As I understand it: To avoid the shutdown, Republicans needed 60 votes. They have 53 senators. Only one Democrat voted with the Republicans. The Democrats had some healthcare related demands that weren’t met, so the shutdown went ahead.

Yeah, I’ve seen the film and it is properly terrible.

By Le Fanu? I read a short story collection from him with Carmilla. It was really good. Le Fanu deserves more modern attention, I think.

I really like Bret Easton Ellis’s books, and a lot of them are horror. I’ll recommend his newest book, The Shards. Other great ones from him are Less Than Zero and American Psycho.

I also enjoyed Red Dragon by Thomas Harris. Possibly better known for it’s filmizations, the book is a really good psychological horror story.

I can’t go anywhere with noisy crowds. The sensory stimulation is too much for me. It’s not fun feeling ready to snap at any moment. Anytime I try going to the wrong kind of places I will regret it, so yeah.

I generally have nothing but a deep sense of loathing for marketing, but I genuinely feel bad for the people who have to try smearing lipstick on this pig.

Seems like the kind of guy I’d want in charge of my company. “Don’t buy my stuff” is some next level 4D marketing.

I happen to know multiple people who haven’t died.

The War of the Worlds by H. G. Wells.

Sounds delish!

Coffee is bean soup.

This brought to mind a collection of asshole admin stories from the early internet. With a bit of googling, it was The Bastard Operator From Hell. God, I haven’t thought of those since the 90s. I can’t believe I could even recall something like that.

Anyway, fuck users.

I recently installed Windows 10 after a few years of Linuxing and holy shit, the updater is just bad. I had more fun running Gentoo updates back in early 2000’s. How is Windows updater so slow? How is it so bad at informing the user what’s going on? How is it that every open source package manager I’ve used handles update infinitely better? Microsoft has a lot engineers, what are they doing with their time? Why is it so bad? Like, just, why?

Yes, my migraines are mostly “silent” these days. As a teenager, I just had the headaches without aura, but that changed with age. Nowadays I get all kinds of weird and uncomfortable pro- and postdrome effects, like ocular aura, but rarely pain. I have a family member whose only migraine symptom is a crippling stomach ache. Migraines are super weird.

Well, yes and no. It’s kind of an area you can’t see, but it’s there. Also, it starts as a small dot and them starts expanding/moving. It’s also flashing, kind of like static noise on an old TV. Luckily those things usually last like 15 minutes or so. Still, not a fun experience.

Dee Snider’s speech at the Senate Hearing is a fucking banger.

Yeah, there’s nothing new under the sun. These conversations are likely as old as humanity. It’s an ongoing and living discussion about societal boundaries. I don’t see it being “resolved” any time soon either.

Jesus, that is so gaudy.

While I find this season hasn’t been terribly well written or even all that funny, I really enjoy watching these episodes. In this time of instability and chaos, it feels somewhat cathartic to see them just go balls-to-the-wall with their insults on these absolute bastards. On a meta level, they seem to be dropping nuance to get reactions from their targets and even hoping to get sued, perhaps looking to shed light on some hypocrisy in their targets. Or maybe they are just Trey and Matt, frustrated at the current political situation and not inclined to give a fuck anymore. Cartman’s confusion is probably just them acknowledging their difficulty parodying people whose entire life is a farce.

The end credits were a fucking riot, though.

Illegitimi non carborundum.

They’re looking to install Nigel Farage as their prime minister. The island is derelict.