I know that you know that I'm wrong.

  Much like this weekend, I'm writing this around 11 p.m. because I really don't have much going on in my head. I stayed up too late writing and reading last night, so I wound up sleeping most of the day. Maybe I should count what I wrote last night because technically I wrote it today.

 I didn't wind up saving it, though, and it was less coherent than the fiction sketches I've been doing. Granted, I haven't been messing with them much lately. Waiting for another spurt of creativity, I guess. No, last night was basically jumped up Twitter posts but ones not even worth posting so there's that there then.

 But it is writing and it is the mechanical process and I guess that's what is really important, right? Write even though it doesn't make sense or it isn't going anywhere? Of course, now Otis is acting like a little shit and I have to watch he doesn't destroy something having his little fit for whatever the reason he has his those fits. I wonder if he wants treats. Let's try that.

 Well, that seems to have calmed him down some. He's at least stopped trying to climb the bookshelf, though he's still shivering and whining. The down mood I was in this weekend is still around, with a touch of irritation. I wish for the life of me I could figure out what his hang-up is. He doesn't want to play or eat or go outside, the only constant is I have to be around. For the longest time, he was mad at me for leaving him while on the Big Trip, but that seems to be gone. He seems to have adjusted well enough to our new life and, for the most part, it seems he prefers it over life in New Orleans.

 Anyhow. Hey, I finally caught some decent movies on Tubi. One was called Demon Squad. A very low-budget affair with some dodgy action, it was sort of a supernatural noirish take with demons and magic relics. Sort of like Cast A Deadly Spell or a better version of the Alone In The Dark adaptation, perhaps the tv adaptation of the Jim Butcher books. There was some good make-up work and lead Khristin Fulmer did a solid job in the role of swaggering, smart-ass private dick Nick Moon. It was low budget but they made the most of what they had. Recommendation.

 The other was perhaps better with a higher budget. It was called I Had A Bloody Good Time At House Harker. I'm wary of indie-made horror comedies with long titles, but this was pretty good. Long story short, the descendants of Jonathan and Mina Harker deal with scorn, poverty, and the return of vampires. Again, they did pretty good work with their budget and there were parts that were actually funny. There's nothing worse, I mean nothing worse than a comedy that is not funny. This gets a Recommendation, too, so check both out if you have a couple hours to kill.

 Hey, that's word count. Nothing was said, of course, but it's the journey not the arrival, right? I hope so.

I've got nothing. Just listen to more Cannonball Adderley, is all.

  I've been putting this off all day, but it's 11 p.m. Country Standard Time and I don't want to break my streak. I'm just really not in the mood. Nothing particular is wrong, really. Stress, I guess, but it's not stress affecting me directly. I am stressed out about the fact Trump isn't conceding and more stressed about his cult being less inclined to accept reality. I really don't think he's doing anything but fundraising, but the Base is taking on a more fanatical air.

 I guess it's second-hand stress. My brother's stressed mainly because his wife is stressed. A cousin's stressed. A cousin of Momma's who's always been a favorite is terribly stressed. There's nothing I can do about any of it, and that always drives me up the wall. A friend passed away earlier in the week and I find myself dealing with that weird feeling of not-quite-guilt I sometimes feel about my monk-like lifestyle. Just a weird week.

 Anyhow, that's a good enough segue into links for this week's News. A good week, if everything was a bit short. I just made wordcount Monday and Friday, but Wednesday had a little more meat to it. To be fair, there really wasn't much news this week beyond Trump's ongoing nonsense and his worshiper's increased fervor. Sure, there was an assassination of an Iranian scientist that's worrisome, COVID-19 continues to gallop out of control, and general shit-assery Trump's trying to pull on his way out, but that's still all connected to this total goofiness. It's been a tedious week, man.

 I don't know what else, really. Been sleeping a lot because I'm tired of the world and I don't have access to good weed. I don't see much reason to stay awake. I'm still working on Brain Greene's A Hidden Reality and enjoying it, and I've been playing a good bit of Phantom Reality and Pillars of Eternity II over the week. But I have nothing new to say about any of that.

 I've been watching a number of absolute stinkers on Tubi.com. I'll pick one and just let the algorithm pick whatever comes next. None of them actually stand out for any reason. They're just bad, bad, bad. I really don't care to watch "bad movies" to laugh at them, a la MST3K. It's fun enough with someone else but not really by yourself. I can't even remember any of the titles apart from Evil Bong, and that's just because they nailed some stoner stereotypes. They were very broad stereotypes to be sure, but they were funny enough in a "fart joke" level of humor.

 I've got 10 minutes and a little over 440 words. I don't know if I'm going to make it, but I'm not too bummed about it one way or another. I did take out 10 minutes to fill out a job application for a resume writer. Probably what I'll do is post this and come back to do the minimum amount of editing I do. But, hey, that's 500 so I believe I'll shut it down. Maybe if something comes to me I'll come back, but I think this is the way things are going to be for a couple of days.

 It is what it is, I guess.

I can't come up with anything and I haven't figured out how to write out guitar hooks.

  We're on Day 14 of the 2020 United States Presidential Election. The needle really hasn't moved, except the Michigan GOP is actively trying to disenfranchise African American votes in Detroit, and Rudy Giuliani's attempts at arguing Trump's claims in court are, in a word, comical. Someone else compared it to a Lionel Hutz bit from The Simpsons. To me, it looks like just what it is: a not-particularly-good lawyer trying to turn bullshit into buttermilk when he hasn't worked a case in court in almost 40 years.

 Anyhow. It's been twenty minutes since I wrote the above paragraph. I just don't have much going on tonight, I guess. We'll run for word count, but I surely don't know what I'll fill this space with.

 I'm still working on the Brian Greene book. Those things are pretty meaty. Even dumbed down to a layman's level, physics and cosmology books are always heavy, even when the writing is sharp. Greene usually is, but still. It's heavy subjects that require heavy thinking, and I usually wind up reading some Hunter Thompson to calm down.

 Trump fired his cybersecurity guy Chris Krebs because the man debunked one of the Boss' many, many false claims concerning his crushing defeat in the election two weeks ago. But so much for all that. I am still sick to the teeth of writing about the goddamn election and that cheap bastard's refusal to accept reality or, for that matter, the brainless chumps that believe every hint of bullshit like it was Gospel.

 I'm going to indulge in a little loose thinking, so feel free to skip the next couple of paragraphs. A lot is been made of the fecklessness of the Democratic Party the last couple of days. And feckless they are, let's make no bones about it. There's some talk about who Biden will appoint to his cabinet and, as equally galling to some, who he will not appoint. Put it this way, he doesn't need to screw around too much with the makeup of the Senate right now.

 One thing sticking in the leftist/liberal craw is the intimation that the Biden Administration might not pursue legal action against the Trump Administration once the former gets settled in the White House. Now, I admit, I'm not keeping too close attention on this particular stroke, so I'm not sure there actually is anything they can nail him on. The New York attorney general has first dibs on his orange hide and there's nothing the White House can do about that.

 However, while we again do not dispute the basic gormlessness of the Democrats these days, one does wonder if they're not doing the best they can under the circumstances. One thing most people forget is they have to cover a lot of ground, from far-leftist loons like me to Republicans genuinely embarrassed about being lumped in with pea-brained fascists and everything in between, plus the big money men.

 Furthermore, and I know people will dispute this because it's easier than thinking, I think the Trump Years have taught us the Big-Time Media is easier on the Republican Party. How long did it take them to say the president is a liar? How many puff pieces have we seen trying to figure out why Trump supporters worship him when it can be easily explained as "Americans love authoritarian assholes?" They've not changed in five years, what's so hard about this? They abandoned George W. Bush because he refused to be quite that awful and Sarah Palin when she couldn't keep the grift going, is it so surprising they'd go for a celebrity who's pretended to be a business shark?

 It wasn't all that different during the Bush Administration, really. It plays into familiar narratives and that's always easier than thinking. We pretend affordable healthcare and guaranteed wages are some sort of socialist pipe dream while we also pretend "pro-life" actually is or that morality is only white, Christian, and financially successful regardless of how it got there. So, they're up against a lot. That's not suggesting they're above criticism or, indeed, current criticism should let up. One of the reasons the GOP is so successful despite being a black hole of politics is their message of greed and exclusion doesn't require much work.

 I don't know what else. I've been listening to a lot of Taj Mahal lately. For the longest time, I never really ventured outside his earlier records but I've come around. A lot of Cannonball Adderly, too. It's great stuff to fall asleep to, for whatever it's worth. I've been finding really low-quality horror movies on Tubi or ShoutFactoryTV diverting as well. Just awful shit, but hey, they're free. Can't beat that with a stick.

 I guess that's plenty for today. As always, if something comes to mind I'll come back around. Otherwise, catch y'all at the News tomorrow.