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alChandler's Halls
Spreading optimism since 1999
2025 so Far
January 15, 2025
Indiana Jones
I'm giving some serious thought to getting Indiana Jones and the Great Circle. After all, I finished three Tomb Raider games and Uncharted: Legacy of Thieves Collection without any problems, so I suspect I could get through Indiana Jones. And I haven't played a solo game since November.
However, I think I'll force myself to contemplate things for a day or two before I make any purchase. I'm nothing if not responsible. Although, now that I think of it, I was considering it around the beginning of December. Still...
January 11, 2025
The Apprentice
Last night I watched The Apprentice. It was sort of like Citizen Kane if Kane was a shallow lunkhead and felt that living without any human contact was just fine. There's no tragic arc, just Trump becoming a progressively shittier human being. So there you go, after that I watched The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies. That finished the first rewatch of that trilogy in many years. I can say that while the trilogy isn't great, after almost nine years my opinion of it has mellowed quite a bit. I had been thinking of watching The Social Network but no, watching two movies about assholes in one week is too much. Instead I'll go for another Tolkien movie.
January 10, 2025
Trump Will be Sentenced on Friday
The Facebook thing below was going to be the last post for today, but the word went down that The Supreme Court ruled by 5-4 that Trump couldn't make his sentencing go away. So it's official, on 1/20 Trump will become the first felon to become president.
And now I have chicken, pot and four beers left over from yesterday. I'll watch the finale of Creature Commandos and then the movie about young Donald Trump and Roy Cohn, The Apprentice.
Update: It turned out I had a six pack left.
January 9, 2025
Facebook decided to fire its fact checkers. According to the NY Times Facebook is going to let its users flag articles for accuracy or content. Aside from saving Meta money it also is a way to curry favor with the Trump administration. Republican politicians tend to get fact checked more then Democratic politicians because, you know, they lie a lot more. Republicans have noticed this and deemed it censorship. They're pretty happy with Zuckerberg's new way of doing things, it's called Community Notes and I expect it to be a disaster.
And speaking of Facebook, I assumed it was dominated by aging boomers. Not so, I did a search for Facebook users by age and got this:
That surprised me quite a bit, I really thought FB was an old person's hangout.
Finally, news about the lawsuit Richard Kadrey, Sarah Silverman and Ta-Nehisi Coates brought against Facebook for using copyrighted works to train its AI. I hadn't heard anything about the suit in some time but TechCrunch has some news about it. Documents filed by the plaintiffs allege that that Meta got its books from LibGen. LibGen has been shut down and fined for distributing copyrighted books. According to the plaintiffs, Meta knew the books were copyrighted but nobody there gave a shit.
And that's it for Facebook stuff.
January 9, 2025
Duck Duck Go
Last year I switched to Firefox as my default browser. This year I changed my default search engine to Duck Duck Go. Before I could get to the search results in Google I had to wade through its AI results and ads. If you're happy with Google good for you, I'm glad it's working out for you. If you're somewhat dissatisfied, here's a Reddit thread called What's going on with Google search and why is everyone suddenly talking about it being "dead"? As always, your mileage may vary.
January 9, 2025
Rereading
Last night Mrs. S called and in the course of our conversation she mentioned that she finds it odd that I reread books, especially when I reread books that I know by heart like The Lord of the Rings. And I was going write a defense of rereading but it's not necessary. It's like asking the guy who only reads nonfiction to defend his views, he doesn't have to justify shit to me.
But it did make me realize that there are a lot of books in my library that deserve a reread, so I think they'll be a lot of that this year. Currently I'm rereading Time and the Gods by Lord Dunsany. And after that I'm going to reread The City in Glass by Nghi Vo, a book I just read last year (it's that good). I'm sure most of my reading will be new stuff but they'll be more repeats then usual.
And since I haven't been on for a bit, here's a picture of Newton in a shoe box.
January 7, 2025
And He Silently Stole a Weigh
Today I checked my weight and after a week in New York City I'm now at 178 pounds. That means no beer until I hit my target weight of 175 pounds.
Stupid holidays.
Update: On the other hand I still have some pot left from the ounce I bought last month as well as the two joints Caty gave to me before I left home so my life is not a complete shit show.
December 30, 2024
Cat Toy
For Christmas, Mrs. Silverman bought a self propelled cat toy for Newton. Newton, like his human, doesn't adapt well to new things.
Can't say I blame him. Newton knows there are things that move by themselves, like mice, dogs and people. And there's the rest of it, books, clothes, and what have you that don't move by themselves. Then there's that thing that shouldn't move but somehow does.
December 29, 2024
The Substance
I spent Christmas with Donna and Caty and at some point during the week Caty suggested we watch a horror movie, The Substance. Donna and I both like horror so we went for it.
While it was a happy experience for Caty, Donna and I were, well, horrified.
The Substance is about Elisabeth Sparkle (Demi Moore), and older woman who has an exercise program. She's fired because of her age and for the rest you can watch the movie or go to its Wikipedia page. If you decide to watch it be prepared for a lot of body horror but I think it's worth watching. Just remember, it's fucking brutal.
December 28, 2024
A Christmas Carol Part 2
Man, that 7th grade reader cut a lot out of the story. Here's a bit of lovecraftian horror about the Spirit of Christmas Past that I never read before:
Even this, though, when Scrooge looked at it with increasing steadiness, was not its strangest quality. For, as its belt sparkled and glittered, now in one part and now in another, and what was light one instant at another time was dark, so the figure itself fluctuated in its distinctness; being now a thing with one arm, now with one leg, now with twenty legs, now a pair of legs without a head, now a head without a body: of which dissolving parts no outline would be visible in the dense gloom wherein they melted away. And, in the very wonder of this, it would be itself again; distinct and clear as ever.
Waiter, I'll have what Mr. Dickens is having.
December 21, 2024
A Christmas Carol
My Dad's cousin, Kathleen, gave me two books. They were a collection of short novels for 7th and 8th grade readers. I wasn't anywhere close to the 7th grade, much less the 8th, when I got them but the 7th grade book had Dickens' A Christmas Carol and since I loved the Alister Sim movie, Scrooge, I tackled the short novel and reread it many times.
Today I realized that I haven't reread it ages, probably close to 56 or 57 years. So I downloaded it to my Kindle and started to read it. After so many years it's hard to be sure but I think the version in the 7th grade reader was abridged, so this will be the first time I'll read the full version, not that it's a long book either way.
December 21, 2024
Pretty Much the Vibe in Washington These Days
December 20, 2024
Superman
I pretty much hate going to the movies, I'd much prefer to wait for them to come to a streaming I subscribe to or rent them from Amazon. But I just might make an exception for this one.
December 19, 2024
Some Thoughts on Donald Trump
I'm looking forward to the 2026 midterm elections, 33 senators and every member of the House will be up for reelection and I suspect that things won't be going too well with the economy by then. An incumbent president's party generally looses ground in the midterms but if Trump gets a third of what he's blathering about the Republicans will be going into the midterms with a shit ton of baggage. You know, stuff like trade wars, double digit inflation, a resurgence of diseases like measles, and the disruption that will occur if he really does shut down or sell off the postal service.
I suspect that the Republicans are too cowed by Trump to oppose him on anything so we'll get Kennedy in Health and Human services and Hegseth in the Pentagon and the Democrats publicly will show outrage and privately high five each other once the cameras go away.
I'm suddenly interested in the news again. In the meantime, here's a gift article from the Times on Kennedy and Samoa.
December 19, 2024
So Long Farewell (A Breakup Anthem for Baroness Schraeder)
By Riki Lindhome
Fun fact, I've never seen The Sound of Music.
December 12, 2024
This has been a Whenpigsfly production.
Any questions or comments can be directed to kaliban13@comcast.net.
Logo courtesy of Mrs. Silverman.