Not even going to bother.

  On a whim, I bought a collection of short stories based around the Carl Kolchak character from the old television movie and show. It's by a bunch of different science fiction/horror/fantasy/what have you authors, some I'm heard of and some I haven't. So far it's okay. Not terribly but definitely better than the other Kolchak-based fiction I read, C.J. Henderson's A Black And Evil Truth.

 Which in itself wasn't bad. It just didn't feel like a Kolchak story. Everybody liked Carl. Vincenzo was praising him. The local law wanted to work with him. Hell, he even got the hot babe who was also intelligent and charming. That's not Kolchak. One of the things that makes the character so intriguing is that he's on his own. His editors think he's more trouble than he's worth, the fuzz thinks he's a bug that should be stepped on, and he rarely has luck with the ladies.

 The other thing about modern takes on Kolchak is they have him in the 21st century with access to all the technology we have. Or at least the first decade, so maybe not smartphones with a television-grade camera. Still, it never sets well with me.

 Kolchak is a creature of the '70s and just doesn't work in any other time. For one, the media landscape today is totally different, and the new stories acknowledge things like multiple 24-hour news channels and web-based magazines. One thing that doesn't exist and hasn't for years is even big cities having multiple newspapers that can afford to send a reporter across the country.

 I watched some of the Kolchak revival from a couple of years ago. It was terrible. One of the reasons is it gave Kolchak motivation beyond getting a byline. It made him all dark and tortured by the past instead of wanting to get a better gig at a higher-rated newspaper. Everyone was too pretty in that early part of the 21st century way, too. Kolchak is a ruffled, middle-aged shlump with a stupid hat and one suit. He's also cowardly, just like all of us would be if faced with an Aztec demon or a vampire.

 What do you call this sort of fiction? It's not really fan fiction but it sort of is in spirit. It's as often as not a part of a brand. Back in the '90s, LucasFilm gave the world the Star Wars Expanded Universe that started out okay but lost me fairly quickly. The time between the end of the series and the TV movie gave the world a bunch of Doctor Who books, both with the Seventh Doctor and Past Doctor Adventures. Virgin Books had the license at first but after the movie, BBC got it back. It was... spotty. A lot of the early Seventh Doctor books were based on the so-called "Cartmel Masterplan" which saw a darker turn, more "sophisticated and mature," which meant more sex scenes.

 I liked the Big Finish Audios better, anyway. It's not quite the same thing as Scarlett or Poodle Springs or suchlike. There has been a metric ton of Sherlock Holmes fiction that's post-Conan Doyle and it's really not worth the effort. The Robert Downey movie was fun but it still made the mistake of making Irene Adler a love interest.

 Some of the post-Stoker Dracula fiction is woeful, especially the stuff written by his ancestor. Everyone assumes, one, Jonathan Harker was disgusted by Mina after she'd been attacked and, two, the focus of Dracula's desire was Mina. It was Jonathan, and he said if she turned to a vampire, let him be turned as well and then destroy both of them. I get worked up over this, I admit.

 To give credit where credit is due, I have thoroughly enjoyed William Meikle's revival of the Carnacki: The Ghost Finder. They're well-written and fairly true to the originals. William Hope Hodgson had only written nine of the short stories before his death in World War I, so there's a lot of room to expand. They do get a bit repetitive but Meike's managed to find different scenarios for the plots, so if you space them out, you're good.

 Well, I should wrap this up, I guess. If nothing else, I've spent most of the day watching Kolchak: The Night Stalker reruns on NBC's streaming service. It cuts out every now and then regardless of which browser I use. The wonders of modern technology at work, I reckon.

Shine on, harvest moon.

 I decided to take a little nap after my evening constitutional, around 6 p.m. or so. Unfortunately, I woke up about 20 minutes ago and it's fifteen after eleven. So this will, naturally, be a little rushed and jumbled and might not make it in before midnight, Country Standard Time. Especially since I have some cake to eat.

 It was a pretty decent week for the news. Mainly focusing on the passing of Joe Biden's $1.9 trillion COVID relief package, that was the story that dominated the news. People really don't grasp the implications of this, one of the biggest for-the-people pieces of legislation passed since LBJ's Great Society, one that enjoyed over 70% popularity yet not one single, solitary Congressional Republican voted for it. A number of them are trying to take credit for it already, naturally, while the rest are gearing up to use it as a point of attack in the 2022 mid-terms. It will be interesting to see how it all plays out.

 I really don't know what else I can put here. I stayed up most of last night playing yet another game of XCOM 2 so I spent most of the day sleeping it off. I have about three or four games going, both with the DLCs and without, and with various mods installed. This one, however, is straight vanilla. I'd say I was between a quarter and halfway through the main story. I haven't taken down any of the Chosen but I'm well on my way.

 I finished the second volume of those "Sherlock Holmes meets occult detectives" short story collections, and this one wasn't as enjoyable. Maybe it's a case of too much at once, but I really don't think it works as well overall. For one, Holmes was too constantly a faux skeptic and not willing to open his mind when the evidence proved no other option. There was also an appearance of Auguste Dupin, the hero of Edgar Allen Poe's detective stories, which were the first example of what we know as detective stories.

 Anyhow, it cast them as buddies when the original stories had Holmes dismiss Dupin as a joke. This one has them dogging on Poe and that's a sore point for me. I'm a fan and how his literary executor trashed his reputation for a century. It's an interesting story and worth looking into. Somehow, a guy named Rufus Griswold wound up being responsible for Poe's work and legacy after the latter's death. He loathed Poe and went out of his way to trash the author. He's the reason we all thought for so long that Poe died drunk in the gutter.

 One of the places I want to visit is Baltimore solely because of its connection to Poe. The Ravens are my backup football team after the Saints because they're named after one of Poe's creations. After Mark Twain, he was probably the first author I was obsessed with as a kid and one of the few I'm still sort of fascinated by. His work more than anything else influenced the kind of horror I like and is probably why I find splatter media so dull.

 Anyhow. Enough of that, I guess. Today's my brother's 44th birthday and that means next month I'll be turning 46. I talked to him on the phone today for a while and he seems happy and content with his life, and I'm glad. Most of my closest are doing well and have found what seems to be their bliss. I wish I could figure out mine beyond "being allowed to nap as much as I want."

 Okay, then. I got to word count with 10 minutes to spare, so I guess I'll post this. As usual, if something comes to me I'll come back to it. And, as usual, I doubt anything will.

If I had a bead on what I need to make the moment last I just might try I just might try. I just might try.

  Anyone who's spent any time on Twitter knows that every other day or so, one person's tweet blows up beyond what they expected. The reason it blows up is usually because it lays out some trite "common sense wisdom" from someone who doesn't really need to go there and isn't bringing anything useful to the discussion. Half of Twitter tells them what kind of damnfool peckerhead they are while the other half argues for the same trite horseshit. Something about "not being the star of Twitter" goes in here but I forget how it goes.

 Anyhow, yesterday the big to-do was some woman who works for the NFL Network saying only hard-work and grind will bring success, she appreciates the time she worked for around 16 grand a year and has no time for those who won't put in the effort. What she neglected to add is that she's the heiress to some rich chili concern out of Texas, and was able to live at one of the three homes her parents owned while grinding it out at poverty wages. You never hear that part of the story yet it always comes up, and generally, the right-on's are one dropped spinning play away from bankruptcy at the best.

 Before we get too deep into this, I should note that I am extremely lazy. I might be the laziest person in Northeast Mississippi, which is saying something. I come by my laziness honestly. My momma was lazy and her daddy was lazy. Laziness is my heritage. When I'm on the job, I put in the work expected for the compensation promised. But if I ain't getting paid, I'm not going to bust my ass. You can hustle your way to the grave, I'd rather sit on my porch and pick my guitar while getting stoned.

 This has influenced my life. I busted my ass trying to "make it" as some sort of a journalist until around 27 or so, when I realized I was really no better off in the decade-plus of trying and was probably in worse shape. Maybe it was a lack of talent and skill. Maybe it was a lack of effort and gumption. Maybe it was bad luck, but whatever it was, the end result was killing me while breaking my heart.

 Part of the problem was that it's goddamn near impossible to make it as a freelancer unless someone else pays the bills until the ship comes in. This really didn't settle in until I read Hunter Thompson's first book of letters, The Proud Highway. Basically, he had to scrimp, save, borrow, and steal when he wasn't living off his wife, and this went on until basically, he got a big check for Where The Buffalo Roam. This was a double-edged sword because he became too famous to do his type of journalism. He's said he could've either gone back to being poor and hungry or just give in and play the role, and we all know how that turned out.

 I digress. Reading that, however, lifted a huge weight off my shoulders. Unfortunately, it came too late to do anything about the absolute burnout I had from trying to make a living as a freelancer while having to hold down kitchen and bar jobs just to be able to eat, much less afford what I needed to do the job. I wasn't having any fun and I see no point in not having fun. It broke my heart when I realized all this, and the pain was only topped by the deaths of my father and maternal grandmother.

 Now, I said all that to say all this. Work and grind are fine and there is something to paying your dues in any business. But unpaid internships, especially, are bullshit and you are due proper compensation for your labor. You should have the right to tell anyone who wants you to work for "exposure" to piss off because anyone who expects you to work for free doesn't have your best interests at heart. They will screw you over, and as likely as not, people arguing for "the grind" have someone else paying the bills.

 Okay, so much for all that. The situation in Jackson is finally getting more attention, though I'm still a bit stunned none of the lefty alt-news websites like Mother Jones or Alternet are doing anything about it. Common Dreams does have a nice piece on the situation published today, so do check it out.

 I still haven't got my chromatic harmonica. I went ahead and ordered another one off of eBay from a place called dreamharmonica. Another cheap one, of course, but the first one was a 10-hole and 12-hole or better harps are the ones to get, apparently. And, yes, I would rather Buy American but that wasn't in the cards.

 I started a nifty book. It's another short-story collection of people writing Sherlock Holmes fanfiction but the twist is the authors are teaming the Great Detective with Occult Detectives. Some are classic characters, like John Silence, while some are original creations. The first story has Mary Marston, the future Mrs. John Watson, as Holmes' partner. The really nice thing is they're portraying Holmes as someone who knows he doesn't get magic but doesn't shut down completely when faced with it because of logic or some such nonsense. There was a Doctor Who book with that premise and it always irritated me. It was especially irritating because another Doctor Who book had the Fourth Doctor team up with Arthur Conan Doyle in the Watson role. Those Doctor Who books between the end of the series and the Fox TV movie really weren't that good, generally.

 All right then.