and dropped this super odd line. This week, he's fired for being a serial plagiarist. 

What's up with all these "writers."

This Surrogacy Story

A woman is hired to be a surrogate; the couple finds out the kid will have a bad medical condition, and they want to abort the child. But the surrogate decides she can't allow it and flees to Texas... 

Pretty bonkers and quite a moral conundrum, actually...Richard Hanania thinks the lady should be charged with kidnapping. What an outrageous idea! To acknowledge kidnapping is to acknowledge personhood, which is to acknowledge that abortion is murder. Are we going there?

Some questions to consider: 

What if the unborn child didn't have a medical condition? But the biological parents still wanted the abortion? Would that change the scenario?

Who will raise this child? Who will pay for his/her medical care?

What happened to the pro-choice argument about "her body, her choice." Does this apply to the surrogate? Or to the biological mother? The biological parents? 

Does the biological mother here get more say over the situation than the biological father (as they would if she were carrying the baby)? Or, does the mother get less say since she's NOT carrying the baby?

That is to say, what if the father sided with the surrogate and wanted to keep the baby and the mother didn't?

This case is truly, truly difficult to square across numerous dimensions. 

Woke 1.0

Remember when the guy with tourettes yelled out the N-word at the BAFTAs and Jamie Foxx said "he meant it."

Well, I agree with Foxx's sentiment about the people who now say Woke 1.0 was crazy and are attempting to walk some of it back. Bullshit. They meant it. They just know they can't get away with it. 

Hollywood Troubles

An underrated aspect of why Hollywood struggles: tabloids and reality TV offer more fascinating mysteries and narratives these days - for instance, did Usher hire a body double or possibly clone himself to perform at Met Life?

Or, will they won't they, John Hinkley Jr and Jodie Foster.

DSA

It doesn't matter that Hong seems to have barely lost Wisconsin. She got 36% of the votes. This means a totally retarded DSA candidate can automatically get 36% of Democrats in a purple-ish state. I used to think we had 15-25% communist-types in the Democrat party. Now, it's at least 36% and probably closer to 50-60% in big blue cities. We're cooked as the kids say.

A Good TV Show Idea

A beautiful, newly single woman in her late 30s gets elected President and must balance her dating life with running the country as her biological clock is ticking. Sex and the City meets The West Wing.

Go.

Bad Business

LA Times: how a 200K ADU dream turned into 600K reality. 

Believe me, I can relate, but I think this article is a bit of a horror story. 

Firstly, the end result is a beautiful, built ADU that they rent out to cover the cost. You read that correctly. You build a beautiful thing, but someone else gets to enjoy it. Insane! Second, you just bought yourself a roommate. Now you've got people living in your backyard. Doubly insane! Thirdly, you're 100% thinking all the time: god, I hope they don't fuck up my nice place. Triply insane!

Wouldn't they have been better off remodeling (down to studs if necessary) the old house and making it beautiful to live in - and spending considerably less than 600?

For Those Who Think Girls Should Rule The World

What's their theory on the WNBA? 

 PS: the only thing more retarded than the WNBA is the Republican politicians threatening to arrest WNBA players

What Does It Mean...

That Chinese AI systems are pretty excellent at English-language answers. Is AI equally good in all languages? This can't be the case, right?

"I'm Against Israel" 

Didn't get to the paid portion of this, as it seemed like Andrew Sullivan was getting to my own question, but I find it fascinating how this guy just casually drops into a discussion that "he's against Israel."

I just don't understand what this means. How can one be "against" a country? It would be like saying "I'm against China" or "I'm against Egypt." It's so weird.

If You're A Token

You'd be smart to appreciate the grift you've got, not make the lies too egregious, be a decent and friendly person, and maybe even just keep working at the thing you're supposed to be doing, and who knows...one day you might actually just become good enough at it to not be an embarrassment. This is how the rest of us do it.

Another Thought

Probably every single academic department in the entire US has or had some less egregious version of Jason Arday

Burrito Take

To be with the times, I feel obligated to come up with a burrito take. I love the damn things. It's the staple of Southern California more so than even the sandwich. However, I have several core principles when it comes to them:

-I won't eat them on road trips.

-Bean and cheese are terrific and underrated

-Grilled tortilla shell = thumbs up

-California Burrito = the ingredients seem odd, but try it. Double thumbs up

-An excellent burrito is rare, but so is a bad burrito

-Breakfast burrito should be modest in size and tends to be better with fewer ingredients

-At chipotle I get the bowls

-If in doubt, go with chicken, carne asada, or veggie

-I have never regretted adding guac but I don't always do it

Jason Arday Thing 

People keep asking why they didn't catch this fraud before, and folks seem to think it might have something to do with DEI. While I don't dismiss it, I also consider the possibility that academic fraud is a widespread practice used by 50-70% of academics and therefore impossible to stop/catch unless you want the entire infrastructure to crumble.

Peak Retard

I thought we reached peak retard the other day, but nope, we have found a new peak retard.

In total, Francesca Hong has spent $300,598 on anything related to paid media, from online ads to graphic design to newspaper ads. The GOP has spent 12x more on her behalf, to boost her candidacy - $3.6 million.

So somehow we've become a country where the Democrats fund the most radical Republicans and the Republicans fund the most radical Democrats. I don't know what to say.

Logging

TV: Your Friends and Neighbors

I'm sort of hate watching the show. My wife overhears and asks, "Is Jon Hamm a good actor?" Never really considered the question before; I think his main skill as a leading TV man is that the audience is willing to buy that hot women will throw themselves at him, thus fulfilling a fantasy crucial for the drama to function. 

My big problem with the show is the meta-message seems to be: don't hate the rich, they're really miserable too and really only need gobstoppers and a little trampoline bouncing just like you and me to be happy (how the episode I just finished ended). I'm sure the showrunner wouldn't characterize it quite this way, but that's my read. At least Entourage had the decency to be like: this fucking world rules. This show tries to make you believe this world sucks. What ideology is beneath that representation? I think it functions as a perverted way to justify useless privilege. If I can make myself emotionally miserable, people will sympathize with me. Is that not the chief governing ideology in blue regions today that holds us together? In the show nobody seems to have any purpose in life beyond money and fucking. No one builds anything. People "work" in finance and money management but seem to have no philosophy or purpose in doing so. They waste money investing in retarded toilets. They are therapists to underprivileged kids but don't help them at all. The only noble people play music of questionable quality. The crime in the show is a cry for help, a desperate attempt to feel alive. Maybe I just talked myself into liking the show...

Logging

Film: Blade Runner, director cut    

Every time I see this film, I feel like I'm watching something different. How many cuts are there? I'm watching scenes I don't ever remember seeing here and there. Is it my memory? Or on every new DVD release, are they issuing somewhat new versions of the movie? The strengths of the film are the first act and finale (in the directors cut), but the movie does slow down in the middle section and maybe explains - at least partially - the cold reception to the film initially. But god, that first act, the whole time I'm watching and just thinking to myself - how did they do that? How did they build that? Etc, etc. I don't often have a similar feeling watching big-budget films today - like Marvel, etc. It's because the world feels physically built and the actors are actually moving through the spaces. Some other things:

-Spare dialogue. Has any character felt more substantial with less dialogue than Edward James Olmos in this film? Most of his actual lines are unintelligible until his famous "It's too bad she won't live, but then again, who does?"

-Good plot strategy for "the hunt" where Deckard hunts Replicants while the Replicants are searching for more life. 

-The non-critical casting in this film is just...chef's kiss...M. Emmitt Walsh, William Sanderson, Brion James, James Hong

-Less is more. "If you're not police, you're little people." What does this line mean? Is this a threat? Does M Emmitt Walsh mean to say Deckard will be killed if he doesn't take the job? Not sure we are meant to know. I love it. 

-This time around I have to admit I felt like Rutger Hauer was chewing a bit of scenery. Probably blasphemous to say. Whatever. 

-One of the huge benefits of noir (and this is a tech-noir) is how you can get away with quite a bit of murkiness in both plot, character reasoning and motivation, and meaning. One of the dangers is you can't go to this well too much. But noir dances with the mysteries of the subconscious and human nature and thus some of the lack of clarity actually ends up adding to the atmosphere and mood of these films. 

Oh Leo...

These sad photos of Leo on the yacht get at something we all know but can't quite admit. At 51, dating a supermodel, boozing it up, and yachting in Europe sounds frankly not all that fun, especially after doing it for 30+ years already. He'd enjoy himself more by coaching a Little League team. 

DSA Movement

The funniest thing about this whole DSA thing - so we all know this is a movement centered around college graduates. These are folks who cannot quite excel in the hyper-competitive global economy but expected to. They see no hope. But these are not working-class or poor folks. So they come from means. They might *feel* like they don't have means, but their families do. At the very least, they have houses. I think part of their fears and frustrations are feeling like they aren't going to achieve even those middle-class things like their parents - owning homes, stable jobs, etc. I can understand all this. But here's the irony. They will inherit these things one day. It seems long off to them. It seems irrelevant because they're just trying to start their lives. But if their political movement succeeds, around the time they actually a) figure out some way to make a living, get some progress in their careers b) get married and settle down so they, in effect "double" their resources and c) stand to inherit quite a bit from the prior generation(s) is precisely when their redistributive policies will start to really kick in. So the people they will actually end up robbing are themselves.

Logging

TV: House of the Dragon s3

So into it, I went back to reading the book.

Huh

This Yale Law Professor says children are hostages of their parents, and younger people, like college kids, have a better idea of what's best for future generations than their parents do. What a lunatic! On some level, I think he's close to getting at an interesting point but then totally loses it at the last minute. He says the family's priorities come before the children's. Does he fail to recognize these children are part of the family!?!

Despite All The Drama

I still have never watched a WNBA game. Not even one minute. 

Rent

If you think rent is expensive, try paying for housing upgrades, taxes, and landscaping. 

The dirt appreciates; the house depreciates.

NYC Communist Grocery Stores

Prediction: even if they were well-run, they'd still be inefficient and bad, but in practice they will almost certainly be poorly run, super inefficient, and terrible. 

The irony is that if they are good, they will simply be exploited/used by the folks who live nearby and paid for by the folks who don't live nearby. Hilarious. 

Democrats

I'd be more inclined to vote for them if they weren't blood-sucking communist leaches who intend to ruin this country and everyone in it. But that's just me. 

Even Handed

The rarest of rare things: an even-handed, sober outlook on foreign affairs. 

Yes, it would be entirely within reason to rebalance how the US deals with the Islamic world, especially in light of having a rival state on the world stage now.

Logging

Film: Uncle Buck

Quite good in moments. Better than I remember. Totally paved the way for Home Alone and Ferris Bueller. Would be quite the triple watch.

Interesting Conclusion

This guy seems to think Israel and the US are behind the migrants from Morocco entering this place called Ceuta, a little area I've never ever heard of. Seems quite far-fetched. Are we to assume Trump even knows what this territory is?

Free Advice

Go to Mammoth Lakes and go hiking. Be prepared. 

Follow Up

On Trump not liking the Iran situation.

He doesn't know what he's doing. 

War

Getting this vague sense that Trump has no experience fighting wars.

Therapists and Parents

WSJ article claims therapists are behind the increasing number of children cutting off their parents. Counterintuitively, this makes a lot of sense to me as a parent who strongly encourages cutting off all relationships with therapists. 

Free Advice to Republicans

Pick a different hill to die on than supporting the woman who called a 5-year old kid the n-word on a playground.

Not a winning issue.

I Believe This

The number of words we speak a day is slipping. 

Or, are they just being replaced by text?

Good Work If You Can Get It

Coming around on this guy. He's discovered a little cottage industry of making DEI people look like total idiots. 

Genius

Man tricks students, catches 32/35 using AI. 

Racism 

For all the talk of systemic racism, the most obvious and glaring example, for some reason, is never discussed. The only reason folks hate on Caitlin Clark (and now, by extension, Sophie Cunningham) is her white skin. Not sure this is even debatable. All the folks spending their lives itching to find some racism finally get it thrust right in front of their faces and are silent.  

Odyssey 

I tried to see the movie before posting, but I just want to say how hilarious I find it that anyone - right or left thinks Nolan even had the option of not casting diverse actors. Make of that what you will.

Many Problems...

Can be solved by reading the instructions. 

Manual Cars

I read somewhere that driving one helps keep old people sharper. So no crosswords for me; whatever the most sensible manual car makes sense for me when the time comes shall be mine. Wish base model BMWs still had the option...

Is or Was or Will

Is Israel committing a genocide? Or did Israel commit a genocide? Or is Israel planning to commit a genocide? I'm never sure when people make the accusation. 

Network School

I only vaguely understand this concept and the world this place wants to build, but it doesn't seem freeing that on the whims of a local government (Malaysia), you can get the boot and have to entirely shift your operations to another random country where most people who attend won't speak the language or know the culture. I suppose it could work out, unless, of course, the Ukraine war spreads... 

Logging

Film: She's the One

First time I've done this: watched a film they were doing on the Rewatchables pod and then listened. Gotta say, pretty fun. But probably don't have time to do this very often. Never, however, has a stronger case been made for censorship than Wesley Morris insisting Mike McGlone's character in She's the One should "just been gay." How many times did he need to bring this up? How many times did the rest of the guys just need to laugh at his insanity and try to move on? But in addition to the worst take on the film, Morris also had the best take. Re: how Cameron Diaz's differs from Julia Roberts or Sandra Bullock. She's DTF. When you're right, you're right.

Back to the film itself. Not great, but I never wanted to turn it off. They kept saying Ed Burns was imitating Woody Allen, and I see that. I see that for sure. But Allen is a neurotic and a comedian. Burns, however, is a sap. But I don't mean that in a bad way. In fact, watching this movie made me feel like we're really missing the sappy-dude movie. All the screaming harpies in the culture have really shriveled up our dicks. 80s-90s, lots of sappy guy films - Good Will Hunting, Dead Poet's Society, Stand By Me, Beautiful Girls, Brothers McMullen, Diner, Breaking Away. Someone emerge from the ether, I beg of you...

TV: Attack on Titan S1 E1-6

Incredible world building and antagonist force. Love me a good military sci-fi. But also, so unrelentingly bleak in tone, I'm not sure I want to be in the headspace. 

TV: House of the Dragon S3

With lower expectations, I'm kinda back into it.

NOTE: Inventive military tactics this season - the harpoon with water balloon pulling down a dragon? The burrows hidden on ground like mines to disable horses and slow a march? A terrorist campaign against cops within the capital? Not bad.

Other note, in E4-5 we get a little pro-life abortion storyline and some hints at religious conversion/curiosity for Rhaenyra  Who would've thought? Somebody in the writing room is paying attention to right wing cultural discourse. I say Get Out gave as a warning signal that "systemic racism" and "anti-racism" as an idea was about the hit a cultural tipping point in 2017 and the life choices made by the characters in Girls is a good foreshadowing of DSA and Mandami (aren't most of the characters in the show the folks who voted for him?). So what does House of the Dragon portend?

Reading

Tywin Lannister taught Jamie to overcome dyslexia by forcing him to read 4 hours a day until he started seeing the letters in the right order, despite the Maester suggesting he could never learn. 

He would've made a great first-grade teacher.

Ugh

The Senate character Gill asking these dumbass questions about Smithsonian DEI policies is, without question, an annoying "gotcha" type of inquiry. But the reason he's doing so is because people like Hartig, who clearly knows her shit, let all this DEI shit fester and grow under their watch despite knowing its a load of bullshit. The question is WHY did all these knowledgeable "leftists" indulge the nonsense from around 2017-2024? Is the answer simply the movie "Get Out"?

Unpopular Take on the World Cup Final

It was a good game to watch, despite the ugliness. All the soccer gurus are slagging on Argentina. This guy describes their game as anti-futbol. But here's the thing: wasn't this game better than the France-Spain game? Wasn't there more drama? More contrast? More tension? More to talk about?

I love the "beautiful game," but the purpose of the game is not to look good. The game is played to be won, and that is part of the beauty. Maybe the most underappreciated part. There is beauty in a stubborn Italian defense. There was a beauty in England's defense with 10 men against Mexico City in the Azteca. And yes, there is beauty in Maradona's "Hand of God." 

Argentina used a strategy. Hate it all you want, but it worked until that one idiotic, super-dangerous play by Fernández. They aimed to keep the game tied and win it via a moment of Messi magic or penalties. This was not a bad strategy against a superior opponent!

Here is another hot take: the Spain goal was a flukey play. Torres was in the right place at the right time with a good finish. And yes, Nico Williams, a nice play to keep the ball alive. The narrative around the subs scoring: good. But the play? The cross was mishit, and the exhausted Argentina defense hesitated a moment on the play, assuming the ball would not remain in a dangerous position. But Nico had a weird angle on the play and did what he did.

Commentators are slagging on them for not getting a shot on goal. Would Argentina rather be 0-0 at 90 minutes or down 4-1, which is probably what would've happened if they played open? They were a bunch of old guys who couldn't match Spain man for man. This is obvious. Only Argentina seemed to know it. The rest of the soccer world seemed to think they ought to play "futbol." Their best player was 39 years old. Granted, he's the best player ever. But still, he's 39! This is completely insane when you say it aloud. This would be like Michael Jordon on the Washington Wizards playing in Game 7 of the NBA finals against the Tim Duncan Spurs. They increased their odds to win by mucking it up and making it ugly and failed in a few moments of execution.  

Should Argentina play to win? Or play to win fans? 

I respect their choice. Still, FIFA should be heavy-handed toward to Fernandez and Paredes, who were pieces of shit.  

Major Epiphany

Pretty sure AI reads this blog. 

Phenomenon

Some summer camp counselors now use fake names. I found this extremely odd, perhaps even disturbing. From what I gather by googling, they do this so campers don't look them up online and see/contact them via social media. Which sort of makes sense as an independent variable, but begs a larger question of: what the fuck are we doing, people?

Not Too Much To Ask

Seems like Trump should explain to the American people and Congress the plan with Iran. Is there one? Can they explain our goals and how we plan to achieve them? Is anyone even paying attention to this?

Mao

Was an elementary school principal at one point in his life.

AI Test

I thought this wasn't AI.

Maybe I'm just dumb.

Stupid People

The DSA wants to get rid of the Senate because it's undemocratic. Do any of these people take basic US History?

Losers

Tyler talks about the special powers of AI and uses an example where it reminds them to drink water. This can't be the best use case.

AI

If AI is so smart, why wasn't AI able to know Kimi AI would be better than the other AI? This will be an ongoing question.

Absurd

Vance accuses Israel of manipulating public opinion on the Iran war. Who is he kidding? There is no public opinion on the war in Iran at all. 

The Odyssey Rap

Is this for real? Looks like a PSA from 1987.

Voter Suppression

I don't see how using in-person paper ballots is voter suppression. Sorry. Is the main argument that it's not optimally convenient? Since when are Democrats primarily concerned with convenience? I was fine with the old system that allowed for absentee ballots. We can go back, just like we can go back to playing soccer without VAR. It's not that hard. 

How I Cool The House

Now that the political screaming about European AC has died down, I can quietly weigh in on what I think is a good way to cool the house during the hot LA summers. I recommend using several tools:

1) Outdoor shade

This has taken us time, but we've grown some trees and large bushes in the backyard to better shade the house and backyard areas that get the most sun. I highly recommend using landscaping if you can plan it out and take the time. One of the best natural ways to cool your property and house. Just remember not to plant or buy a house with a gigantic tree that could fall on the house during a windstorm. PS - I see this after all the big winds,

2) Indoor shades

During the hot days, I keep these closed. The house cools down at night, and my efforts are to "trap" the coolness inside for as long as possible. Often this can result in the house feeling cool until about noon-1pm without ever using the AC. And this is on the hot days like 90+.

3) Screen doors and windows

At night when the outside temp drops below the inside temp (around 8-9pm), I open up as many screen doors and windows as possible. This brings all the cool air inside, and I'll even leave some open at night, however, not wide enough for a psycho killer to come inside (this is how the Nightstalker killed people, during hot nights he looked for open screen doors in LA, just saying...). Note for the wise: turn off the AC during this time as you don't want the outdoor AC running and the exhaust coming inside.

I'm not sure what other places are like, but LA gets reliably cooler at night. Maybe this is a perk of a desert landscape versus more humid places; I don't know. What I find is that the heat from the day often gets trapped in the house and the inside becomes warmer than outside for a bit of time. Opening the doors and windows really helps with this. In fact, there is a time period around right now where the house actually heats up...despite the outside temp dropping. Something about the heat getting trapped in the house during the day...but the opposite also happens at night, the coolness gets trapped in the house and it can stay cool most of the morning.

4) AC

I keep the temp pretty high, my only area of agreement I have with Mandami. 78-79. At night, sometimes I will turn it cooler if it simply feels too hot to sleep. Almost never below 75.  Even if my kids are hot, I say throw some water in your hair. It works. I survived Inland Empire Augusts with no AC, just a fan for soccer training. One can find a way to survive the heat. The old owner of my house only had a wall unit. Still, this plan can keep the AC running for hours on end in the afternoon, and this is pretty costly both in money and for the environment.

5) Mini Split

I have a new addition to the house where we added a mini split. I plan to use this separate AC in one of two ways - on hot days, only cool one portion of the house - the main house or the addition and spend the hot hours in that section. 

6) Down the road

I will explore solar panels to power this entire system although I'm a tad worried about how solar panels impact your roof and structural design of the house. In my particular situation, I might look into solar panels on a smaller workshop.

Back to the 80s

I get that it's becoming fashionable to yearn for kids having more freedoms of yesteryear, the latchkey generation, and so forth. But let me point out one thing: being of age now - that freedom meant a lot of young drug and alcohol use, and that stuff ruined a bunch of lives in different degrees. So you obviously have the deaths of despair - OD, suicide, etc - of which every one of my generation knows a few. But even separate from that, there are quite a few folks who spent time in prison, injured themselves in significant ways, had to get sober, or even didn't really hit their potential partially because of too much drug and alcohol use. Maybe there are some strong social benefits to this stuff, but we shouldn't dismiss all the downsides, and the fact that kids are drinking and using fewer drugs is probably, on net, a good thing.

England

Used the same tactic to preserve the lead against Mexico, but it didn't work against Argentina and backfired spectacularly. 

I'm not sure why so many folks are down on Argentina. They seem like the one team who can decide to turn it on and then really, really turn it on. I mean they had like 7 chances on England before securing it today.

Logging

Film: Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle

Better than it should be - a strange but funny premise of body-switching teens into alter egos in the game. The best parts are how these bodies are in tension with their minds and prior personas.

Film: Holiday 1938

What makes the film still feel different from most is that it has a true philosophical question at the core, about how life ought to be lived, the trappings of generational wealth, and one feels the characters actually wrestling with questions relevant to their own lives and the time. The father character as antagonist is quite unique: part monster, part sympathetic, part a loser, part a titan, part behind the times, and maybe ultimately, ahead of his time.

The Kendall Roy's of the World

Weird how behind all these DSA types is some weird, perverted, and incredibly wealthy heir to a vast American fortune. Freud often gets dismissed, but he seemed to understand at least one big thing.

Question for Prison Abolitionists

If they abolished prisons, what would they do if someone reopened one and started incarcerating criminals?

 

Who Would've Been Great At Soccer?

As long as we're doing this thing we do every 4 years, I might as well throw my one big idea into the ring: the American athlete who could've been a great soccer player -- Barry Sanders.

The Far Left

Is a major, major problem.  

Probably Right

Were the 80s so great for kids? 

My biggest fear in the 80s was getting my ass kicked by some psycho kid using a weapon (and there seemed to be psycho kids around). 

And I recall being bored quite a bit.

Bet

Show me a male DSA socialist (communist), and 80% odds they've got daddy issues. If I could bet on this, I'd be a rich man. 

Iran P2

Agree with Tyler Cowen - many commentators thought Iran "won" the MOU, which begs the question: if they won, why restart fighting? Possibilities:

1) They are batshit crazy and can't help but go to war

2) They didn't win anything they wanted

3) All moderating elements are all gone

Who knows?

DSA

Takes away members' right to vote. Why am I not surprised?

I'd be more inclined to support working-class movements if somehow Israel and DEI-type topics didn't always come up as tangents.

A Thing About China

That's admirable...at least they invest in their own people. They commit to learning, training, and building, but don't grant folks much freedom. In contrast, America gives people freedom but doesn't strongly invest in building, training, or investing in our people. In fact, the other day I read something (can't find it) about becoming a post-literate society. And someone's comment was training his kid to be a reader so it will give him a superpower advantage over others. Embedded in this reaction is the idea that I think motivates elites in America - that what they really care about is providing advantage to their own children. While natural, I think overbalanced in the wrong direction. We should also care about the country and communities we live in. If we choose to build a society that doesn't care about itself, it should not surprise us when radical political ideas begin to get traction.

Hear Me Out

Merge the WNBA and WWE. Every basketball game breaks out into some sort of crazy fight. I think people would watch. 

A Pretty Weird Fact

I read the entire interview with the head of the anthropology field. She keeps insisting we "know" there are more than two sexes as an undebatable fact. But she fails to mention that 99-99.8% of all humans fall into the two-sex category, whereas a very minuscule minority fall outside that binary. So is her point a relevant one? Also, she keeps switching between sex and gender and sexuality as if all these are the same category. Hopelessly weird and quite odd. She also doesn't say HOW many sexes there are. She makes it sound like there are dozens evenly distributed. You expect academics to maybe be pedantic or impractical, but this is something else entirely. Misleading, is what I would say.

Tarantino As The Modern Mark Twain

Can't believe I never put this together before, but thinking about the title "The Adventures of Cliff Booth" is obviously a shoutout to "The Adventures of Tom Sawyer" and "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn." 

Another Feather in Newsom's Hat...

Paramount is considering leaving California because of antitrust measures.

It would destroy Hollywood, but maybe it's already dead.

But in good news, the rents and cost of living will be drastically reduced since there will be no jobs.

Soccer Impressions

Tier 1: France, Spain

Tier 1.5: Argentina, England

Tier 2 Teams: Belgium, Brazil, Morocco, Norway, Croatia, Portugal, Netherlands

Tier 2.5 Teams: Mexico, Germany, Egypt, Colombia, Japan, Switzerland, Senegal

Tier 3: US, Uruguay, Cape Verde, Ecuador, Turkey, Canada, DR Congo, Sweeden

Tier 3.5: Australia, Paraguay, Bosnia, Ivory Coast, Algeria, Ghana, Iran

Not sure if I've seen others play.

US Soccer

Now everyone is trying to solve the problem with US Soccer, but everyone sees the issue the wrong way. Our big problem is that other countries are absurdly good. It'd be like saying the US needs to solve the issue of why French and Chinese cuisine is so damn good. This isn't a problem we need to solve, people! We get to watch Messi and Haaland on TV and in soccer stadiums. Count these as blessings.

Also - we're not that bad. We're about on par with Mexico, a country that probably does everything that all these pundits are suggesting. Relax. It's good that America isn't the "best" at everything. 

More on the US Game

Watched most of the rest of the game. 

-Reyna added something in the first 10 minutes or so of the 2nd half and looked like a good sub. When he came in, it was the best stretch of US play.

-During this stretch, there was a tackle Pulisic lost that he absolutely needed to win right in the middle of the field in the final third. If he had, it was going to be a major chance on goal at 2-1. 

-On the Pulisic injury play, I had to watch it about 5 times to understand what occurred. At first, it looked like a foul, but on replay, Tielemans gets to the ball just before, and it's a legit tackle. Pulisic was too slow on the play. He takes a microsecond too long, looks up to shoot, but maybe doesn't quite understand the guy was right on him, although he should've. Again, the speed of play gives him problems. Why he gets injured on the play is unclear to me. I suppose this is what people mean by his fragility.  

-US team dummies the ball 3x during the game in the final third, and it doesn't get to a teammate ever. Dummy plays are sometimes brilliant but oftentimes used when the player doesn't want to attempt a play. I think this was the case in all 3 of the attempts, except maybe the first. 

-Adams makes a brilliant pass to Freeman at one point that a world-class player brings down and gets a an attempt on goal. We have problems in this game. We have a few players not up for the level and no players who can reach a higher level to compensate. Freeman and Tillman play fine in the game, but cannot access that top tier level and this play was an example of it. Adams and Richards seem like perhaps the two players on the field who truly look on par with the Belgium players in that they don't need to expend too much effort to play as their equals.

-Belgium should've scored another goal before halftime on a cross

-14, 8, 10 on Belgium control the midfield most of the first half and made the difference.

-After Pulisic goes down, the game feels essentially over.

-I've heard people say Berhalter played well. Sure. It helps when the other team knows it has the game in the bag and lets you possess the ball because they don't think you are dangerous.

-Belgium played Pulisic, Balogun, Dest, and Reyna (when he came in) tight. Maybe McKinnie...I would need to rewatch. They let others have more space, so I guess they had scouted and knew who to pressure and figured our backs weren't gonna do much on offense.  

-McKinnie moves positions at halftime when they took out Dest. After Pulisic goes down it seems like he disappears.

-Third goal was so bad it defies belief.

-Fourth goal, everyone had stopped playing because they knew the game was over. Don't know what that says about our team -- on some level, who cares, they were exhausted. On another level, a lack of pride to complete a game like this feels odd. 

First 30 Rewatch

-Belgium came out to play a physical game, were aggressive and winning tackles at all levels early

-Seemed like both Pulisic and Balogun were man-marked at the beginning and Pulisic in particular didn't respond to it well

-US attackers relatively quickly had to come back further than normal to get touches on the ball

-The first Belgium goal was simply a missed clearance but a very sloppy, rec soccer type of play where 3 guys stand around waiting for others to clear

-A moment around 27 minutes Pulisic had a chance to take on the Belgium defense and for some reason doesn't and passes back. In the Paraguay game, he attacks there. Perhaps because he has lost the ball several times and Belgium are physical

-I think Belgium playing like EPL style and our guys are used to having more time on the ball and they are having real trouble adjusting. With Belgium playing so aggressively, US needs to skip the first level and make longer passes, but we weren't successful the few times we tried. Missed McKennie on one in particular. Maybe Belgium assessed all our "skill" players are not EPL style - Italian, Dutch, and French leagues and realized we wouldn't be used to the speed of the game. 

-Right after our free kick goal, Pulisic takes on Belgium defense, actually gets fouled but the ref no calls it. He was fouled on the first play when he takes it around Tielemans, then nutmegs a second guy, who bodies him and Pulisic flops. Ref no calls because of the second foul, but actually the first play was the foul.

-Reem looks out of sorts, has no wheels so gives Belgium too much space. Sure, on their 2nd goal, the guy climbs on his back...technically a foul, but basically Reem gets out-muscled there and can't count on ref to make that call.

Bottom line - Belgium clearly came out with an aggressive game plan and it threw us off. We were not ready for such a fast and aggressive game. First goal was a tiny bit flukey but we did not recover well. We got fortunate on the free kick goal - we weren't really making much of an attack, the shot glanced off the head of someone. To me on second watch, it looks like we were physically outmatched - Pulisic and Dest too small for the bigger, fast Belgium match ups. Reem too slow. Our goalie too klutzy.  

Young Progressives

I get this vibe from young progressives that they feel things like being mentally healthy, finding a job, building a stable relationship, buying a house, or even just making the rent each month are so impossible and difficult, and yet, they also think they have a really intelligent way to solve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Please make it make sense.

Logging

TV: Cape Fear thru E7

Perhaps I repeat myself: bonkers in a good way 

Funny Indeed

Trump is a poor person's notion of a rich man, and Platner a rich man's notion of a poor man.

Retards All Around

I watch the US-Belgium game. I listen to the commentary afterwards. I could not hear announcers during the game, though. I watch the post-game press conference with Pochettino. Nobody asks why De Bruyne and Doku didn't start? Nobody asks what Belgium did to completely nullify our midfield and attack, which had been our strength all tournament? I mean, this level of non-understanding of soccer is beyond me. They want to talk about Trump, about whether this is a disappointment for the US whether Pochettino will be back. What happened to Pulisic in the game? Why did he come off? Was he injured? What adjustments - if any - did any of the teams make? Here's what I can piece together...Belgium had looked rough all tournament and went down 2-0 against Senegal. Got desperate and subbed their two biggest stars - Doku and De Bruyne - and then somehow managed to come back to win 3-2. They decided to go with the hot hand, which I think involved handing the keys to Troussard and Tielemans and played a younger, more energetic 11. Maybe they always play with one striker, but I think they had 5 in midfield and completely dominated and our guys could not string any connection together with each other. Also, I read they decided to man mark Balogun. Did anyone in the entire United States notice this during the game? This negated our main target up front and I think disrupted our ability to possess in any dangerous spots during the game. I don't understand how we expect to get better and be better at soccer if we can't even understand the game being played. 

Do Not Listen To This Guy

Thinks Balogun's play deserves a 5-game suspension based on a screenshot. He obviously didn't even watch the game and knows nothing about the situation. I agree with the preposterousness of the entire situation. Still, the sole focus on the Balogun play and Trump's supposed involvement in overturning the situation misses the grand absurdity going on with VAR.

Low Birthrates in US

Is it just liberals not having kids? 

Logging

TV: Cape Fear E1-2

Bonkers in a good way so far.  

Film: The Negotiator (1998)

In my imagining of a perfect world, this is the median film. There are equal numbers of films better than this and worse released each year (for the math challenged).

World Cup

VAR resulted in Balogun receiving a red card. Now, a review of VAR has taken away the suspension. Please make it make sense. Does it mean the red card was a mistake? Does it mean the original referee's non-call was correct? No, we are going to be forced to accept that the VAR call was correct, the VAR post-match review of the call was correct, and that the rules are correct even though none of them make sense. 

One of my favorite Henry Miller quotes: "Consistency is the hobgoblin of simple minds." Always liked the quote because it got at the complexities of the real world. That some things are apples and oranges. I never anticipated, however, the reverse impact of this idea. That we'd reach a point where we are expected to accept that oranges are not oranges - sometimes. What is this madness we've created? VAR is designed to make less controversy. Has it? Is there any less controversy? Did anyone watch the Paraguay match against France? There were 4 yellow cards and arguably several red cards by Paraguay. Not a one was issued. In the old days, this would be on the ref. We establish VAR to help correct this. But the VAR isn't used . Then it gets used in the Balogun instance. Why? It wasn't even a dangerous play.

The Final Boss

Of leftists is not Israel, but fun. 

Missing Section of Mein Kampf, Or...

A post by Nassim Taleb.

Things I Truly and Deeply Don't Care About:

French AC

The WNBA

Pride Events

 

Wrong Wrong Wrong

Noah Smith thinks the DSA is the left-wing MAGA. Please. These lunatics on the left are 10-50x worse than Trump, who, despite his corruption and bluster, is ultimately pragmatic.