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.

Is a bluebird blue? Has a cat got a tail?

  The number of people that are part of the Trump team who've found themselves testing positive for the COVID-19 virus continues to grow while he claims he's no longer showing symptoms. Probably the most significant new infectee is Staff Wormtounge Stephen Miller, which spawned a thousand "it can jump species" jokes.

 We're still dealing with the fallout of whatever happened this week with Trump and his hospitalization. He put out a completely brain-dead bit of propaganda about not letting the virus dominate our lives, forgetting that not all of us have instant access to Walter Reed-level medical service. It cut me as cold and heartless, and I can't count one of the near 210,000 victims of COVID-19 as one of my loved ones.

 But heartlessness is a feature, not a bug, of the Trump administration. Deputy Attorney General Rod Rodstein and other Justice Department officials, including then-AG Jeff "Dark Elf" Sessions, pushed hard for separating children from their parents at the border. Of course, this is one of those things the Base rubs itself over and fail to agree that it makes us the baddies. 

 I don't know who said it, but it bears repeating: I can't teach someone to have compassionate. Is there an issue at the border that needs to be addressed? Hell, yes, of course, there is. Are we doing it in a not-evil way? No, no we are not. I know wingnuts like to claim we have no responsibility for Central and South America, but the Monroe Doctrine says otherwise. You can't claim control over something just to drop it when it becomes inconvenient. We called for that tune and we ought to pay the fiddler. I'm not holding my breath, but there it is.

 But now that I've gotten started, let's leave the news for the News. I've made a few strikes at the Weird Western idea. It's just a couple of character sketches right now and I don't know where it's going, if anywhere. It's fun, though, and it feels good to get it out of my brain.

 I'm still in that foul, red-assed mood, and I think I've figured out why. Despite the Prozac and lithium and Wellbutrin, I'm doing all this with a clear head for the first time in 15 years. Not to put too fine a point on it, I used to smoke a lot of pot. I smoked so much pot, one of my dealers said maybe I should take a break. A constant burner is what I'm saying, and the only time I was straight was when I was at work or asleep.

 So regardless of those drugs that are doing a fairly good job of stabilizing my brain chemistry, I'm back to being pissed off all the time. That's how I grew up; pissed off and doing my damnedest to not let it show because no one cared and were probably more pissed off than I was. Knowing that it's due to some faulty wiring in my head doesn't make it much better, but there it is.

 Well, I've just finished supper and I've lost my train of thought. Really, all I want is a good connect if for no other reason than being pissed off all the time is a drag. But for now, I've hit word count and maybe I'll go back to my Western later. Probably not, though. This strikes me as a reading evening.

Whoops.

  Forgot to put up links to this week's News yesterday. Since I haven't written today's News yet, I won't bother with recaps. You know how the week's gone.

Monday

Wednesday

Friday

 I will say it seems like a lifetime ago we found out about Trump's tax shenanigans and it was only Monday. Interesting times, indeed.

We didn't appreciate Cub Koda enough when we had him.

 I have some Actual Paying Work to do tonight, so I'm not going to spend much time here. Initially, anyway. I also finally let Windows update itself, and damn, if that didn't take hours. So let's lay something down for continuity's sake and perhaps I'll come back to it.

 I'm not going to lie, though. I had something earlier today, but it's gone now. It's just as well as it was a pretty dour outlook on things. On the whole, I am not hopeful we're past the "things will get worse before..." of the game yet, not by a long shot.

 For one, the city of Louisville has declared a state of emergency because they're days away from giving the verdict on the cops that murdered Breonna Taylor. I really don't think that bodes well. Worse, one of the killer cops posted an email telling other officers to do "what they need to do" to the protestors that he called "thugs," claiming everything they did the night they killed Taylor was legal and moral. Sure, which is why the initial report was full of lies and the DA tried to lean on Taylor's ex-boyfriend - the guy they were actually looking for - to implicate her without success.

 Putting aside the issue of police brutality running rampant in this country, everything I've seen shows that these cops are, at the very best, guilty of being sloppy with who they decide who needs killing. Furthermore, everything the city has done, even up to the settlement paid out to Taylor's family, tells me they know she was killed because some lunkheaded cops couldn't be bothered to do the job properly.

 People are still defending this, either saying that it's just a regrettable but necessary accident or outright lying about Taylor to make her look guilty and, thus, worthy of extrajudicial execution. And that's the thing that really bums me out the most, that there are so many people in this country that prides itself on rugged individualism are so eager to bend a knee to authority.

 I don't know if I can in good conscience argue that we don't need some sort of peace-keeping or law-enforcement force. Even if it's just to give out speeding tickets and take paperwork for insurance when someone's car gets broken into, there's a necessity. They don't protect and I think recent events have shown us that there are better ways of dealing with people in the midst of a mental episode that sending in a couple thick-necked, heavily armed, poorly trained dingbats.

 My ex worked for the public defender in New Orleans as a social worker and she regularly went to neighborhoods the police wouldn't. All 5'4" of her, and it wasn't because she was especially brave or fearless or badass. She was doing her job and while cops have their jobs, is there any question why people, especially black people, see that the police's job, whatever it is, isn't concerned with their health?

 But this turns out to a bridge too far for far too many people, especially white people. They're fine with living in a country that keeps its thumb on certain people, even if it erodes their own rights. I shouldn't be shocked at this, I know. Back after 9/11, the average American rube couldn't wait to curtail civil liberties at the government's behest for an ounce of security. All the free-speech warriors of today were fine with "free speech zones" at the 2004 Republican National Convention just like they're fine with the crackdown on protesting in Louisville and other places.

 And this isn't a partisan thing. Someone on Twitter took my condemnation of conservative thought in America as possibly choosing one side over the other, but this isn't that. In a sane culture, the Democrats would be the conservative-middle party, but that's really not important. Americans in general are fine with curtailing the Constitutionally given rights they claim to adore. They'll behave themselves, after all, so why should they care?

 Okay, that's plenty. I'm going to get to work and hope to be in a better move tomorrow. It springs eternal, they say.

I might stay up late and do nothin' all night long.

 I'm sure I've mentioned it before, but I don't use too many opinion pieces when I put together my News. Once in a very rare while, one will fit the bill for the point I'm trying to make too well but for the most part, I can find legit hard news sources covering whatever the pundit is yammering about. There's a reason for that: I really don't care for opinion writers and people who're paid pundits.

 It is sort of funny because when I first decided as a teenager that I wanted to be a journalist when I grew up, I initially wanted to be an opinion writer. It just seemed like a lot of fun to get paid to give my opinion, especially since I had so many opinions I really felt needed to be spread far and wide. There were other reasons I wanted to be a journalist - not necessarily a reporter, but a journalist and, yes, there is a difference - but that was a major one.

 I eventually got over it, partly because they'll let any dingbat who's well-connected enough write a column in The New York Times regardless of how much they've actually earned it. Used to be, a column in a major publication like that was sort of a reward for a career down in the trenches of bringing the news to the people. You had to make your bones before you got the cushy gig, and that invariably brought a little bit of wisdom regardless of your ideological stance or political leanings.

 Now any clown who's dad is a mover-and-shaker in publishing can waste space in Newsweek or The Washington Post complaining that people are being mean to them just because they suggested there's nothing wrong with gassing protestors or having "free speech zones." It's gotten worse as time has dragged on, and it was pretty horrible 20 years ago.

 So I feel it's best to ignore all of them and hold them in contempt until they prove me wrong. I acknowledge this isn't fair of me, so I won't use them in the News, especially if I happen to agree with them. Same goes for Name Journalists, particularly if they're another straight white middle-class white dude like, for example, me. I've been pruning my Twitter of those guys. They get one strike, and I'd rather hear from someone who might have an entirely different vision of the world than the one that's been sold to me as "The Way Things Should Be."

 As far as news sources, there are very few I won't use. I just don't pay attention to whoever wrote the story. I figure it's become like whoever's running sound at a club show: so long as they're doing his job, I'm not having to think about him. If I do, it's because they're screwing up. There are a few complete garbage sources, like The Washington Examiner or OAN but they rarely offer anything that can't be found somewhere else if it's worth reporting on at all.

 I think that's good for now. I needed to get that off my chest, that's all. There are some news items I do want to explore - notably the accusation on ICE doing forcible hysterectomies - but that one definitely needs to marinate a little while longer. That's my other rule: let stuff work out. I'm not getting paid for scoops.

 Hell, I'm not getting paid at all.

Not going to waste a good title for this.

  I'm going to be straight. I shut it down for most of the day and I'm not really interested in the rest of the world, much less writing down my thoughts about it. Furthermore, I have two pieces of Actual Paying Work to get done for tomorrow. I imagine that will put me well over word count. Finally, the country's still eaten up with Dumb and I might as well save any News for tomorrow.

 I might - might - come back to this at some point before tomorrow morning if the urge strikes me. I wouldn't count on it but one never knows. And so much for all of that.

UPDATE: It's 3:30 a.m. and I've finished my APW. Nice, easy stuff for a law firm down in Florida. It's amazing how little variety there is in these things, which makes keeping them getting dinged by Google a bit of a chore. But no one is expecting Go Down, Moses so it's not all bad.

 For the record, I put away about 2,000 words in two pieces, so I'm not even bothering with word count. I just got out of the shower and I'm letting my hair dry. I might go to bed when it does or I might play something. I've been digging back into Pathfinder: Kingmaker lately. I'd reached to what I think is the end but I've forgotten where I go next. There's been a massive update in the last couple of days and a lot has been changed, including a turn-based system. So I might just start all over. I don't know. It doesn't matter; it's the journey, not the arrival.

  I'm thinking about moving everything to the WordPress site but keeping the format. Do News Monday, Wednesday & Friday with a Weekend wrap-up on Sunday, and Gibberish the rest of the week. The only thing holding me back is that the Blogger site gets loads more hits. I don't doubt that the vast majority of them are webcrawlers and bots, but I don't really care. The endorphin boost I get from seeing the numbers is quite enough, especially when I get the occasional huge day.

 I don't know what else. I'm going to get a snack and see what happens afterward. And so much for all of that.

 Again.

Make up your own title.

  It's been a stupid week and not only am I not engaged with reality, me and my buddy Otis, the Jack Russell, took advantage of the cool evening and walked two miles up and down the Peaceful Valley roads. So I'm tired, too. Worse, Otis' energy hasn't quite run out for his second wind. So, we're going to gonzo through this mess and probably call it a night. Don't believe me it was a dumb week? Check it out:

Monday

Wednesday

Friday

 I mean just look at Friday. Monday and Wednesday were bad enough, but sometime Thursday this country went even more bull-goose loony as if that were possible. And it only got dumber today. Trump supporters who own boats have been getting together and forming "flotillas," flying Trump flags and whatnot, for about a fortnight now. Well, they took their show to Lake Tyler in Austin, Texas, whereupon the larger boats roared around and kicked up a high wake, causing some of the smaller boats to sink.

 Now that in and of itself is fucking hilarious. Sometimes karma brings us an all-too-on-the-nose metaphor and we should just sit back and enjoy it. But what's funny is enough of the truly faithful are trying to find a way to blame Antifa, BLM, or liberals in general for the mess. It wasn't a case of privileged assholes who think the rules don't apply to them shooting each other in the dick out of sheer myopic bloody-mindedness. No, it's got to be sabotage by people who hate America, Jesus, and Trump, which are all the same thing. Anyhow, thanks for the laughs, MAGAts. It's been a rough week and I think we could all use a chuckle at the expense of the absolute dregs of humanity.

 It's been close to an hour since I wrote the above. I'm still in the mud-brained funk I've been in all week and sleeping way too much. I've been playing a bit of Pillars of Eternity II and Pathfinder: Kingmaker, but nothing serious. Pathfinder's had a serious update that's changed a good bit of the game and added a turn-based system. I've already found some new dungeons and sites, so it'll be interesting to see how it washes out.

 I really don't have much. Matter of fact, I don't think I'll post this on Tumblr which means it won't be on Twitter. I think a week of no substance whatsoever is way too much to ask. I wish I could figure out what's dragging me down. If it's because I've not had any human contact outside the family for the past six months, I find that mighty depressing. I would love some smoke, ain't going to lie about that.

 I haven't been reading anything interesting, nothing new. Re-reading stuff like The Time Machine and David Deutsch's The Fabric Of Reality. Still pretty fascinated with the whole Many-Worlds Theory thing, though I haven't had any real breakthrough insights lately. I really can't think of any music I've been listening to that's lit me up, either. Same old blues and country, again.

 I don't even feel like complaining about the writing problem It is what it is. I write but I don't feel like a writer. I'm not sure why I do it but I'll keep on doing it. It fills the hours and what else am I going to do? In any event, that's word count and I'm tired.

Don't give me no plastic saddle.

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Look how far I had to come to get back where I started from.

 Feeling lazy and disconnected again. We'll just get something down and maybe come back later. In any event, first off, here's what made for the News this week.

Monday

Wednesday

Friday

 Actual Paying Work bit into things this week, so it was all sort of rushed. Still, Monday and Wednesday were solid. Monday was about some significant Supreme Court decisions, another bunch of murdering cops, and black men being found hanging outside where nobody believes it's suicide. Wednesday was a little closer look at the tussle going on in Mississippi about changing the flag, highlighting some dickbag in Columbus who's going to find his ass in the street. Friday I was lazy, so it's mostly a wrap-up with some more stuff about the flag. Specifically, the SEC telling the state to straighten up or lose out. If nothing else, that might get Mississippi to jump.

 I talked to the Therapist yesterday. Someone's hacked her email. She already knew but was glad I told her. The hack asked me to buy her "niece with cancer" $200 worth of Amazon Gift Cards because I have an Amazon account. I got to thinking, though. One, you don't have to have an Amazon Account to buy Amazon Gift Cards. Two, this lady and her husband got them a little bread and she certainly knows more people than me if she needs a favor that bad. And finally, I really can't see her being that wildly unprofessional. Turns out she doesn't even have a niece. Some people.

I find myself wistful for Gainesville today for some reason. I lived there for about five years to go to the University of Florida to study journalism, and basically all I learned is that I never, ever wanted to get a straight gig or live a normal life. I lived in a trailer for $100 a month, drank too much, did all sorts of drugs, delved into life's left-handed path, went to see all sorts of bands, played in a couple, played video games for three days straight, broke a couple hearts, had mine broken once or twice, and as likely as not didn't bother learning her last name the next morning. And write. God-a-mighty, did I write.

 Somewhere between Gainesville and Athens a tomato box full of composition notebooks fell out of the truck I was using to move that had five years worth of short stories, essays, aborted books, poems, songs, biographical sketches and just general nonsense that I had scribbled down while in Florida. Losing that broke something in me, because I've never done that since. This is as close as I've come,

 Ye gods, it's only 9:50 a.m. Anyhow, as weird as it may sound, I'm in that same head space right now. Apart from the sex, drugs and rock & roll, of course, but I'm having a good time. I'm writing, playing games, learning new things, not stressing bills, blowing on the harp and picking guitar, and just basically enjoying life as it comes. Weird how that works. I wonder if I should have stayed in Gainesville. I haven't been back in over 20 years and haven't talked to anyone I knew there in almost 10. I don't know if I was happy or content there, but I did have me a real good time.

 Hey, while I got you here, I have a Patreon page now. I don't know if throwing me a few bucks would do anything besides encourage my behavior, but why not. No one's actually pledged yet, so be the first kid on your block to do so. I've also got my first two paychecks from my APW, a nice, fat $500. I was kicking around the idea of buying a PlayStation or some other console - mainly because I sort of want to play the new Spider-Man game - but I think I'll save for a new laptop. One I can write and game on.

 Anyhow, that should be enough. Maybe I'll come back after my nap or before the night's alien killing begins. We'll see. Either way, have a pleasant weekend.

Nobody understood it when the great Joe Bob went bad.

 I woke up in a foulish mood today and haven't really been able to shake it. Granted, I haven't tried much but what are you gonna do. Anyhow, before we get started, let's see what kind of foolishness I got into with the News this week.

Monday

Wednesday

Friday

 Nothing particularly spectacular but a nevertheless solid week of work. Good blogger journalism, old school style, no Deep Dives but a good whack of information on how the week was going. Frankly, between the Actual Paying work and internet connectivity issues earlier in the week, it went better than I'd figured it would.

 I've come to accept that this, whatever it is, is What I Do, even if I'm not happy the fiction isn't going anywhere. I've always had a problem focusing on one thing. It's one of the reasons I got into journalism, specifically, in the first place.

 I guess the problem is when I read all these books on writing and actual writers giving advice on how writers act, see the world, etc., it doesn't ring true to me. I have no doubt that's how it works for most writers - they can't help but write, they pay attention more, what have you - but it's not my reality. This is just the only thing I've ever been good at and one of the few things I really enjoy beyond passively watching the world go by and waiting around to die. I promise it's not as drastic as it sounds, but you must remember I spend most of my time fighting off the worst nihilistic thoughts.

 It's sort of like how I feel about relationships, particularly marriage. I know plenty of people who do it right and get a lot out of it. I ain't the one, though, and I really don't understand it. And while I'm fine with my monastic existence, particularly since I'm so bad at romantic relationships of any stripe beyond just the physical, I can't lie and say it doesn't sit well with me that I cannot wrap my head around what apparently everyone else on the planet seems to have figured out.

 Or at the very least why I'm not filled with bitter resentment and misogynistic rage most single dudes my age seem to be, whether they were ever hooked to someone or not. I really don't understand that, either. I mean, I've had spotty luck with women all my life, but I know what's been my fault and what's just not meant to be. Some dickhead shot up a mall in Arizona because he's an "incel" and for some reason that gives him the right to decide who lives and who dies painfully.

 I confess, I do not get that a'tall. For one, the whole concept of "involuntary celibacy" was thought up by a queer sociology student and meant to describe people who were unable to have sex because of physical or mental disabilities. That shit's sad. Whether it's due to depression (which I have experience with) or just being physically inadvisable for whatever reason, sex is as much a part of the Human Condition as eating or taking a dump. I haven't had sex in going on five years now, but that's voluntary celibacy, or at least "not being interested in sex enough to try to get laid" celibacy.

 But the guys who can't get laid because they can't talk about anything but video games they think women shouldn't play and smell funny because of their diet and lack of hygiene? Half of them can't get their heads around girls who don't like anime characters and the other half think porn is how human sexuality actually works. I got sympathy at all, especially when they started talking mass shootings. I may not do much now, but I got laid plenty in my 20s, and, frankly, whenever I put my mind to it. Clean up, dress a little sharper, find something other than cartoons to discuss, and actually pay attention to women when they talk. You'll make out like a bandit, I promise.

 All right, I've wandered too deep into this. Let's back it up and claw our way back out. In short, like I don't understand why my brother and my friends got married and stayed married, I don't get writing as an artistic endeavor. I can enjoy it, but what I do is journeyman's work. It's like when I was a cook. I wasn't crazy about food like most cooks are, I just wanted to feed hungry people something that was worth eating. I just want to write something worth reading to people who want to know.

 Okay. I think that's plenty. I was going to delve a little more into the thoughts that spurred this Twitter thread, but I think I'll wait. American's love for authoritarianism isn't going anywhere anytime soon. So, I'll save it for later and tie this one off.

Like a bird without a nest. Like a stranger in the night.

 EDIT: I completely forgot to add links to this week's News. I'm particularly fond of Monday's piece, since I got to write about UFO's instead of the epidemic. The Tumblr site was pretty quiet, so here we go.

Monday

Wednesday

Friday


Two days and two days into the coronavirus novel epidemic. A lot of states are "reopening", though Mississippi isn't, and we're all going to find out just how bad an idea that was or wasn't. Georgia and Texas have both seen spikes in cases, the very thing that caused our governor Tate Reeves to slow his roll.

 Well, life is an adventure, is it not? Maybe all those AstroTurf "protest" groups complaining they can't get haircuts or go to their favorite restaurants will take their gun nuttery and cheap Nazi cosplay somewhere else. People are wondering why gun-toting neckbeards screaming at cops don't get the same reaction as, say, Native tribes protesting unnecessary and dangerous oil pipelines across tribal lands. Simple. The "let us work" protesters aren't shaking any boats or upsetting the Natural Order.

 Ah, but I don't want to write about COVID-19. I've been writing about little else for the past six weeks. I'm making money writing about COVID-19 nowadays. We've become extremely stupid as a culture over this thing and refuse to act like adults. The same people who claim they're ready to take down a tyrannical government or the dissolution of society are losing their minds at having to be around their family for a couple of weeks.

 So stop writing about it, Matt, move on. After all, you'll have to come up with something interesting about all this hoo-hah all next week. I think I got too much sun on my afternoon constitutional with Otis and B.C. It's in the 80s and fairly warm. I've got me one of those "too much sun" headaches, I think. Probably need to look into getting some sunscreen if Otis intends to keep this up, and I've no doubt he will.

 Another problem is this isn't coming as easy this evening. I have been staying up too late playing XCOM the last couple of nights, as well as a couple other games. I picked up Robin Hood - The Legend of Sherwood on sale at Good Old Games for a sneeze yonks ago, and finally got around to playing it this week. It's pretty decent. Plays like Desperadoes or Shadow Tactics, strategy oriented but not turn based. Plus, I've always been keen on the Robin Hood legend. One of those days I should write about that, but today's not the day.

 Nothing is firing properly today. Maybe I should take a break, take a nap, and come back at it. Nah. Let's just get it done and if the Muse comes later, it's not like I'm getting paid for all this. I will say, just to get it down, that I've had an epiphany about my writing in the last couple of days. It's been driving my batty that I can't get any fiction going past world-building. I don't understand what other freelancers who don't do "straight journalism" are making their salt. I don't do Me Talk Pretty One Day-style gripping emotional journeys and neither do I want to. More power to 'em, but I'll probably never write that dark book of the soul about, say, my father.

 So instead of focusing on what I can't do, I decided to study on what I did do well. Two things came up. One, I'm good at making boring things that rarely change day after day interesting to read about. This is what saved my ass as a sports writer when I'm not really into sports, and the current iteration of Actual Paying Work is definitely that. The other thing I'm good at is explaining things to the common mind. That's where I was good as a music critic and when it works, that's what makes The News worth reading. I definitely need to find a better way to market the latter, because when I show it's out there, people do read it. They may not respond or react back, but what the hell.

 So, that's what I do and that's what I've always done. It's not that I need to embrace it, because I've never run from it and I do think there's a place for it. Whether there's a place for me to make money at it, well, we're still figuring that out. I'm not going to totally give up on my Weird Western or bank heist IN SPACE, but I won't sweat 'em anymore. Hopefully.

 Anyhow, that's the word count and then some, and I really am dragging. Maybe something will spring forth later or maybe I'll just take a nap and/or play more video games. Life in the fast line, indeed.

All my friends are wearing worried smiles, living out a dream of what they was.

 Man, it's been a weird week. Don't deny it, this is just not right and keeps getting dumber. Not only did the President of the United States of America in front of God and everybody asked one of his advisors if injecting disinfectants into COVID-19 cases would cure them, but he, his office and the general wingnut collective tried to shove it off three or four different ways. That might be scariest of all.

 But before we get too deep into it, let's serve up this week's News.

Monday

Wednesday

Friday

 I think Friday's offering is particularly worth a look, as I go into one of my deep dives on just what he said, why he said it, why it's worrisome and why, no matter how they try, is it going to change a mind one way or another. The Base is unshakable.

 This is a milestone week, though. I got zero hits for the News. I mean, not a sausage, and I usually get at least three or four. I did pick up a new follower, so I don't know how that works but there you go. Got a lot of activity at the Tumblr site, though it was all for older stuff. Check out that Otis Spann tune, though, it's pretty good.

 Ah, the damn internet is dropping in and out again. Apart from lack of access to good smoke, that's about the only downside to living out here in the boonies. Dodgy internet and even when it's running, it's sometimes slow as Christmas.

 I just got back from a two-mile walk with my buddy Otis, the Jack Russell, and he thinks he wants to go out again. He's sitting under my chair sighing loudly. Every day he does this. We go for a walk for a mile or two, just long enough for him to get wore out, and after a short rest he's ready to go back out. And he'll keep doing it until past dinner, sleep for a while, and then spend another hour being a pain in the ass before calling it a night. It's getting on my nerves.

 Okay, enough of all that. No one wants to hear me gripe and I don't particularly want to, anyway. As weird a week as it's been, it's also been an okay one for me. The Actual Paying Work is going well and keeping me busy. The Bossman is happy with what I'm doing and it's nice to have something "serious" to show potential clients apart from this gig. It's boring as hell, but what are you going to do. I do get to write up a COVID-19 update and can have a little fun with that.

 But, like I tell the Bossman, it's good to have to occasionally write to someone else's rules. One of the biggest problems with today's media world is far, far too many writers are allowed to run loose with too little editing. And, no, I never thought I'd say that 20 years ago.

 It's keeping me busy and since it's Actually Work it's wearing me out. I'm kicking around the idea of dropping a day of News or Gibberish, and both of this week's offers of the latter reflect that. Goddammit, there goes the inter... hellfire, it's back. Anyhow, I thought about dropping a day, so what'd I do? Started another blog, of course.

 I'm not sure what, if anything, I'm going to do about it. Spread across three blogs on three different sites at vastly different times, what I have going now is sort of sloppy. As of right now, it's going to be a place to dump links of articles or pieces of writing I find interesting but aren't inclined to read when I first come across them. Might do it with YouTube vlogs and whatnot, I don't know. I have a fairly dark take on the COVID-19 virus that I've gone back and forth on where to post it. It occurred to me today that the new site could be the "professional" site; that is, the one where I don't cuss like a sailor and call the president a moronic dirtbag who leads a horde of complete dirtbags. I don't know yet. Anyhow, it's here if anyone's curious.

 Dammit, there goes the... shit, it's back. You know, between this and Otis's constant whining, I'm developing a headache. Bah. Sometimes he gives in and goes in his box, but he is particularly petulant tonight.

 I broke down and bought XCOM: Chimera Squad yesterday, and though I've only given it an hour, I'm pretty pleased with it. It's a fun little game with a neat premise. If the first game is Independence Day and the second is Battlefield: Earth (for lack of a better reference), this one is Alien Nation, if anyone remembers that little gem. Five years after XCOM 2, the big bads are defeated, and the Earth is full of either alien POW's or formerly enslaved soldiers now dealing with freedom.

 You run a sort of military-slash-police group that's part of the XCOM organization. At least one of the characters from the second game, Jane Kelly, works as sort of a liaison between the Chimera Squad and the larger organization. The crew tries to keep peace in a specialized city populated by humans, various aliens, hybrids, and what all where someone is trying to disrupt the fragile peace.

 Most of the game mechanics are the same, though the turn-based part of it is less like the original games and more like something found in Divinity: Original Sin. You do a little door kicking, a la a SWAT team, called "Breaching" that's a fun little new addition to the game. Rather than trying to keep countries or continents from panicking, you're trying to keep neighborhoods from falling into anarchy. It's less than ten bucks until May 1 and well worth that price. It bumps up to $20 after that, and is still worth a buy.

 Because Fanatical was having a sale, I also picked up Breach & Clear, an XCOM-esque game that uses real world military groups, and The Long Journey Home, a space sim rougelike that has sort of the same backstory as Star Trek: Voyager. The player controls a spaceship made up of four crew members with different skills trying to get back to Earth from the other side of the galaxy. I'm not really familiar with either game, but since I'm a complete sucker for turn-based strategy games and off-the-wall outer space science fiction that aren't military based. I can add that to the backlog of games I haven't finished or need to give another shot. Good thing I've got nothing better to do.

Look how far I had to come to get back where I started from.

 Another programming note. I have some more Actual Paying Work due tomorrow. It's going to take a little research and thought, more so than the usual APW takes. So, I might not get past this before the night's out. The sleeping situation's been a booger and I just don't have the energy.

 Not a whole lot to get into anyway, stuff that won't go to the News. If this pace keeps up, I may have to pick a day to take a break. Probably one of the weekend days. In any event, Otis is fussing so we'd better hit the road. If I come back to this, I'll come back to this.

UPDATE: 7 P.M.

 Well, the walk was pleasant, although Otis doesn't appreciate it. He'll take a quick nap and thinks he's ready to go on another one. He'll stand at the door and cry like he's being beat. I appreciate that he enjoys the little constitutionals but it can be very annoying indeed.

 I've yet to start on the APW apart from doing a bit of research, saving some links and outlining in my head where I'm going with this. Long story short, I'm doing a COVID-19 update blog for a law firm in another state, which is about as interesting as this gets. Still, I enjoy it and it's a challenge to do it straight. That is, no smart-ass remarks, just uncut journalism. I keep telling the Bossman that it helps to have someone else's thumb on things.

 I've been waiting on supper to get done, which is why I haven't actually started the work. I hate to be interrupted when I'm working on a piece. It just completely throws me out of whack. I never developed good outlining habits, though, so even the smallest disruption could ruin the whole thing. The other problem is I've smoked my memory to hell, so unless I write it down it is gone. I'm getting better at it, though it's always been an issue. It's like never learning how to properly type, which I never did. I can hunt-and-peck like a beast, but that has its downsides.

 Okay, supper's done. Again, maybe I'll come back to this and maybe I won't.

UPDATE: 10:20 P.M.

 Well, that's that. Done with the update and when my brain cools down, I'll give it the going-over. I'm just under 400 words with this, so let's see if we can't finish it off.

 I'm sure we've all seen the daily Trump Dump where he asked if maybe using disinfectant or UV lights could get rid of COVID-19, all the while claiming super-genius status. Amusingly, the base didn't wait 30 minutes before claiming "that's not what he meant" before moving onto "he was just asking questions," apparently not realizing there's a time and a place for that which isn't in front of a national audience. It's merely latest in a long line of rock-stupid shit said by a rock-stupid man who's never been told he's rock stupid or had to suffer for it. And if anyone's surprised the Base is defending this and insisting that he is indeed a super genius, well, you haven't been paying attention the past three years.

 There is nothing that will shake them loose. Nothing. Give up. They're a lost cause. All the Trump voters who're going to peel off by November are long gone and even there most of them will vote for the dingbat because Joe Biden is a socialist or some dumb shit.

 I will defend the media, though. A bit, anyway. "Why do the networks keep showing this?" Because he's the president and that's their job. That's what "reporting" is, repeating what important people say. Is it a drag that they don't do more fact checking? Yeah, it is, but at the same time that's really not the job, not at that level.

 Some people should be fact checking the dopey bastard and people are. Daniel Dale, for example, has been doing a superlative job reporting on Trump's dopiness and why it's all horseshit. Another thing to keep in mind is the media at that level - the networks, New York Times, Washington Post, etc. - are owned by either extremely rich individuals or business concerns that are made up of extremely rich individuals. They have a vested interest in keeping the Status Quo and for all his dopiness, Trump does not threaten that. He might be a danger to its stability, but he's making the same money they are.

 It's the height of naivety to believe the ownership doesn't have influence on the in-the-trenches reporting. That's just a fact no matter how much we try to pretend it isn't. The Deadspin business last year when they canned all those writers for, and let's be honest, their political opinions not meshing with the bosses' should be the final word on that. I never was a reader but all reports say the rejuvenated Deadspin is less than zippy. But they're not going to buck the bosses, I bet you.

 That's just life and it is a booger. It's also one of the reasons I'll never go back to straight journalism. I've dealt with that shit more than once in almost every publication I've worked for, and it's not always been my fault. As I've said, I do consider what I do at the WordPress site anyway as "journalism". And as much as I'm soured working for them, the ongoing slow death of newspapers isn't something I enjoy seeing. I don't care about networks, for what it's worth, because I've never had much truck with them.

 Anyhow, we're pushing midnight and this is plenty. XCOM: Chimera Squad is released tomorrow and I'll probably pick it up before the weekend's out. I've read a few reviews which have, for the most part, been okay. It's a different beast than the first two games, but that's fine. I'm also thinking of picking up The Long Journey Home, which looks to have a neat premise. Need to do some more research first.

Programming Note.

 I have some Actual Paying Work to get done by tomorrow, so tonight might light if not non-existent past this right here. If you'll recall, the goal is to top 500 words a day and both of the bad boys I have to pound out will be at least 600 words. I'm dealing with a bad case of the too-goddamn-sleepy-to-sit-up-for-too-longs, and I'm not terribly into the idea anyway. However, as has happened before, a little Work gets the juices flowing and I might hear something that sets me off and can't wait until tomorrow's news.

 So it all depends on what sort of mood I'm in. Make a note of that if necessary.

UPDATE 9:15 P.M.

 Okay, I'm done. I wrote two pieces and now I'll let them sit and simmer for a bit before jumping on the editing train. I don't want to go into too great detail, but basically what I'm doing is writing "call us so we can sue the shit out of someone for you" pages for lawyers in different parts of the country. All very basic stuff, really. You have an accident, you call the cops, you call your insurance company and, if you think necessary, call a lawyer because the insurance company will do its damnedest to not pay out. I trust the Bossman to not get involved with anything shady, plus he occasionally lets me do stuff that's a bit more "fun" like a COVID-19 update for one Florida firm.

 I'm going out of my way to be circumspect about all this because, quite frankly, I don't think it'd do anyone any good a'tall to come across this or The News at the WordPress site. One never knows, but common sense tells me it's a good idea to keep "boring business Matt" separate from "foul mouthed, psychedelic-loving, cynical borderline anarchist Matt". Fun's fun, but there's no need to let it get in the way of business.

 I don't really need the money or the clips, but this has been very good. For one, writing for someone else's eye keeps me sharper than writing for myself probably would. As much fun as I have, it's very easy to disappear up my own ass and the writing will suffer for it. Secondly, this shit is dull as flies fornicating, so just to keep engaged is a bit of a challenge. Plus, the Bossman - admittedly a buddy - has been very easy with his praise and gratitude at having a "real writer" on board. Frankly, I need that as much as anything.

 Plus, having a little money coming in would be nice. Hopefully, I can put together enough to buy a new laptop, perhaps a gaming console (leaning towards a PlayStation so I can play Spider-Man) and maybe some needed upgrades on my PC. Maybe when this whole COVID-19 business blows over, extra money to do some traveling would be welcome, too.

 Beyond that, I don't have much to go on. This sort of writing definitely tires me out, much more so than it used to. This really isn't much different that doing the classifieds or obits back in the day, and I used to spend six hours some days doing that. Hate to think of doing that now. As I said above, the sleeping's been a bit of no good lately, CPAP or not. I have an appointment with the pulmonary nurse to follow up and I may try to make that one, just because this shit ain't working. I don't mind sleeping as much as I do - though I do miss the dreamless sleep of living in a green haze - but I don't think I should feel as tired as I do all the time regardless how much sleep I get.

 Okay, I think that's fair enough for tonight. I'll save the latest COVID-19 outrages for the news tomorrow, but I will say this. I do appreciate the Republican Party and conservatives in general ripping the masks off and showing themselves to be little more than the greedy, racist, authoritarian little shits I'd thought they were.

I may be blue forever after, but life can't always be diamonds and dreams.

 I need to knock something out, I guess. I'm just not switched on today for whatever reason. One of those days where I woke up in a bad mood and stayed in a bad mood. I don't know why but there it is.

 As I think I've said, I had some paying work this week and that's cut down a bit on my fooling around. I didn't do anything over a Tumblr but did keep up The News. Nothing great, granted, but all solid stuff. Sort of a solid B outcome that makes, if for nothing else, a nice baseline.

Monday

Wednesday

Friday

 One of the reasons I've stayed in a bad mood is the country's attitude concerning how we're dealing with the COVID-19 outbreak. All over the country, AstroTurfed "protests" against governors' stay-at-home orders have popped up with goddamn Trump egging them on. It's gotten seriously dumb, too, with people claiming everything from communist-backed plots to dark warnings of Satanic influences pushing humanity towards the Armageddon.

 And frankly, this is all just too stupid for me to deal with. The media's laziness is helping the rather small group of loud yay-hoos with financial backing from the same people who own Blackwater, making it seem larger and more influential than it really is. In his daily rallies, Trump's gotten increasingly unhinged, not just in this area but in general. However, since most of these protests have taken place in states governed by Democrats - except one in Austin, Texas, led by Alex Jones for some reason - this has played into his stirring up the people as well as stroking his ego.

 It's so dumb and I've got to the point where I say damn the torpedoes and let the humanoids "go back to work" if that's what they want. There's enough liquid wealth in this country that we could keep everyone comfortably afloat well past the time it'd logically take scientists, medical experts and epidemiologists to maybe figure out something to actually deal with this epidemic that's caused the deaths of over 38,000 people. However, the wealthy class apparently cannot tolerate even a slight loss in the never-ending flow of cash into their dragon horde-like piles, much less throw in a little dosh to help the people that actually do all the labor that makes them rich.

 Those same scientists, medical experts and epidemiologists are saying that while this "social distancing" and "stay-at-home" orders - the very thing these peckerwoods are "protesting" - are actually working and giving folks a much needed breather. These same people are also screaming about hospitals artificial inflating numbers for governmental funds or, even dumber, Bill Gates is trying to slip in some sort of tracking device into any potential vaccinations.

 Of course, this is pulling in not just the anti-vaxxers nutters and Sovereign Citizen goons as well as the Q dingbats and Second Amendment clowns. Plus Alex Jones, so just plain old conspiracy grifters. Sort of a Justice League of the most embarrassing ideologies in the United States with the added bonus their actions will probably lead to more COVID-19 cases and deaths, and the President is wetting himself in glee as he explicitly gives them the nod and goads them on.

 If it weren't for my friends and family that could die from this, including my 70-year-old mother, I'd say to hell with them. They shriek about their Constitutional rights being trampled by state tyranny, when none of that has happened, mainly because they have no idea how that's supposed to work. At the same time, Trump's people are making money off this hand over fist while they actively work to dampen the people's ability to influence their government. And these wingnut dipsticks are hoping the federal government trounces the states' sovereignty because if you didn't know conservatives weren't hypocrites already, I can't help you.

 And don't get me started on the "I refuse to vote for Joe Biden because I really don't care what Trump represents and what he'll do with another term because it doesn't affect me" Left. Left to swing in the wind by Bernie Sanders - a fine example of why the hope of a Great Man to come and fix everything is a dumbass stance - they've now turned on Noam Chomsky because he's endorsed voting for Biden to get what he calls the "gangster in the White House" out. It's sort of funny to watch the Twitter political science brigade twist themselves in knots over this while still claiming their voices are worthy of my attention. "Punishing the DNC" is more important than any harm Trump could do and if his election basically kills any progressive moments for the next two generations, it's worth it if the Democratic party knows they don't like them.

 Ah, me. I'm just in a bad mood, like I said, and I've actually had a fairly quality week. I got some great feedback from my Editor at the new Freelancer gig. It's only going to score me around $70 or so, but the ego boost is worth its weight in gold. Furthermore, it wasn't the distraction and disruption I worried it might be. It all came along easily like in the old days, and that's an even better boost to my self-esteem. I don't know quite how to explain it, but losing that little skill staggered me pretty badly for quite a while. But here we are and that's good.

 Plus, I'm still pumped about the upcoming release of XCOM: Chimera Squad next Friday. More I look into it, the more pumped I become. I went back and played a little Rebel Galaxy Outlaw last night and it's still a fun little mess if a bit grindy. Still working on From Eternity To Here and starting to finally get out of the "here, we have to explain quantum mechanics/Einstein's relativity/basic cosmology first" weeds to get into the good stuff. Something else worth noting is that was the book I had on deck way back when I quit reading for whatever reason I quit reading, so again, another nice ego boost.

 Okay, it's getting late and the internet's being a pain, so let's go ahead and pinch this one off.

My words are all true. I'm lying to you, but the words that you hear are all mine.

 I think all this is going well, this Work and Fun business. After knocking out last night's News, I wound up writing one of my assigned pieces of Work in the wee hours and laid down the other one this morning. I'm still getting the flow of things but I do think they came out well. It is pretty dry stuff, but one of them at least let me have a little fun.

 Anyhow, the world moves along at the dumbass pace this reality finds itself in. Rolling off the president's incompetence, mendacity and constant flip-flopping, another group of states have gotten together to work out their "reopening" amongst themselves. The governors of Illinois, Michigan, Ohio, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Indiana, and Kentucky have signed a multi-state agreement to coordinate strategies for reopening their economies, and why not. The president proves on a daily basis that he is indeed playing favorites, his favorites still manage to suck at their job, and his goons actively organize AstroTurf organizations to make things harder for "disloyal" governors for some damn reason, probably because they're bastards.

 Apparently he's still pushing for May 1st as the day the country is supposed to "reopen," whatever the hell that means. I don't see why it's such a hanging manner. Apparently thanks to the recovery of the stock market, the 10 most billionaire billionaires made an additional $51 billion by doing what appears to be absolutely nothing. As I've said, I don't really grok the stock market or why it's necessary for mankind's continued survival, but that's nice work if you can get it. Why we can't tax a modicum of that extra $51 billion they weren't hurting for so other 327,999,990 million of us can eat is beyond me.

 Speaking of rich rat bastards, Georgia's nepotism Sen. Kelly Loeffler - best known for being given her seat and making a shit-ton of more money thanks to insider trading at the dawn of the COVID-19 pandemic - has been assigned to the "task force to reopen America" because why the hell not. I refuse to believe Trump has that much wit to do something like this as a cruel twist. He's just a dumbass who doesn't give a shit.

 Let's see, what else... well, Elizabeth Warren finally came out and endorsed Joe Biden, which for some reason set the rabid ding dongs who can't accept Bernie Sanders wasn't just given the nomination by the party leadership he's been flipping off for the past five years. He, of course, readily endorsed Biden just a few days after he dropped out of the race, but Warren's endorsement opened those days-old wounds.

 So they've spent the day howling about "scorched earths" and Warren's obvious treachery against Saint Bernie. Where all this comes from, I don't know and really don't understand. Maybe it's just how my brain works, but this "Great Man Who Will Save Us All" is quite possibly the most dangerous and distracting aspect of American politics.

 For one, it's too much to lay on one person's shoulders. The ding dongs would have lost their minds if Sanders had actually won the nomination and found himself in the position of making the sausage of politics. That would have happened. And had he actually become president? Hoo buddy, to get anything done he would have had to do some serious shucking and jiving to get Medicare For All passed. Their heads would've exploded like popped zits if Warren gets them this het up.

 Look, y'all. There are no Saviors. There are no Great Men. Trump's loony followers think he's the Great Man, their Savior. If you think that's the way things should work, how society should run, then neighbor, you have been drinking some bad buttermilk.

 We see this so much lately, and not just from conservatives who you kind of understand they act that way. Liberals, leftists, socialists, communists, hell, even some anarchists for some goddamn reason. I really don't get it. I thought we'd left all this sort of thing behind when we collectively decided "divine right" was a bullshit stroke. Ah, well.

 I believe that'll do. I've written a good bit in the past 24 hours and I think that is plenty. Still looking forward to XCOM: Chimera Squad and will probably plop down the bread for it when it's released. Maybe give it a day to see what the "critics" say about it. I've already broken my rule with Rebel Galaxy Outlaw and that worked out well. Besides, between my birthday the other day and recent Work joys, I'm due a reward. And hey, if the Work blows up in my face, I'd need a treat to sooth the burn. Winner all the way around.

They say that murder ain't the cause of the weapon

 I had to shut it down today. Woke up from yesterday's nap in a foul mood that only got worse as I knocked out last night's News. Woke up this morning even gloomier, as bad as I've been in a while. Just one of those days, you know?

 Thankfully, today's nap seems to have shaken things loose. I'm not exactly dancing on the ceiling but at the very least I don't have that black cloud sitting on my face. Every little bit helps, I suppose. Part of the reason I'm in such a squirrelly mood is because I am, at best, a neurotic mess. I may have mentioned it here, but I've got a possible job opportunity I'm working on. Long story short, I haven't heard back whether I have the gig or not and I cannot stand having to wait to hear back from people.

 It's perfectly natural I haven't heard back after a day, as they no doubt have more important things to worry about than my mood. The one thing I have learned from this whole big nothing is how much of my own mental well being I have wrapped up in being able to consider myself a writer. Whether that right there is healthy or not, well, that's the issue.

 For what it's worth, this whole blogging thing and all the different types of things I do, from this Gibberish to the News to whatever I wind up calling the Tumblr stuff, ain't really giving the rush I need. Back when I was a working journalist, I got a little buzz out of seeing my name in a byline or even when I wrote something anonymously. Knowing people seeing it was enough.

 Ego is one of the greatest reasons any sort of artist (writer, musician, dancer, etc.) does what they do where someone else can see it. It's not the sole reason but if anyone tells you otherwise, they are lying. Sure, people see this, or so the viewer counts tell me. I still haven't managed to garner more than 10 readers a day apart from once or twice. I don't know if I even have any regular readers. I'm not sure how to get them. By nature, I am not comfortable advertising myself.

 There's no reason to be blogging, really. I could just bang out some stuff on Google Docs or a writing app I've downloaded. Since getting back into writing, I've read a lot of stuff on the mindset of being a writer, how you're supposed to think of yourself to be one. Frankly, the best advice I've ever seen still comes from Billy Crystal's character in Throw Mama From The Train: "A writer writes. Always."

 I used to think - and still pretty much do - that three things define a writer: a need to tell a story, having a story that needs to be told, and just being enamored of the physical, mechanical process of writing. Somewhere in there, it becomes a way to make a living, and you become either a newspaper reporter (or content creator or medical transcription writer or what have you) or Philip K.Dick. When I got burnt on writing back years ago, I lost the third aspect. It got painful and caused much misery. I like telling stories, but I've always dug putting words together to make something coherent.

 And, as it turns out, when I stopped writing, I lost sight of what it meant to be me. I just drifted through the world. This all ties together, because once I quit writing and once my last relationship ended, all I did pretty much was work, sleep, smoke pot and start it all over again. The last four years in New Orleans are a serious blur and all I remember is working jobs I hated.

 So, now I'm thinking of myself as a writer but the total lack of success or feedback is an issue I need to figure out how to crawl over. I don't have to do this to make a living anymore. It's just for fun, and it has been a lot of fun. I keep telling anyone who pretends to care that this right here is the best part of my day. It occupies my entire interest for the day, what to let out for the Gibberish or what to pay attention to for the News. I'm having a good time, it'd just be nice if I was helping someone else have a good time. Ah, well.

 That's enough bellyaching. The lovely weather we've been having turned to rain this afternoon and it's supposed to get cooler, with more rain peeking in once in a while. I'm still working on the goddamn From Eternity To Here because it asks a whole hell of a lot. Last couple of days I've been revisiting Dragon's Dogma: Dark Arisen and it is a barrel of monkeys. Your standard high fantasy hack-and-slash third-person RPG, it's got some weird aspects that set it apart from the pack as well as a really fun combat system. It's a couple years old and starting to show it, but if you're into games like Skyrim or The Witcher, it might be worth checking out. I'd wait until it's on sale, though.

 Okay for now. I think that's enough. Sorry for the bellyaching, but sometimes it's necessary. Thanks for putting up with it.

Don't you know her when you see her? She grew up in your backyard.

 I am sick to the teeth of writing on COVID-19. I am exhausted about writing how the president is a callous moron. I am tired, tired, tired of writing about how he might actually be the president this country deserves because this country's full of complete bastards who get off on watching people get ground under the hell of corporate boots. So, hopefully, that's got that out of my system.

 Granted, I've been staring at the rest of this screen for the past half hour and nothing else comes to mind but the blind, seething rage at the world's stupidity and awfulness and mean dumbness, followed by resignation to our fate of never traveling the stars because we need science to focus on making pills that get flaccid cocks hard. And while that may make for interesting prose, it's tough to keep going for too long. Besides, half the point of this whole affair is working on making my overall mood as something other than Plath-esque gloom and righteous indignation.

 Well, this isn't going well. On top of the first paragraph up there, I'm pretty tired as in "exhausted and weary". I'm still not getting enough rest, CPAP machine or no. I don't understand why I'm so sleepy all the time, but there you go. This is all very interesting, isn't it? Okay, moving along.

 I finally dug into Nexus: The Jupiter Incident which I'd picked up on sale at Good Old Games yonks ago. It's pretty neat, a real-time strategy space conflict-type game. Something like Homeworld if that's at all familiar. If not, you play a captain of a big ol' space freighter-type thing, more like a Star Destroyer than an X-Wing fighter. Instead of concentrating on blowing up the opponent, your problem is managing power, issuing orders, transfering repairs to different parts of the ship, that sort of thing.

 The backstory is fairly interesting, too. Rather than being part of a military like in most of these types of games, the various factions are powerful corporations. I'm not sure if it's my leanings towards anarchism or just basic cynicism, if we ever make it to space travel, I see us getting by less on centralized governments or even federations, and geared more towards corporations and business interests. Ever seen the Mystery Science Theater 3000 episode that took on the '60s Hammer space film Moon Zero Two, which actually wasn't that bad? Something like that. I'm not saying it's a primo outcome, that's just how I see things.

 Anyhow, while not rock hard, the science is a little better than the usual fantastic stuff. Humanity's only colonized the solar system to, far as I can tell, Jupiter. A trip from Phobos to Europa takes eight months, that sort of thing. I do like hard science fiction, but far too often creators, especially authors, think that means "really boring". This is more along the lines of Cowboy Bebop than Star Trek, though I do think some sort of faster-than-light drive comes into play. No aliens, either, but I've already recovered some fantastically advanced technology, so I reckon it's only a matter of time.

 I don't know if I've made a full shift from sword-&-sorcery fantasy to science fiction, though it's looking that way. I do that when it comes to video games, my interest shifts not between types of games so much as types of background stories. Science fiction, fantasy, and true crime, with the odd Western thrown in. There are very few good Western games. I'm told the Red Dead Redemption games are killer bee, but the only one available for PC is $60 and 140-plus gigs. I'm in no hurry. Maybe when I get a little more money coming in, I'll buy a console.

 Okay, what else, since I have nothing interesting going on in my brain. Days like this really makes me wish I had a bit of the good smoke, if for no other reason than I find it stimulates creative thinking. Still working on From Eternity To Here by Sean Carroll and still enjoying it. It's still in the "let's go over this very complicated if mundane physics knowledge that makes up the background for the really wild shit later in the book" stage of things, but it's doing that very well. Maybe it's because I haven't read any of this type of book in ages but I am thoroughly enjoying it.

 I guess that's plenty for now. Maybe more later, maybe not.

Summer of Roses.

 Before we get started, here's this week's News:

Monday

Wednesday

Friday

 Check it out. Most of it's concerning the COVID-19 business that's turning out to be a much bigger deal than people figured, how badly the federal government and my state's government is handling it, and the utter rat-bastardry of the billionaire class and Corporate America. None of that comes as a surprise, granted, but I've been taken aback at what kind of craven boob Tate Reeves is turning out to be. Admittedly, I was giving him a low bar from the get-go but this is ridiculous.

 The internet's been blinking on and off since Thursday night, and it's driving me up the wall. It's never that long, mind. Just long enough to disrupt any downloading or uploading I might be doing. Plus, every time her country classics internet drops, Momma hollers to ask me if it's down again. First world problems, I know.

 The issue is, one, no radio reaches out here. Two, we're too far out to get cable and digital television is spotty. Me, I can read or play video games or, do like I did today, nap all day. Momma reads a good deal, too, but she goes through periods. Furthermore, she gets all her books from the library and hasn't been since this whole COVID-19 business started. She's big into the self-distancing and my sister-in-law (who works in the health industry) is freaking out a bit over it, which makes Momma freak out even more. Me, I just want quiet since I can't get any weed.

 It's 81 degrees at 7 p.m. near the end of March. That's too damn hot. We had a very mild winter and I imagine we're going to have one mother of a summer. We're supposed to get some rain tonight and possible bad weather, so it's muggy as well, too Apparently they had a pretty nasty tornado up in Jonesboro, Arkansas, because the weather trying to wipe us all out is all we need.

 Dammit, there it goes again. I wouldn't be surprised if it wasn't being throttled down due to heavy use or because the telephone company that provides it is a bunch of bastards. Whoops, now it's back. Momma ran into an old buddy of mine from way back who works for the area power company says we'll be getting broadband by the end of the year, and we might get it before the end of the summer. This was, of course, before the Plague settled in, so who the hell knows.

 For the record, I'm digging the new format and think it's working well. More than once, because of the frame of mind I'm in, I've been able to knock out the Daily Peace before my nap and spend the evening just adding little touches. I think tomorrow I'll do a short post over at the WordPress site bringing it all back home tomorrow, linking everything there, here and the Tumblr site in one place, if I wrote anything at the Tumblr site, I don't remember if I did and I'm not in the mood to go looking anything up.

 Speaking of writing, I got some good news. I'm not going to go into detail until I get it nailed down. Not because I'm worried about jinxing it so much as things usually just don't work out for me. If there's two bowls of chili left, I'm the third guy in line, that sort of thing. It's nothing major but if it does come across, it'll not only be a good step in my mental health but will also bring a bit loose change in, and that ain't bad a'tall.

 Otherwise, that's about it, I guess. Watching the federal government and 150 years of competent central government, at least (and at best), fall completely to pieces because of the truculent, petty dickhead in the White House is something else. He's basically gone in front of the entire country and said if the states want federal help, their governors need to be nicer to him. That's just goddamn crazy, and what's crazier is he's talking about actively punishing governors who're mean to him or have been a thorn in his private side.

 There is a discussion to be had about how powerful the federal government should be and how much power it should have. That's pretty much been at the heart of the American Question, one way or another. I vacillate, admittedly, and my problem is that the federal government can be a force for good and help people get by with gettin' by, but ours is more concerned with a twisted version of Jefferson's Agrarian society, where the rich are rich and the poor can get bent. I can actually understand the libertarian argument against a strong centralized government, I just don't trust corporations to be any better and, indeed, have shown themselves to be worse by miles with what regulation they have now.

 Still, I don't think anyone can argue that this is the way to approach it and if they're fine with it, they're much too garbage a person to deserve anymore of your attention. People are getting hurt and are increasingly finding themselves up against the wall as Big Business doesn't even pretend to care about anything beyond increasing their profits and just being dicks. I am seeing a lot libertarians crawling out from under their rocks to cheer for this collapse because they think they'll come out on top rather than as mulch for someone's garden.

 Anyhow.

House Keeping

 Hey, for what it's worth, I'll be posting the links to this week's Gibberish either tomorrow night or Saturday morning, depending when I get tomorrow night's knocked and what kind of mood I'm in. We'll see what comes out.

 I think for the foreseeable future, I'm going to stay with putting all the Gibberish on the WordPress site and try to come up with something clever for this. If you wish for more of my sublime genius, there's also the Tumblr blog for writing about music and art, plus the occasional dip of the toe into political discourse. I try not to interact with people as much as possible, especially on line. I really don't like conflict, to be honest, and I'm perfectly comfortable with the size of my dick.

 For more jibber-jabber, there's the Twitter feed, but even there I don't go seeking arguments with random internet yay-hoos who can't be slapped if they deserve it. I do occasionally go back-and-forth with someone whose opinion and intelligence I already respect, but I'm not going to waste my time trying to out-scream some right-wing dingbat or cosplay socialist, neither of whom really bother to read up on whatever drives them to such couch-chewing rage if you disagree with them.

 I guess I could use this for random, late-night navel gazing when I can't sleep, much like I'm doing now, or the odd outraged shout into the Void when the mood strikes. I'm going to try to keep it bellyaching-free as much as possible, especially since I can't keep it out of the WordPress site. Or for that matter, the Tumblr blog or the Twitter feed, but what are you going to do. Find me a writer who isn't an ego-driven clown that can't help telling what kind of whiny asshole they are. Can't be done. Proust? Camus? Faulkner? Humongous piss-babies.

 I do wish I could come up with something specific to write about beyond my fascination with politics and the odd bellyache. I do want to write up a review of Swamp Dogg's new record, though. Maybe I'll post that here with links in that night's Gibberish. I may also review the Bottle Rockets' most recent record, Bit Logic, even though I'm two years behind the curve. I finally got around to listening to it, though, and it's really, really good. Arguably their best record front-to-back since Brand New Year almost 20 years ago.

 I love the Bottle Rockets, and since Dancing Eagle left the Supersuckers, they might be might favorite band I don't know as well as I know The Drive-By Truckers. Dancing Eagle - and I don't know his given name and can't find anything online that tells me - was the original drummer, and I've come to decided that a good rock & roll band centers primarily around its rhythm section. Furthermore - and I'm a bass player, so I hate to admit this - you got to have a good drummer. The Band had Levon Helm, the Rolling Stones have Charlie Watts and the Beatles have Ringo Starr. Why did the Who bore on their last two albums? Keith Moon died. Why did Led Zeppelin break up? John Bonham died. Drummers are important. You can plug in any guitarist or bass player you want, but once you lose that main-most drummer, the game is over.

 The only band I can think of off the top of my head that shakes this rule of thumb is Lynyrd Skynyrd, who had two great drums during their classic years in Bob Burns and later Artemus Pyle. Of course, once Skynyrd reformed in the early '90s, Pyle only lasted two records which are, coincidentally, the only two post-plane crash studio albums worth listening to. I don't blame that on Pyle leaving, though, so much as Ronnie Van Zandt was such a good songwriter that he just could not be replaced.

  The reunion album Booker T. & The MG's did back in the '90s, That's The Way It Should Be, recorded after Al Jackson's death in 1975, is pretty fun, but they're such a iconic, recognizable sound. You get a solid enough drummer, you're good, and they had Steve Jordan who is rock solid. I haven't put too much time into their first post-Jackson album, Universal Language, so maybe I should see how my theory holds up immediately after the fact. Indeed, the band's most popular, well-known song "Green Onions" featured original bassist Lewie Steinberg rather than the legendary Donald "Duck" Dunn, who dies in 2012. Hopefully, Booker T. and Steve Cropper won't ever pull a Who.

 Okay, that was fun. I've let this sit for half-and-hour while I put a bunch of Eric Ambel songs back on my iTunes, so I might as well wrap it up and post it for no one to read.