This guy must be a blast at parties

 AARRRGH, art, Crazy, dumbassery, history, Hmm..., Meh., science fiction, youtube, ಠ_ಠ  No Responses »
Oct 232019
 

Three movie critics discuss “Return of the Jedi.” Siskel and Ebert enjoyed the Star Wars movies for what they were… and John Siimon completely misses the point.

Way to miss the point, buddy.

Comments from YouTube:

“John Simon seems he would be a blast with kids. Probably buy them a puppy then kill it so they can experience real human loss.”

“This “Simon” guy has about as much imagination as a brick.”

I can only assume that John Simons was an inspiration for Kutzman & co. It would explain the dire, dour, desperately depressing downhearted dumpsterfire that is modern Star Trek.

 

 

 

 Posted by at 8:27 am

TNG vs STD

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Oct 222019
 

Confirmation that my decision not to spend money signing up for CBS All Access just to watch the hyper-funded anti-canonical amateur fan film series “Star Trek: Discovery” was the right decision.

Yeeeeesh.

You know, I was always more TOS than TNG, more Kirk than Picard. But the STD Captain shown here makes Picards traditional moralizing and lecturing seem downright appropriate. From Doomcock’s review of this little episode, the STD writers have decided that Tribbles aren’t some interesting little organism that evolved to breed fast, but instead are the products of not only unwise genetic engineering by a Starfleet officer about ten years prior to “The Trouble With Tribbles,” but he also injected them with magic: apparently they reproduce without the usually required step of *eating,* they gain mass without actually ingesting any mass.

Also note the serious overtones of modern woke fictioneering: the female character is right, the male is wrong. But more than that, the white male (and undoubtedly cis hetero) character is an *idiot,* and the female character sneers at him, undoubtedly to a chorus of cheers from the mental illness haircuts who actually like this show.

 

 Posted by at 2:24 am

Self-publish on Amazon, they said…

 AARRRGH, art, books, Crazy, dumbassery, Forward!, Gah., Meh., My Fiction, politics, science fiction, THIS is why Trump won, War With The Deep Ones, weapons, ಠ_ಠ  No Responses »
Oct 092019
 

A number of people have told me to try self-publishing my books on Amazon. Stories like this one just add to the pile of “why bother” reasons:

Amazon Bans ‘A Shifting Alliance’ Ad for Featuring “Inappropriate Display of a Weapon”

According to section 7.13 of Amazon’s Creative Acceptance Policies, which was updated in the wake of the Dayton and El Paso terror attacks, ads featuring weapons are prohibited in order “to protect our customers from uncomfortable or shocking experiences.”

Curiously, while Amazon explicitly prohibits “images of firearms demonstrated as firing or having been recently used (for example, bullets visibly exiting the weapon, smoke or other residue shown around the barrel),” it allows for “non-violent depictions of non-realistic firearms that are fantasy weapons, including fantasy/sci-fi firearms such as ray-guns and phasers.”

Of course, a more immediate road block for me self publishing is that I have absolutely zero talent or skill in the areas of graphic design or painting or anything relevant to the task of creating a good book cover. Shootin’ irons going kerblam wouldn’t really fit on a “Zaneverse” cover, but they’d be all kinds of appropriate for “War With The Deep Ones,” what with it being a war and all…

But then some power mad SJW scoldmonster would find – or invent – some rule that takes a giant ump on my work. Feh.

 

 

 Posted by at 11:56 pm

Faith In Humanity: Declining…

 AARRRGH, dumbassery, history, Hmm..., Meh., politics, youtube, ಠ_ಠ  No Responses »
Oct 012019
 

Uhhhhhh…

Where the interviewer asks a bunch of people questions from the test for immigrants who wish to become US citizens. Obviously not a scientific statistical sampling, but still.

Lots of people have pointed out that the citizenship test that immigrants need to pass would be massively failed by a large portion of the native-born public. This seems almost certain. But often this point is raised to claim that it is thus too difficult for non-Americans to gain citizenship. Many of these folks think that *nothing* should be needed to become a US citizen.

But there’s another way to look at it. Keep the citizenship test. You cannot make existing citizens take it in order to keep their citizenship; if you’re born here, you’re a citizen, just that simple. But… it seems to me that passing this test, or some reasonable portion of it, should be a requirement to be allowed to vote in Federal elections.

 

 

 Posted by at 1:38 pm

Back in my day…

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Sep 242019
 

The one where Gropey Joe does his best Grandpa Simpson impression and rambles incoherently. If he was a Republican, this story would be considered massively racist and the Cancel Culture Warriors would be out in force.

Keep in mind that this goofy old man is leading the pack of Dems. Just *imagine* the twelve-hour state of the union addresses…

Yeesh. This is politics in America, Current Year. A guy who if he’s not senile, is certainly doing a damned fine impression of it; a guy who wants to turn America into a police state where his minions go door-to-door to arrest tens of millions of gun owners; another one who wants to nuke American cities; a woman who rode stories of Indians in her distant past to gain undeserved benefits; a woman who’s stuck in Pyramid power; another goofy old man who thinks that breadlines are a good thing. *These* are the people  the Democrats think would make good leaders of the free world. Guh.

 

 

 Posted by at 11:16 am

“Ad Astra:” Not Recommended

 AARRRGH, blather, Gah., Meh., rockets, science fiction, spacecraft, ಠ_ಠ  No Responses »
Sep 202019
 

Well, those were a few hours of my life I’ll never get back.

I found myself near a theater showing “Ad Astra” today, so, what the heck, I saw it. It’s profoundly awful.

Firstly, and most damningly, it’s utterly *boring.* I didn’t fall asleep, but I did check the time, sighed, closed my eyes and daydreamed. Stuff happens, but you Just Don’t Give A Rats Ass.

Secondly, it doesn’t make a lick of sense. The plot, the tech, the characters and the lack-of-science conspire to create  story that comes off as gibberish.

Thirdly: the science is laughable. Just in case anyone cares about spoilers, the full rant is behind the break.

Continue reading »

 Posted by at 5:59 pm

Once again I tried and failed

 Forward!, history, Meh., ಠ_ಠ  No Responses »
Sep 202019
 

So what did I fail at this time?

Tonight I watched the 1972 Woody Allen movie “Everything You Ever Wanted To Know About Sex.” I think I might have seen bits and pieces of this movie a long time ago… by which I mean sometime perhaps around 1980. I have previous mentioned that I just don’t find Woody Allen funny. So once again I watched a WA movie and I looked for the humor… and I utterly failed to find it.  If I was one of those “reaction” YouTubers, I suspect the image of my face as I watched the movie would be a whole lot of stone-faced boredom interspersed with occasional slight frowns.

So, yeah. Another total failure.

I. Just. Don’t. Get. It.

 Posted by at 12:08 am

“Just do something!!!”

 Crazy, dumbassery, Meh., news, religion, ಠ_ಠ  No Responses »
Sep 172019
 

One of the more common yet irritatingly pointless human reactions to a problem is to demand that Something Must Be Done. Sure, often there’s a problem that can be fixed and there’s a practical, wise fix available. But far too often people just demand action… any action. Even if the action would actually make the situation worse. I suspect most readers of this blog would expect that at this point I’d proceed to bringing up some brainless American leftist nonsense like gun control or speech codes. But hey, I’m broad-minded. Not every person putting forward useless ideas is an American leftie. Gentlemen, behold:

Priests Pour 18 Gallons of Holy Water Over Russian City to Stop ‘Alcohol Consumption, Drugs and Fornication’

Yeah, that’ll do it. After pouring some water out of an airplane, I feel confident that Russians will give up booze.

 

 Posted by at 11:01 pm

Mary Sue In Black

 AARRRGH, art, dumbassery, Forward!, Meh., science fiction, youtube, ಠ_ಠ  No Responses »
Sep 142019
 

When “Men In Black: International” came out, I somehow gave it a pass. It just didn’t seem interesting. Which was a shame, because the original Men In Black was a *dayumed* entertaining flick. But it was also unsurprising… the second one was “meh” and the third one I can barely recall.

This review, though, makes it plain that my lack of seeing “MIB:I” was far and away the right choice. It seems that the main character is the very definition of a Mary Sue… lazily written, perfect at everything, achieves all her goals effortlessly, everyone loves her. Ho. lee. Cap. That’s just tragic. In my “Zaneverse” stories, the main characters are involved in some amazing things, but I at least *try*  to get them there honestly. And the main character is flawed to the point of being a downright ᚠᚪᛣᚳᚪᛇᛈ . He’s kinda the definition of “utterly non-special.” But the MIB:I  main character seems to have been written specifically to appeal to the lowest common SJW denominator… which, given how the movie tanked at the box office, was not a good financial decision.

Perfect characters are ᚠᛣᚳᛝ boring. If I every write a story where someone is called “The Chosen One” and seems to be fulfilling the trope, expect him to get shot in the nuts with a ten-gauge by page 3.

 Posted by at 2:16 pm
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