Our media will be our downfall, CNN edition.

About to have the last parent teacher conference ever (they aren’t called that any longer) and I’m having feelings.

As a surprise, I took my son to see Singing in the Rain in the cinema. I will never tire of that movie. It’s about as perfect as a musical can be.

Our media will be our downfall, on-going edition.

NYTimes labels Nazis as eccentric

Watched the movie The Artist tonight. It was excellent. I knew John Goodman, of course, but I would have bet money I had seen the actor, Berenice Bejo before. I have not.

Did I mention that our media will be our downfall? Well, Our Media Will Be Our Downfall.

I miss John.

I feel bad I didn’t listen to For Better, or Worse while John was still around. Not that he would have known or cared, but I feel like I somehow dismissed his work. I do this with artists all the time. You know, I somehow stopped listening after a certain date and just let the rest go. Maybe in a way I’m lucky as there’s new (to me) music from an artist I enjoy.

Anyway, I’m glad he and some many other wonderful artists recorded this album. There are some really great duets. I hope you can give it a listen.

Too few of us seem to care the entire GOP is a bunch of grifting hypocrites. But I do. And I hope you do, too.

Re: SVB. All I know is they better not bail out those damn kids getting educations.

I am not sure exactly how I thought it worked, but when I was first dipping my toe into the world of mechanical keyboards, I just didn’t believe (not couldn’t mine you, didn’t) believe people were paying this much for a keyboard. I knew they cost some amount of money, but not the figures I was seeing. And you had to put it together yourself? And, in fact, it was more money on top of these kits? And you had to pay up front and then waiting for months for something to get to you?

At some point I came across a keyboard that spoke to me. It was all the funness I was looking for: they right layout, a bit of old-school styling, and a little bit of flair (bezels that spread out some). So I ordered a Titan 65. At the same time I ordered some keycaps that also spoke to me. And because I didn’t know what I was ordering exactly, I ordered all the kits that were additional costs on top of the base kits of keycaps.

The entire order was over $550. And I’d still need to add stabilizers. And put it together.

Well, 685 days later(!), the Titan 65 was delivered. I put it together. I love it.

685 days ago I ordered a mechanical keyboard. It arrived on Feb 28, 2023. It was the very first mechanical keyboard kit I had bought. Ever. Now I’ve spent [redacted out of embarrassment] and have made many friends mostly thanks to RelayFM’s membership/Discord rooms.

This is what the Titan 65 looks like before I build it.

Reading
I am currently reading The Angel on the Roof by Russell Banks. This American Life recently included an old segment featuring Banks. I got the book from the library and they had to dig it out of the archives. That made me a bit sad. It’s slow reading for me, but I am enjoying the stories.

I somehow had missed the book Revolution in the Valley by Andy Hertfeld. Many of the stories, if not all, are available on his site, Folklore, but I am glad to have the stories in one collection to hold. And the pictures are bigger and that’s fun for me.

Watching
We’ve been watching Bad Sisters and that’s been a blast. How I can really, really like this family is something else. But I really do.

And because I am weak, and will watch anything sci-fi, I started watching The Ark. It’s buttocks. I watched the three available episodes (I know, I know, I can’t help myself).

Finally, raise a glass to Leiji Matsumoto who helped create Space Battleship Yamato, known in the U.S. as Star Blazers.

New GOP plan for retirement: keep working.

House Majority Leader Steve Scalise, R-La., told NBC News one day after Biden’s speech to Congress “We want to strengthen Social Security by ending a lot of those government checks to people staying at home rather than going to work.”

My brain hurts.

I missed this book when it came out but thanks to good ol eBay I now have it. I’m so happy.

I find great pleasure in planning the meals for the week. You know: planning the meals. making the list, clearing out the fridge and wiping down the shelves, going shopping (this varies as to how insane the Food Coop is), and repacking the fridge. It feels like an honest-to-goodness privilege to be able to take care of my family this way.

When people say they hate big government, they mean they hate spending money on non-white people. Otherwise they love them some big government.

Meanwhile, it’s the contractors in his state that are making out like bandits, now closing in on nearly $900 million of border wall contracts, Texas Observer says.

Can you imagine living amongst (and having to serve) the very people who actively signed a petition to stop your raise?

The Age of No Consequences:

Meta reinstated former President Donald Trump’s social accounts on Wednesday following a two-year suspension over his role in praising the rioters who stormed the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.

Meta President of Global Affairs Nick Clegg wrote in a blog post that the former president will face “heightened penalties” if he continues to break the social media giant’s content rules.

Now that this is becoming a regular occurrence, I wonder if I have any classified documents in my home!

A lawyer for Pence, a potential 2024 presidential candidate, found the documents during a search of the former vice president’s Carmel, Ind., home, according to letters to the National Archives. Gregory F. Jacob, a designated representative for Pence’s vice presidential records, said the FBI collected documents from the Pence home on Jan. 19.

More power to them!