Thursday, August 29, 2019

 Man, this week isn't sparking for me. I'm still discombobulated from Tuesday's various events.



  I really don't get the nostalgia one sees from Gen X & Boomers. Who cares if you didn't have a cell phone or the internet? That shit didn't exist back then; now it's ubiquitous & cheap. So spanking didn't affect you in the long run? Well, you are okay with physically punishing small children. Apart from the ongoing destruction of the planet by greed & mendacity, living in today is infinitely better than it was when I was a kid & I wouldn't go back to those times.

 I have no nostalgia for anything. Sure, I like old movies & music & books, but that's personal taste & not an indictment of the quality modern entertainment. I'll get back to this, but now I'm going to play Elite: Dangerous.

 Okay, that was fun. I'd loaded myself down with timed delivery missions last nit about 45 minutes before the server shut down for maintenance. That happens from time to time. To play the game, you're required to be connected to the internet because of the universal marketplace & overall plot of factions versus other factions.

 I do wonder how that all works out. Considering the limitations relativity places on things, how do people keep up with what's needed where when stations are light years apart. You have 24 hours to transport fruits & vegetables from a station to a planet that's three jumps - that is different solar systems - away. Twenty-four hours by whose clock? Does time dilation factor in? You do come close to the speed of light, when in a system but jumps are done through a special drive through "witch space", I believe it's called.

 Ah, well. Perhaps it's like the MST3K mantra, & since it's a computer game, everyone should chill out. There are games that are more scientifically accurate, but they don't look like as much fun. Rebel Galaxy Outlaw is even more soft science, taking the whole "Western in SPAAAACE" thing to the extreme. I never did get into Firefly, but I think it does take place in a universe where faster-than-light travel while Cowboy Bebop was solely in our solar system & FTL travel wasn't a thing.

 I really should give Firefly another shot. Back when people still had Netflix mail them DVD's, I watched the first disc & it didn't light me on fire. I don't care for Nathan Fillion in anything & his character's antagonistic relationship with the space courtesan really rubbed me wrong. But as I've said before, I am a fool for Space Westerns as opposed to Space Military stories.

 That's sort of funny, as I'm currently reading & enjoying John Scalzi's The Collapsing Empire. That book has an interesting take on interstellar communication. Travel is handled by something called "The Flow". While it is FTL, it'll take a ship several months to get from one place to another & it takes a similar amount of time to get any sort of information (like, say, communication) to get anywhere. The names are crazy, too. I think I've counted two that were familiar & didn't look like a bunch of letters thrown together, so congrats to that. Coming up with names is something I find damn near impossible.

 Anyhow, the weather's nice & cool for late summer & the air has that special charged sense of energy it gets before a goddamn hurricane kicks the shit out of the Gulf States again. Now, however, the air smells fresh & sweet, so we'll raise our windows, cut off the A/C & enjoy it while we can. And now, the news.

 It seemed to me to be a slow day, relatively speaking. Hurricane Dorian is still on it's way & the U.K. is still in a helluva mess over this Brexit thing. I really don't understand that, but I get the impression they really didn't plan on it happening. It was just supposed to be something for right wingers to piss & moan about, like Trump's election, & like a dog that finally caught the car, they don't know how to handle it. I call it "the Jesse 'The Governor' Ventura Effect"; sounds like a hoot at the time, but you're not supposed to take it seriously.

 One big thing is a U.S. District Judge ruled that two banks - Deutsche Bank & Capitol One - can turn in financial documents on Trump & his foul crotch spawn demanded by congressional subpoenas. It'll be interesting to see how this all washes out. Trump's burned through six bankruptcies, including two before anyone out of New York City had ever heard of him, despite his pretensions to wealth & class. I know the faithful won't care, but it'd be funny to see that all crash down around the dumb son of a bitch.

 You know how every time the never-ending series of mass shootings by pissed off honkies happens, like once a week, right-wing bed wetters bring up the gun violence in Chicago? Thing they ignore is that the people in Chicago, which has stringent laws for purchasing guns, often get them from other states. Turns out, a number of them are coming from Mississippi. It all washes out to about five percent of all recovered guns in the Chicago area from 2013-16. Something like 95% of all recovered guns come from straw purchases, that is buying guns from less strict municipalities & transporting them to more strict ones. So, there you go.

 Another thing of note is Georgia Republican Johnny Isakson's announcement yesterday that h'd resign come the end of the year. Georgia - & I lived in Athens for 10 years - has been teetering purple for the last little bit & if it hadn't been for some outright cheating by the current governoor, Stacey Abrams would most like be sitting up there in Atlanta.

 One reason I find it interesting is... why? He's got a solid hold on a seat & doesn't have to run for re-election until 2022. He was a big Bush man back in the first decade of the 21st century, but he';s been pretty quiet through Obama & especially. He's the latest in a string of GOP rats jumping ship, thinking either it might be sinking or they just don't want to be tainted by Trump's foulness. Personally, I don't buy the latter because all Republicans are dirty bastards who'd grind their own grandmothers into mince for a tax cut.

 Finally, here's an interesting piece from Mississippi Today about how the slugfest between Tate Reeves & Bill Waller may damage the former's chances again Democrat Jim Hood come November. I don't know, personally. It's possible & the analysis makes sense, but I don't have a firm enough grasp on Mississippi politics statewide to really say. Here in the Northeast corner it's Trump Country, so whoever sucks up the most gets that nod.

 And that's all I can find that stirs my interest tonight. Before we close for the evening, I do want to come back around to what we were discussing in the beginning, i.e. nostalgia & the blindness it calls. I'm a child of the '80s & a young adult of the '90s, & I have no nostalgia for either but especially the Decade of Foofy Hair & Shoulder Pads. It sucked, & if you question that at all, well, look who's president. That pinhead is definitely a result of the '80s mindset of greed & avarice & too much cocaine. And since we're seeing the resurgence of Evangelical grifters like Jim Baker & second-generation con artists like Franklin Graham & Jerry Falwell, Jr., we may be in for some dark times, spiritually speaking.

 Are you ready to meet Jesus & find out he's not the bastard they say he is? Me, I'm going to place XCOM 2. As you were.