And I'm in the middle of it all.

 I've been struck by laziness today. That's it, that's the whole statement. Anyhow, this week's News. Frankly, it's been another easy week on that front. Monday and Wednesday were ruminations on Joe Biden's inauguration and what, if anything, the Trumpist dead-enders were going to do. Luckily, I suppose, they wound up doing much of nothing, not in Washington and not across the country.

 Friday we got on with things and looked into why this whole filibuster business is such a big deal. I hope I got it all right because, honestly, it all seems more complicated than it needs to be. That's Washington, D.C., I suppose. I'll say it again, I see this the same way I see the Electoral College. I don't have strong feelings one way or another but I'm not hearing a good argument for keeping it.

 For whatever it's worth, I figure the EC will last longer than the filibuster. The former would be a booger to get rid of, despite what people seem to think. Again, the last four to six years have proven to me how little most folks understand how elections and politics work, much less the actual to and fro of government. I'm guessing it's because they really haven't paid attention at all is why they seem to think things happen instantly with the wave of whoever's hand. It's getting tiresome and I ain't going to lie about it.

 So much for all of that. While it may not be as knee-slappingly hilarious while at the same time pants-wetting terrifying as the Trump Era, it's obvious there's a market for explaining to the Great Washed how shit actually works. Since I'm good at that, golden.

 I've been reading a pretty interesting biography of Hank Williams by Colin Escott with William MacEwan and George Merritt. I'm not familiar with the other two, but I've long been an admirer of Escott's music journalism. Anyhow, Hank Williams was a rotten bastard in addition to being the first Avatar of Country Music. It's sort of understandable, given his youth and the situation he came up with. He had spina bifida occulta which means he had serious back pain his whole life. I know what that's like, and my back's got nothing that seriously wrong with it.

 Apparently, he became a full-blown alcoholic at a very early age, and I know what that's like, too. Living with one, anyway, and that explains how much shit the people around had to put up with when he got on a bender. It's also an interesting insight into the world of country music, circa the 1940s and '50s. Eddy Arnold was bigger than Hank by the end of the '50s, for example, and the music was already moving towards that pop-friendly crooner style people seem to think only happens sporadically.

 It's also interesting how one song - in this case, "Lovesick Blues" - can turn a fanbase on to the extent that he's considered, well, the first Avatar of Country Music. Still and all, I love Hank's music and he's one of the few performers I can think of where everything he put on wax is killer bee. It's that intangible element, his way of singing with pure emotion so that you know he's been reading your mail, that made him so great and makes his songs still among the best pop music ever created.

 I don't know what else. Been messing with the Ultima series a lot, particularly the Lazarus remake and U6 Project. Ultima V was hard enough, but it's damn near impossible on the Dungeon Siege engine. I will say IX isn't as wretched as its reputation. It's not a great game, sure, but it's a perfectly acceptable late '90s third-person CRPG. It does wreak havoc with continuity but I hate to break it to you, Ultima's always played fast-and-loose with its own history. Again, assume it's a Many-World Interpretation deal and it's all good.

 In any event, according to Ultima Online, that's pretty much the situation. The smashing of Mondain's gem and all that. I say it means you can do with it and since EA owns it, fuck them, they're bastards. I've been piddling with the Ultima world. It's still a lack of ability to wrestle out a narrative. Worldbuilding is easy, telling a good story is a booger.

 Anyhow. It's 11:30 so I might as well post this and get on with the evening. Hopefully, I can shake off this muddy-brained mood I've been in. I know what the problem is. It's a lack of stimulation. How to fix that without being social or getting stoned, I don't know.

And you weren't to blame. We put Jack and Johnny Walkers' names In the policeman's notebook when he came.

 We're one full day into the Biden Administration. So, where do we go from here? I'm not talking about the American government, the yammering media, or even the washed hordes who don't understand how politics actually works. I'll get to them in a minute.

 No, I'm talking about me or, more specifically, the News. This will still be the usual stream-of-consciousness rambling on whatever is (or isn't) on my mind at the moment. The News was conceived during the Trump Administration and, thus, in an adversarial environment. I'm not going to put the shuck on you, though. I'll initially be a little nicer to a Biden Administration, mainly because if nothing else, I respect competency. Getting the job done properly goes a long way for me.

 And I will happily say the Trump Administration was uniquely awful. I went through the Bush Jr. Administration and the Reagan Administration, so I know horrid, evil politics when I see it, don't get it twisted. But the Trump Administration was something else. Horrid, evil politics done by cheap, half-bright grifters who've only been successful because they were wealthy enough not to be challenged by our culture.

 I understand the desire for "back to normalcy" that Joe Biden represented for a lot of people. I also understand the concern that "normalcy" is what got us to Trump in the first place. He wasn't an aberration so much as the logical end result of the evolution of the Republican party's molding of its base as well as the general fecklessness of the Democrats and the corporate media. Democrats do have a vested interest in keeping the ship of state not only floating but also moving forward, even if slowly. Republicans seem to think they'll have enough cops and soldiers on their side to put down the rabble should we get uppity.

 So there's that. It's pretty amusing to see how fast the Twitter intelligentsia has settled into its new roles. Conservatives - at least the ones not kneedeep in the Q muddy - are pretending Trump was an aberration and that those silly leftists were just overreacting the whole time and "so much for unity' has become their new rhetorical finisher.

 This should surprise no one. Biden made a big deal out of "unity" but he's a politician. That's part of the gig. If anyone thought the GOP - from the ones that never abandoned Trump to Never-Trumpers like the entire Lincoln Project - actually thought the party learned anything from the past four years of mean dumbness and cheap nationalism masked as "patriotism" has no one but themselves to blame. Hopefully - and this is a tall order - the Democrats will recognize that their base is what they should be concentrating on and if the work to make their lives better, the rest of us will benefit as well.

 I'm not talking about the soi-disant socialist left, mind you. They've pretty much proven they're useless in the grand scheme of things and bring nothing useful to the game. Furthermore, they seem content to keep up that stroke and sit with their thumbs up their ass for the next four years. I'm talking about people of color, particularly Black people. Folks like to say Black people saved us, but that's not quite it. They worked to save themselves, we just got to ride along.

 One last thing and I'll leave you alone. I really haven't put much time into discussing the QAnon thing because, frankly, I don't put much effort into messing with flat-earthers or anti-vaxxers. It's just not worth my time to fool with someone who's made up their mind about reality and decides to work backward from there.

 Apart from a few lulus who think either Biden was in on it or Trump's pulling some sort of Face/Off thing (no, really), a lot of those folks are having serious difficulty adjusting to the fact that absolutely nothing happened yesterday besides the rather banal ceremonies of a new administration. Neither Trump nor the military - nor JFK Jr., for that matter - came swinging in on a lanyard to save the Children of the World and start a New Golden Age. Indeed, a lot of them are coming to the realization they've been played like a mortgaged fiddle for the last four years.

 For what it's worth, I really don't have much sympathy or empathy for them. They weren't "brainwashed" and they're certainly not suffering from mental or emotional issues. They chose to believe what was obvious horseshit even in the face of reality constantly kicking them in the nuts. If nothing added up or a prophecy fell through, well, that means it's "all a part of the plan" and not "hey, maybe this is bullshit."

 I do feel for their friends and family members who've had to deal with this sort of crap - always antagonistic, often violent - and folks who've watched their loved ones dig themselves deeper into a conspiracy that had no basis in narrative structure, much less reality. I'm lucky, I know, that even in the very conservative family I have, none of 'em ever went full Q, probably because they hadn't heard of it. But I know what it's like living with someone who'd rather get drunk than anything else, and I can only imagine that having someone you love go full Q is something similar.

 That being said, the actual Q folks can go skip rope. No one forced them into it, they did it all of their own free will, and laying the blame on someone else infantilizes them and absolves them of responsibility. It's like The Great Man said, "You can't cheat an honest man. Never give a sucker an even break or smarten up a chump." They'll have to accept that and if they refuse to do so, well, I guess life will go on. With or without them, it don't matter, we've got plenty on our plate.