I bought a pair of those anti-glare glasses what are supposed to reduce eye strain. By 11 am most days it feels like someone’s taken a belt-sander to my eyeballs. It’s too early into wearing them to say with any certainty how well they work but my initial review is that I’ve noticed a HUGE reduction in eye-strain. Placebo? Maybe? Who cares? 

I also bought a new chair cushion. A “Coccyx Orthopedic Seat Cushion” to be precise. Already noticing an improvement in tailbone and back pain. 

When the fuck did I turn 80? I used to sometimes get sore in various areas depending on my activity but when I’d wake up the previous day’s aches and pains were usually gone. NOT SO ANYMORE. I suspect body parts are going to start falling off any day now. “‘nless science do some’thin bout it. I know they workin’ on it” (joezone no-prize if you know what that’s from).

For no reason, here’s a Jonathan Coulton song that is in no way relevant to my complaints about aging: THE FUTURE SOON

Currently Playing: Gaetir The Mountainkeeper – “Fornjörð”

Currently Reading: FACELESS KILLERS – Henning Mankell

Today I learned that to prove their pigs are free-range some farmers strap pedometers to them.

This is already funny to me because I just imagine pigs with fitbits, which inevitably leads to pigs with smart phones and then BOOM: Starbucks.

Apparently, sometimes these pedometers fall off and other pigs eat em. Pigs’ll eat anything, as we all learned from Guy Ritchie’s one good movie, Snatch: “Never trust a man who owns a pig farm”.

So the pigs what ate the fitbits eventually poop ’em out, pigs are notorious for poopin’. Pig poop is flammable, as are partially digested pedometer batteries, and you all know the old saying:

“Show me a pigpen full of poop, partially digested pedometer batteries and dry hay and I’ll show you pigpen full of poop, partially digested pedometer batteries and dry hay that is on fire!”

At least that’s how it went down in North Yorkshire on the weekend. And people say there’s no news worth reading anymore.

No pigs were harmed in the fire (I mean, later they’re all going to get slaughtered and eaten. If it was me I’d probably rather die the hilarious battery-shit way, but I’m not sure the pig cares one way or the other)

Currently Playing: 光淵 (Pool Of Light) – “绿 (Green)”

Currently Reading: FACELESS KILLERS, Henning Mankell

This is a photograph I got from the socialistmodernism tumblr page.

It’s of the Physics Department Lecture Hall in the New Training and Laboratory Buildings of the Natural Sciences Department at the State University named for T.G. Shevchenko in Kyiv, Ukraine. According to the tumblr page it was built between 1973-84 and the architects are V. Ladny, M. Budilovsky and L. Kolomiets.

I think it looks like a big nose.

Currently Playing: Kemper Norton – oxland cylinder

Currently Reading: THE MAN ON THE BALCONY, Maj Sjöwall, Per Wahlöö

Recent Twitter Likes:

Don’t mean to sound harsh but if Mr Bean ever comes to Texas and tries some of his classic gags, I wish him luck. Those sorts of tricks don’t fly around here

— th0mas (@len0killer) February 11, 2020

pic.twitter.com/y5U07c4Na3

— funké (@funkemcfly) February 13, 2020

Wednesday: Reading up on the American Academy of Pediatrics' recommendation on TV for kids under 2 (which is more or less "don't") and saying "ahhh shit" over and over again while flinging all these Baby Einstein DVDs into the street.

— Jeff Gerstmann (@jeffgerstmann) February 19, 2020

TOM NOOK: welcome to the deserted island!
ME: who deserted it and why?
TOM NOOK: you and your friends live here now!
ME: where?
TOM NOOK: on this deserted island!
ME: how is it deserted if we live here
TOM NOOK, in the VOICE OF MY DEAD GRANDMOTHER: 𝖍𝖆𝖛𝖊 𝖆 𝖋𝖗𝖔𝖌 𝖈𝖍𝖆𝖎𝖗

— the internet's michael lutz (@WarrenIsDead) February 20, 2020

It’s not like you have to be some genius philosopher king to start a business. I mean I’ve started a business. It’s called Doughboys Media. It’s a podcast where me & my friend call each other fat https://t.co/gApeXq8ZYZ

— Nick “Thunder” Wiger (@nickwiger) February 20, 2020

"A 5-STAR CHEF HAS EARNED THE GREATEST ACCOLADES POSSIBLE. HERE ARE 10 INTERSTATE FAST FOOD LOCATIONS WE'D LIKE TO SEE HIM MANAGE" https://t.co/QiR5hcDT8r

— Bill Mudron (@mudron) February 21, 2020

things to ask yourself at a party:

• where are the bookshelves
• where are the exits
• who poisoned the wine
• who wanted the hostess dead and why
• does the killer think they can outwit you, the greatest detective in the world

— The Library Owl 🎄🎅🦉 (@SketchesbyBoze) February 22, 2020

I bought an orange julius at the mall and it’s pretty good. Not real happy about being told what I can and can’t do with my wet ticket but I get it. pic.twitter.com/l4CnlG1C7A

— Jeff Gerstmann (@jeffgerstmann) February 22, 2020

Welcome to the Hellraiser club, we all have fucked up names like Pinhead, Butterball, Chatterer, and of course, Female Cenobite.

— giant talking Olive (@SLIMELEVEL) February 23, 2020

in the 90s you could go the grocery store and and see Dark Horny Seinfeld surrounded by a border of LA'S TEEN SEX GANG and THE COCAINE CARTEL and everyone just acted like this was normal anyway for my younger followers that's what magazines were pic.twitter.com/26Ok0YEKFs

— D🌑CFUTURE (@topherflorence) February 23, 2020

For weeks, no tortillas in the tortilla section of the grocery store. Today, two tortilla suppliers were there freaking out as if they’d been called to an emergency tortilla cabinet meeting. Maybe now we’re finally gonna get some fucking tortillas around this place!

— Marc Laidlaw (@marc_laidlaw) February 28, 2020

you: vaporwave has exhausted itself. a fascinating moment, but its tropes eventuall–
me: check this shit out it sounds like they left the tape in a bucket of warm water

— The Mountain Goats (@mountain_goats) February 28, 2020

I found this youtube channel of a guitar teacher REACTING to music. He watches the video, talks about what he’s hearing and fiddles around figuring it out on his guitar.

This is considerably better than most of the REACTS videos I’ve seen which are usually the phoniest of all possible balonies. I only understand maybe a third of the musical theory he’s talking about, but it’s so fun to listen to someone who is super knowledgeable on any subject talk about it in incredible detail.

So far this guy has done two tracks from my favorite band of all time Phish (shut up, they’re great) and for once I’m actually really enjoying watching the REACTION part of a REACTS video. I know these songs incredibly well, so I know when crazy parts are about to happen and seeing his face when he first hears something is really fun. 

The only reaction videos I’ve enjoyed as much as these are when I spent an afternoon watching this super christian duo react to GHOST and FRANK ZAPPA videos. That got old because it became apparent they were seeking out stuff to be offended by for the clicks. (also, anyone who doesn’t like GHOST and FRANK ZAPPA is not to be trusted)

Currently Playing: Phish – “New Year’s Eve 1995”
Currently Reading: GHOST STORIES OF AN ANTIQUARY, M.R. James

There is a board game based on the Wolfenstein video games coming to kickstarter soon. 

They make board games based on video game properties all the time, I used to own a copy of the Starcraft board game that came in a box that conveniently could double as a casket for you after you were crushed by the game falling off a shelf.

The Wolfenstein news only caught my eye because of one of the photographs that accompanied the news article

Yeah, there’s a miniature of the final boss from Wolfenstein: MECHA-HITLER. This is tremendous.

One of my fondest early gaming memories is of fighting Mecha-Hitler at the end of Wolfenstein, which was also the first first person shooter I ever played. DOOM is probably objectively a better game in every way, but I played a lot more Wolfenstein at the time of their initial releases. 

This ‘Mecha-Hitler-Induced-Nostalgia” (which is a phrase I never expected to type) brought on memories of other early gaming experiences:

A friend of mine’s family had several Mackintosh II computers in different rooms of their house. I don’t remember what specific models they were, nerd. What I do remember is that they were all networked together in the house and myself, my friend and his two brothers would all take a machine and we’d play gigantic LAN games of BOLO (1987). 

BOLO was a tank battlefield game and wikipedia informs me it was one of the earliest simultaneous multiplayer networked games. Looking at screenshots now it seems incredibly primitive compared to the memory I have of it in my head, but such is memory I suppose. We spent hours upon hours attempting to capture each other’s “pillboxes” and blowing each other up with “hidden mines”. 

I’ve played thousands of hours of multiplayer games since then, on many games that are objectively better than BOLO by every conceivable metric, but none has ever matched the sheer sense of exhilaration and awe that those early networked rounds of BOLO provided. 

Currently Playing: The Soulless Party – “The Black Meadow Archive, Volume 1”

Currently Reading: GHOST STORIES OF AN ANTIQUARY, M.R. James

My kids have been playing old NES games with me and the younger (4) has discovered BATTLETOADS. 

I remember liking Battletoads as a kid, but never being able to get very far because it was too hard. I thought that about a lot of games that as an adult I’ve gone back and discovered I could actually play now and beat. I assumed this would hold true of Battletoads.

I am here today to tell you this: FUCK Battletoads.

This game is infuriating. It’s somehow even harder than I remember, only now I’ve been playing video games for 30 years and can at least (sometimes) tell whether a game is hard because I just haven’t learned and practiced it enough or if it’s hard because it’s fucking bullshit. (I swear it’s not just that I suck. I mean, I do, but I think that there’s more going on here.)

Battletoads is BULLSHIT. These goddamn crows! They keep cutting my rope and making me fall to my death! The stupid electricity robot toasters keep zapping me for half my life and I can’t hit them because the controls are so floaty and terrible! It’s not enough that your character’s fist grows real big when you hit the final punch in a combo! IT’S NOT ENOUGH.

Then there’s the speederbike things. Hell’s Teeth! You gotta memorize a pattern to even stand a chance, and even then you’re lucky if you can get through because the d-pad is so unresponsive. If not for the music NOBODY would remember this sequence with anything even resembling fondness. (The song is pretty good)

I think Battletoads was ALWAYS a terrible video game and I just couldn’t see it. 

It’s my duty as a father to protect my children from things that want to hurt them so I’ve banned Battletoads from the house. I will not have my children corrupted (or worse still, getting better than me at Battletoads.)

Currently Playing: Cryo Chamber Collaboration – “Cthulhu”

Currently Reading: HEAVY WEATHER, Bruce Sterling (which I swear I’m going to finish one of these days…)

I have been spending a lot of time thinking about surveillance and all the networked devices we have reporting on us which we willingly bring into our lives. Often at a premium. I suspect I’ll have a stab at laying out a lot more of my thoughts on the subject in the near-future, but an article caught my eye recently that must be shared: 

Albatrosses Outfitted With GPS Trackers Detect Illegal Fishing Vessels

tl;dr: Albatrosses are being used to patrol areas of ocean that are either too difficult or too cost-prohibitive to make doing so by conventional means easy. They are mainly searching for vessels whose radar emitters have been switched off, often to conceal illegal activity.

Look. It’s bad enough that we are installing wiretaps into our homes just so they can order fresh batteries for our vibrating buttplugs (butt-plugs?) without taking our phones out of our pockets. It’s already terrible that people are cheerfully placing networked CCTV cameras on their doorbells to spy on their neighbours and then permitting Amazon to share the footage with police agencies. But now they’ve gone and made birds into cops. BIRDCOPS™

On one hand, this is an amusing headline and a novel technological solution to the problem of illegal fishing which, according to the article, is estimated to account for one fifth of fish on the market. There is also a lot of valuable data pertinent to conservation and ecological concerns that can be gathered this way.

On the other hand: THEY. ARE. MAKING. BIRDS. INTO. COPS.

It seems a particularly bleak brand of dystopia when you can’t even count on the damn birds to keep a secret.

” To expand their coverage over oceans where albatrosses don’t normally go, the team plans to bring other large, globetrotting species into the mix. Perhaps all the world’s waters will someday be monitored—at least, from a bird’s eye view.”

OOOOOOOOH GOOD. I CAN’T WAIT TO GET A JAY-WALKING TICKET BECAUSE A SQUIRREL SAW ME.

Currently Playing: Spektrmodule Podcast – Episode 45: Coastal Keep

Currently Reading: SNAIL ON THE SLOPE, Boris & Arkady Strugatsky