In many cases (or so the owners claim), these cars are abandoned or purchased well-used at some kind of auction; occasionally, a dealership will send Mitch a recovered car that has been deemed "uncleanable." But now and again, the reason the car looks so horrible before its detailing is that the owner is simply a fucking slob (charitably, some of these "slobs" have a lot of kids, and it's the kids who wreak havoc in the cars while the harried parents lack the energy to clean up after). I wonder whether I should switch my career path over to car detailing. I've got the mind and personality for that kind of work. Maybe I was meant to be some sort of janitor, custodian, or whatever. I do spend a lot of time "cleaning up" other people's English since they lack the wit or rigor to express themselves well. Just call me Jude Thaddeus.
Tuesday, July 22, 2025
Monday, July 21, 2025
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| How does that reflect on Los Angeles? |
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| red cabbage, too |
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| Old news, but ha ha. |
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| Oi! Ya' lift yer 'edloyts on! |
bye, Squarespace
The whole Squarespace deal seemed convenient at first, but it quickly got complicated once I dove into the morass of things you need to subscribe to and otherwise pay for. I paid for a new domain (bighominid.org... want it?), but that wasn't the same as paying for the Squarespace platform itself. The domain was simply the foundation of whatever house I'd been wanting to build. And here's the other problem: I initially had no difficulty in paying for the domain (the foundation) by credit card, but when it came time to pay for the Squarespace platform (the house going on top of the foundation), I had to fill in my credit-card information again on a separate payment page (big red flag), and the site then refused to process the reentered data. What's up with that? It worked the first time! That problem, more than anything, convinced me to back out of Squarespace entirely, so I canceled my domain purchase and got a refund. Ideally, payment processing should be a simple, smooth, basic thing. Instead, it had turned into a Korean-style nightmare, getting more complicated with every step. No, thanks.
So I need to think of some alternative way to create an online presence. Maybe I should look into app design. Maybe a free diagnostic test of one's grammar, with the paid upgrade being an actual grammar course. Sell it for $3 a pop.
the Tomb Raider start-and-flop
Why do some cinematic attempts (like Fantastic Four) just fail and fail?
The case of Tomb Raider:
B1
I just started Spanish lessons with ChatGPT and my Babbel app. Babbel starts off by putting you through a multiple-choice placement test. I scored "B1," which is apparently low-intermediate. I'm pretty sure I cheated by using my knowledge of French and some higher-than-beginner insights I have about Spanish (I can't form the past tense, for example, but I can recognize it). Also, as I point out in my book, multiple-choice tests are the worst kind of test because any idiot can guess his way through them, and I'm pretty sure I got lucky on some of those questions.
ChatGPT, meanwhile, started me off with mini dialogues. I won't be doing any verbal work on ChatGPT until I set up the app on my phone because the desktop interface has no voice feature. Weird. Meanwhile, I need to set up the Anki spaced-repetition flashcard app so I can start piling on the Spanish vocabulary. I'm a lot older now, so learning Spanish, despite my French background, isn't going to be as much of a breeze as learning French had been when I was but a young hominid. Maybe in a few months, I'll be good enough to start writing some blog entries in basic Spanish. We'll see.
training the boy to bust them rats
It boggles the European mind that inculcation into "gun culture" starts early in America. Kids as young as ten or eleven (or even younger) start learning to shoot. It should be noted that most fathers who teach their kids to use guns do so responsibly; those kids (and those fathers) aren't the ones who routinely make the news. The idiots who make the news tend to be fatherless gang members who learned their idiocy from their equally idiotic peers, and as long as such idiots exist, there will always be a need for saner people to learn responsible gun ownership as a matter of self-defense.
Simply confiscating all guns is no solution: as we see in China and Japan (and occasionally Korea), the murderous impulse isn't curbed by a lack of guns: there's plenty of knife crime in East Asia. "Oh, but guns can kill so many people so much faster than knives!" say the gun-control morons. This is largely because the law, especially in blue states, mandates that people cannot carry weapons when they're in dangerous places despite a clear Second Amendment right to do so. "Gun-free zones" in school areas are catnip for school shooters, who are usually cowards gambling on the fact there won't be adequate security. But in case after case, when citizens are armed and trained in proper gun use, it's the civilians who usually end up putting the criminals down before the police arrive. As the sad proverb goes: When seconds count, the police are minutes away. Never let anyone tell you that you need to rely on the authorities. If you're in a state/country with a clear right to carry, then be ready to save yourself and others when the situation calls for it.
But if, like me, you live in South Korea, where there's no Second Amendment, you'll have to find other solutions than just guns. Otherwise, you're fucked.
Now prepare to be boggled as a boy kills rats.
amnesty
I've never really been against amnesty, but the MAGA stance is that amnesty doesn't work: it merely incentivizes more illegals to cross the border since there are no consequences to illegal entry into the US. That's not an unreasonable argument. My own stance, though, was based on the idea that you can deport people, but if they crossed over once, they can cross over again, i.e., deported people don't stay deported, so you may as well grant amnesty to the millions who are here, but not to the millions more who will try to barge in. Amnesty aside, the best solution, in my opinion, is to help the neighboring country improve conditions to the point where people will no longer feel any desire to leave. Maybe that makes me more of a leftist on this issue, but just like with the "war on drugs," I think the current rightie stance fails to consider certain obvious realities. With drugs, you can't just stop, say, fentanyl at the border: you have to kill demand for the drug. As long as there are junkies in America demanding the drug, there will be a supply. That's the basic reality that needs to be fixed. By the same token, shoring up the border is a good thing, but it doesn't address the basic reality: why are people crossing over to begin with? Kill the desire to leave, and you've killed the problem.
NT Wright: faux theologian?
I vaguely recall reading some NT Wright in grad school—something about the resurrection, I think. Honestly, I can't remember; I have one or two of his books in public storage in Virginia. He's an Anglican, i.e., the polar opposite of an orthodox Catholic. Matt Walsh is a Catholic and a huge conservative, so you can imagine how the video below is going to play out.
Charles's Scotland adventure
Go read about a very windy day Charles had during his recent trip to Scotland.
As I climbed higher, I grew exhausted—not just from the exertion, which was significant but not excessive, but simply from the sheer battering of the wind. This exhaustion was not merely physical; in fact, I would say that the psychological exhaustion was probably worse. I don’t know how to put into words what the constant assault of the wind does to your mind. I felt as if I had never known peace, as if I had always existed as a tiny, isolated figure in a vast, howling maelstrom.
Charles really should read some Stephen R. Donaldson. Donaldson loves putting his characters through things like this. Reaching a goal is never easy.
how they really see you (h/t John from Daejeon)
This video shows you the Mexican perspective on American migration into Mexico. Mexicans are demonstrating en masse—and none of this is being shown in the US media*—about the Americans who come down to Mexico as migrants, install themselves as remote workers ("digital nomads" who aren't really that nomadic, but who are parasitically settling in Mexico to take advantage of cheaper goods and services at the expense of the indigenous population) and leech off the Mexican economy (maybe not for their salary, but for clothing, food, etc.). Mexicans want these people out. Otherwise, they expect the Americans in their midst to learn Spanish (only fair since we Yanks generally expect immigrants to learn English), pay in pesos, and pay local taxes. Oh, and stop with the gentrification (although I'd say that that requires the complicity of the local government/authorities who allow the migrants to settle among the established Mexican community so as to get gringo cash).
The video presenter, Anton Daniels (the black Anthony Daniels?) also contrasts the overt, unabashed racism of the anti-American protests (which the US leftist media are at pains not to reveal to American viewers—look at all of the anti-white signs and graffiti in the video!) with the lax American attitude of "we're cool if you're among us, but be here legally."
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*This was true when John first sent me the link. Some US media may have reported on this since, but I doubt that much was made of the news.
Warren sets off Tim Pool
I run hot and cold with Tim Pool. Below, we see an example of Pool at his worst, being a self-righteous ass. And Warren gets a faceful of vitriol.
Sunday, July 20, 2025
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| Still hard for me to believe there's an actual community of people devoted to this. |
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| Who doesn't love the Hayek memes? |
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| We can only hope. |
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| How do werewolves and Hulks gain weight when they transform? Where's the mass coming from? |
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| "Well, there's The Death of Stalin," said the curmudgeon. |
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| mascots = Kardashians, for example; productive = Elon |
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| I know that feeling. From back in college. I was an idiot then. Still am now. |
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| I don't like Hannity, either. |
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| You're free to leave, bitch. |
processed meat: good or bad?
It's complicated. TL;DR: it's not horrible, but it's also not ideal. Here's why.
first five weeks
I'm slowly copying my fitness program over from the PDFs that ChatGPT generated for me, and I've got five weeks done so far, out of about 23 or 24 weeks. Here's a link to the revised document; you'll have to scroll a bit to see the training schedule/checklist. Part of the goal is to force me to be a morning person, which normally goes against the very grain of my being unless I'm on a cross-country hike. The first page of that document also shows me walking six out of seven days... that might drop down to three or four days, realistically speaking (either MWFSa or TRSa*).
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*MWFSa = Monday, Wednesday, Friday, Saturday; TRSa = Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday; not shown is Su, i.e., Sunday. My day of rest.
why is it so hard to write Spock?
Dave Cullen argues that modern screenwriters don't get Spock right.
Jordan Peterson responds to "loaded question" at Oxford
I would have called bullshit on the questioner's bogus statistics. Of course, it's hard to know what the true stats are, but I think it's safe to say the Israelis don't practice genocide, and they don't wantonly murder innocents the way the Palestinians did (and videoed, and celebrated) on October 7, 2023. A loaded question, indeed.
The Babylon Bee and the Hitler/time-travel trope
I think "Plastic Blunderbuss" would be a nice name for a band.
another snag
I went to Squarespace to start up my new site, but the very first problem I encountered is that Squarespace doesn't work well with VPNs. I have my Surfshark VPN on all the time; when I initially went to Squarespace, the site simply didn't load. I paused my VPN for five minutes, and sure enough, Squarespace appeared. But as soon as the five minutes were up—poof. Squarespace again refused to load. I consulted the Google AI god about why this might be happening; the god listed a slew of possible reasons, half of which I didn't even understand, thus giving me something new to think about. The simplest solution, for the moment, would be to turn off the VPN. But at some point, I'm going to want to turn the VPN back on again. Anyway, expect more updates through the coming week. I can say that Squarespace is serious about using AI for website design. To the extent that the setup method is flexible and modular, I'm going to have to do what I can to personalize my website and keep it looking human. It's a process. Am I going to have to just keep blogging here while I find other alternatives?
the hypocrisy of Big Mike
I like the title of Matt Walsh's video: "Michelle Obama Claims Black Women Are Silenced... While Doing A Podcast." It's like loudly claiming Trump is a fascist when these idiots know full well that no black vans are coming for them. Cowards find it easy to pretend to be brave when they know—but won't admit—there are no consequences to what they do.
Happy 56th!
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| It's always a nice moon. |
Two of the three astronauts from the moon landing are now dead: Neil Armstrong and Michael Collins. Buzz Aldrin, that ornery bastard, still survives (at least as of June 26, when I scheduled this post!).
the problem with central planning
One of the many things that leftists seem utterly unable to comprehend:
Saturday, July 19, 2025
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| us fat Americans |
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| Is this real or just a meme? |
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| a bit dated, but the joke still obtains |
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Yes, chromosomally, a trans person is still his/her original sex. But if s/he is over 18 and not in sports, then, hey, make the change with my blessing. Live your best life. |
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| Cardinal Snoop to become Pope Doobie-ous |
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| One of my grad-school profs was a nun who, instead of saying "Um," would rasp out something like "Arm." |
collapse, already!
By the time I die, China will still be around, flailing wildly like a professional wrestler with leprosy and cancer, never quite knowing when to expire.
tout passe, tout casse, tout lasse
Why would the Japanese abandon their traditional style of housing? Without even watching the video, I can conjecture that population pressure meant building upwards (building downward in earthquake territory would have been folly, not to mention expensive), which would mean modern apartments, not old-style wooden houses, to allow for stacked residences (I hesitate to call them communities since neighbors in these places barely know each other). But the video mentions a host of other reasons, too, varying from sociocultural to practical.
ex-CIA guy reacts to "Mission: Impossible" flicks
Whether you take Bustamante seriously or not, he's got an interesting perspective.
Dr. Becky reacts to "The Expanse"
I thought "The Expanse" was overall a very good, well-acted, well-directed series. But it had its flaws, including how it dealt with physics (despite all the hoopla about how physics-accurate the show was). Reread my review from this past April.
wait, so this might actually happen??
The notion of becoming America's 51st state is being taken seriously in Alberta Province. So maybe I was wrong yet again.
A commenter hilariously writes:
If Alberta joins, then the new map looks like the USA is giving the world the middle finger.
Kind of. But if Alberta joins, the US will have another awkwardly sticking-out bit, a modest answer to the huge, craggy tumor that is Alaska. Alberta is almost the size of Texas at 256K miles2. (Texas is 269K miles2. That's a lot of open range.)
over the hump
[Damn, I started this post around 9:50 a.m. and still haven't published it...]
I wasn't able to do anything more about my exercise chart yesterday as I had a Friday full of errands (renew Costco membership card, get a haircut, etc.) and other things to do (finish scheduling posts for this blog through July... but there will be posts trailing through August before the blog goes dark). This weekend, I've got a few agenda items I want to get through before Monday, which is when I start my new work schedule and exercise schedule. This would include finishing up the exercise chart, finally learning how to use my Korean CGM (continuous glucose monitor), cooking my keto orzo (in the oven as I write this... I'm prepping it like Papa John's risotto, with mozzarella and pepperoni on top), and making keto grilled-cheese sandwiches (probably Sunday). I'm also getting the Squarespace site this weekend.*
As mentioned before, the new blog will be more personal and less political, less current-events oriented; there will likely be a subscription-free meme section where I might feature the types of memes I've been slapping up here (a combination of political and just-plain-humor), but the focus for me will me more on the retarded English (bad punctuation, spelling, etc.) of the memes. The new blog will see me back in teacher/storyteller/thinker/cook/artist mode, which will be a relief for my small-but-stubborn band of leftist readers who can't seem to pull themselves away despite all of my far-right, bigoted content. Except for the memes themselves, the new blog will feature a great deal more original writing and visuals, but since I publish my own stuff at a slow rate (it takes time to think things up, draft, review, then publish), that content will appear correspondingly slowly. For me, this all comes as a relief: it's a new phase in life, but there'll be no more self-imposed pressure to put out opinions on divisive matters. As a result, the new place should be a happier site than this blog, but then again, I might get all crotchety about people's misuse and abuse of language.
In other news, I'm taking a break from all of the diet drinks. After watching a Sten Ekberg video about kidney function, I'm going to rely on water, tea, and coffee** for a while, at least until my paranoia recedes.
Just a little update. You've seen no changes thus far, so I doubt this means anything.
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*It won't be ready for the public for a while, but come by and watch construction.
**I'm not a natural coffee drinker, and when I do drink coffee, it normally has to have a lot of cream and sugar. Traditionally, I've loved the smell of coffee but not the taste (and don't get me started about coffee ice cream). In most cases, I'd rather have hot chocolate. Otherwise, my hot-drink default is tea (or tisane, or thé infusion, etc.). But I have a bunch of leftover packets of Kanu Mild Roast Coffee (a popular Korean brand, concentrated), and I've got plenty of heavy cream, not to mention various faux sugars... which I'll use in moderation. For the kidneys. Not that I've had kidney problems up to now, but for diabetics, kidney health is a concern. Everything goes wrong when you ingest too many carbs.
Ryan George: when movies don't age well
I can relate. There are comedies from my childhood that have aged poorly, not to mention beloved sci-fi movies. It's actually hard to think of movies from any genre that don't age badly, but one film does come to mind right now: "Deliverance" with Burt Reynolds, Ned Beatty, Ronny Cox, and Jon Voigt. This is a much-parodied film because of a few classic scenes in it, but if you watch the actual film—which I really need to review at some point—you'll discover it's an incredible story on its own merits, and even by today's modern standards, it can hold your attention through its unpredictability. When I saw "Deliverance" some years ago, I was blown away by it. Of course, I'd love to see Ryan George's take on the film.
don't be proud, white girl
It’s not about diversity. It’s about pushing out the dominant culture, using shame and Marxist power dynamics to justify pushing that culture out. It’s about making this young lady and the others feel somehow ashamed because they dared to celebrate being British.
Celebrating diversity has never been about actual diversity. It’s always been about trying to create uniformity while only having the veneer of diversity remain. Everyone saying the same thing, the same way, with the same thoughts is diverse if everyone looks the same.
But if you dare to think differently, like thinking the country so many other people went to ostensibly so they could have a better life, is actually a pretty good place, you’re the problem. You must be made to think correctly.
Read the whole thing. I feel sorry for the Orwellian UK.
(And what's up with the headline's grammar?)
Friday, July 18, 2025
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| Until the Democrats let this go, this central issue will cause them to lose over and over. |
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| not so much "red vs. blue" as "high-illegal vs. low-illegal" |
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| Falsus in uno, falsus in omnibus. |
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| I hope this sticks. But I expect shenanigans. |
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| Generation X, you mean. |
