📺👱🏼‍♂️🏛 It’s been years since I watched The West Wing. Has it been 20? Boy, have I forgotten what ideals felt like. I know, I know, it’s fiction. And no one speaks in the way Aaron Sorkin turns a phrase.

But in a time of “speeches” from a worm-eaten brain, inept cronies, and criminal activities by everyone else involved, I do appreciate getting moved by President Bartlett and, for the moment, feeling like there is hope.

🎥📺👍 It’s been a banner week in our world of entertainment for me and the boy. We went to see Joker, then I watched one episode of See and both watched two episodes of For All Mankind.

In order: Joker was excellent. Holy crap. Totally worth seeing (although I don’t think you need to see it in the cinema). I think it was the first movie my son has seen that depicted killing in such an explicit manner. Sure he’s seen lots of movies, but Joker felt different. I could see the expression in his face and it what should be expected when you see someone’s head bashed in. See’s first episode was good, although it does remain to be seen (ha!) if I’ll keep up with it. I don’t really need another gory show/movie in my life. For All Mankind has been pretty good as well, but that too remains to be seen. I will watch the third soon.

Apple TV+ is free so the value proposition is way in my favor. I’ve read/seen tweets scroll past about production values or where some shots were redone. Who gives a shit? I get it if you are in the industry, but I’m just a regular Joe watching TV so I don’t weep after reading the news. I care about the story, the characters, and if it has decent enough production values that I don’t wonder “Was that a coffee cup in the background?” I don’t yet care about the characters in See and I’m waiting for something bigger to happen in For All Mankind so that I care more about brand new people in this world.

Anyway, make sure to see Joker and give the Apple TV+ shows a chance .(there’s a good chance they’re free for you anyway). Oh, I like Apple’s start up chime before each show. Ah, the memories.

🍎 💻🤮 It’s hard to overstate how badly Apple has failed with its current line of portable Macintosh computers. I’ve been using a 2017 MacBook Pro for about 2 1/2 years and it’s near the worst Mac portable I’ve ever used (only the PowerBook 5300cs was worse). It’s gotta be the worst Mac portable in the modern era (I’m defining the modern era starting in 1998). At the beginning of the current design (2016), I assumed all the problems were exaggerated by people looking for more pageviews, hearts, etc. Surely there can’t be that many issues with this line of machines, right?

Yes, I could understand that maybe folks didn’t like the feel of the newly designed keyboard, but that’s subjective. But the keyboard not working correctly? That’s objective. At this point, I have a sometimes-not-working left shift key and now my keyboard is doing one and sometimes two spaces per press and the battery vacillates between healthy and needing service. It also gets hot (although I blame Chrome for that).

If I could use macOS on a ThinkPad I would. And if I could use macOS that way, I’d get the X1 Extreme.

One of my favorite things about using an iPad is when I can’t find it, it’s usually on the kitchen counter under a dish towel or some papers. It really is an appliance that doesn’t need it’s own room or desk. It’s just here all the time. Meanwhile, there’s no iPad emoji! 🤷‍♀️

🧓👩‍⚕️🚫 My guess is that if Elizabeth Warren gets the Dem nod, she’ll begin to back away from her Medicare-for-all plan. Regardless of what her as-dem-running-for-president plan ends up being called, it will not be the single-payer system we need: health, eye, and dental.

I like Elizabeth Warren and donate to her monthly (same for Bernie Sanders), but Bernie is the only one that I believe won’t back away should he get the Dem nod. Bernie’s latest health issue is not an issue for me. We’ve had presidents in worse shape run the country (and one of them was who we need again) so it doesn’t concern me (subject to change if new information comes to light).

🍊🏛⚖️ If Dubya wasn’t charged and prosecuted for crimes, then no U.S. president ever will be. Trump is not going to go to jail. Trump is going to resign under a deal where he won’t be prosecuted. Then we all get to see what horrible crimes the next evil president comes up with. Because, why not? You don’t get punished for crimes when you’re the president.

👶👧🏻🧒🏼 The climate change walkout on Friday got me thinking. First, it got me thinking kids today have their heads on much straighter than their many of their parents. Second, I wonder what would happen if all kids said, “Fuck it, no more going to school until you assholes start fixing the climate”? Hell, add in the kids of the United States who could stop going to until the grown ups get rids of the guns.

You can’t really punish them all. And certainly there’s no way for every parent to supervise their children during the let (forget educate them). Parents who did decide to stay home would end up disrupting their jobs so their bosses would either can them (all of them?) or … what?

Kids have a lot more power than they understand. They are just going along with the program because they think they are supposed to (good thing we started em off early with daycare, pre-k).

⏱📱💪 As time marches on, it feels (literally) like the iPhones are going in the direction of cars. Heavier, bigger, and more expensive. The iPhone 11 Pro weighs as much as the iPhone 7 Plus. The smallest iPhone for 2019 is bigger than the biggest iPhone from 2016. I know that’s good for some people, but it’s a worrisome trend. Hypocrite alert: I am getting the iPhone 11 Pro.

🤱🏫🖕There isn’t any bridge that’s too far to cross, is there?

No war crime too horrendous to prosecute: Bush.

No killing of children too great to enact real gun control: Sandy Hook.

No raping of children too heinous to accept money from the rapist: MIT and Harvard and Bard High School Early College Queens. That NYC school one hits close to home. And it’s way after his conviction in 2008.

🚀📚😐 I finished The Last Astronaut by David Wellington. While I thoroughly enjoyed the first half of the book, I found the second half to be slow and, overall, none of the characters ever developed enough for me to care about any one of them.

I thought it was going to be a mix of The Martian (which I loved, loved, loved) and, once I understood the premise, maybe a little of Old Man’s War (the whole series is a blast). But The Last Astronaut never got as sciency as The Martian and never got as fun as Old Man’s War.

☠️☠️☠️ There’s not a single person running for president who is talking about repealing the second amendment. They’ll talk about compromise, but compromise is how we got here.

🖕🖕🖕Hey person in charge of upholding the law but is actually a pretty terrible person who often says awful things on social media. Good news! We’ll delete it for you.

I posted recently about living in the novel 1984, and boy was I right. This scrubbing of social media literally is the Memory hole!

🍿😂😢 Defying Hollywood’s long-standing precedent of sequels being the pits, Toy Story 4 knocked it out of the ballpark.

I didn’t think Pixar could come close to Toy Story 3 (which was so good I didn’t think the series needed another), but I am glad to be wrong. What a delight.

🤬 🤓 🛠 With Jony Ive gone, Lisa Jackson needs to throw some face around to impress upon engineering to make the next round of Macs easier to upgrade and therefore end up lasting longer.

🧑🧑🏽👱‍♀️ I think we’ll see a Warren/Harris ticket for Dems. Maybe be Warren/Castro ticket, but Warren/Harris is probably better.

I also think it doesn’t matter because Trump will win the electoral vote but not popular.

The more interesting idea I have is that Trump won’t pick Pence as running mate. He’s going to pick Ivanka. Can you imagine a Trump/Trump ticket? A literally daddy/daughter dance.

I also think, not long after they win the election, Trump’s health will be so far gone (dementia) that Ivanka will be named successor.