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Cake day: July 3rd, 2024

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  • Strange New Worlds catches the feels of TOS without feeling dated. It honors the best of TOS, Next Generation, DS9, and Voyager, but leaves behind the parts that don’t really work anymore. There are women on the bridge and Rick Berman’s shadow is long gone. Although there is still some interpersonal drama, it doesn’t feel nearly as center stage as it did in Discovery, focusing more on the adventure and focusing less on ACTING-centric monologues that made Discovery unbearable sometimes. I wouldn’t call the politics luke warm, though they are maybe a more subtle and less center stage than they were in Discovery. In general, my feeling is that Strange New Worlds has distanced itself from all the parts of Discovery that didn’t work for me.

    My chief gripe is that Spock is often way more emotional than makes sense.

    -A millennial that watched every episode of Next Generation at least twice, once when they aired and again from VHS tapes when my dad got home from work. I guess I’ve watched them all way more than twice now.







  • All of those kinds of communities, where people tell anecdotes about their lives, turned into creative writing excerises for wannabe authors long before we had to worry about AI slop. TIFU, AmITheAsshole, RelationshipAdvice, etc. were all getting pretty derivative and sensational for clicks long before the exodus. Now they’re all either that or illiterate attention seekers showing off the results of their latest LLM prompts. I liked those stories too, but I don’t want anything to do with any of those communities anymore. It all just turned into a training ground for LLMs generating engagement. YouTube still tries to force those dumb AI story voiceover videos to me constantly. We used to joke that “nothing ever happens”, but everyday that sentiment feels a little less cynical and a little more real.



  • Pineapple pizza really is kinda meh by itself. But, pineapple + jalapeno + a salty/savory topping like pepperoni can be amazing.

    Semi-tangential non-sequitor: The news algorithms offered up the recipe for an “Italian treat” recently that had me appalled and curious in the same way I expect pineapple pizza haters are. It was very ripe cantaloupe slices wrapped in prosciutto. I don’t even really know what to say. I just don’t want to be alone in knowing about that monstrosity.


  • First of all, yes, those look like shit. Brown gravy? Square flat bricks that I assume are meant to be biscuits? Just awful.

    But, an over easy or sunny side up egg is always a welcome addition to biscuits and gravy. That’s the only thing they got right.

    I really don’t get how people screw up the gravy so badly. It’s just sausage crumbles in a pan, coated with flour once the fat has rendered (melted) a bit, then adding milk or cream and pepper to your desired consistency and taste respectively. Simmer and add spices until it looks good. Maybe add some minced sage if the sausage doesn’t have it already. If you’re not starting your gravy recipe for biscuits and gravy with sausage, you’re doing it wrong and should be ashamed. It doesn’t come from a box. It’s not white as a sheet and devoid of spice or flavor. It’s not vegetarian. It’s not gluten free. It’s also not brown gravy, which is made entirely differently using fond to give it the brown color.

    The biscuits are no better. Even Bisquick biscuits from a box would turn out better for most people than these depressing bricks.



  • He was TOO good at the satire. On the left dum-dums thought he was actually right, while on the right dum-dums thought he was on their side.

    Also, I think people are hitting their limit of joking about the collapse of democracy and civil society. I know I am. I know there are now movies, TV, and books that I might have found interesting in less interesting times; now it all just hits too close to home. John Oliver can hit those “too close to home” topics and move on to other things. But it always felt like when Colbert was doing his conservative pundit schtick, he was trapped in it. It was harder to laugh along with him about other things that weren’t specifically about that kind of satire. He might have had some more material of a particular idiom if he’d stuck with it, but that idiom can wear thin.