Month: May 2024

pickle-palooza

Posted on by admin

Is anyone else more than a little concerned about social media and AI’s ability to predict what we want and what our lives should contain?

For example, Facebook has apparently decided that I’m attending an event called Pickle-Palooza today.

I’ve never heard of this and I’m not entirely certain what it is. Is this a farmer’s market for brined cucumber-philes? Or is it a Farmers Only event for um, those with pickles?

I don’t know, and I don’t know why Facebook’s algorithm thinks I need this in my life?

AI is just weird.

Target: 600 word
Written: 199 words, novella: The Mungk

Read: Awaken The Giant Within, Tony Robbins
Comics: Aphrodite IX 11, Aphrodite IX/Cyber Force 1, IXth Generation 1-2
Music: Off To See The Lizard, Jimmy Buffett

jet fresh flow

Posted on by admin

I ain’t got it.

Beck’s better at it than I. So is Flava Flav, Eminem, Ernest Hemingway, Erica Jong and Jules Verne.

I ain’t got it.

My niece raps better than I do. The other one sings better.

Everyone connects better with one another.

I am a non-valence electron, there but not involved, outside the chemical process, lurking in the outer ring.

I ain’t got it.

Target: 600 words
Written: 140 words, novella: The Mungk

Read: Awaken The Giant Within, Tony Robbins
Comics: Aphrodite IX: Hidden Files, Aphrodite IX v2 8-10
Music: Of The Blue Colour Of The Sky, OK Go

oh god that poor child

Posted on by admin

That’s what I think when I hear super rich people are having children, especially when they’re known to have been shitty little people themselves.

That poor fucking child.

And here I am, writing the length of a tweet for the thing I love.

Poor fucking child.

Target: 600 words
Written: 140 words, novella: The Mungk

Read: Yellow Birds, Karen Green
Comics: Aphrodite IX v2 4-7
Music: Odelay, Beck (the jet fresh flow... wait... get fresh?  I like jet fresh better)

flame out or flicker

Posted on by admin

I thought, when I was young, I was going to join the twenty-seven club. It was a dream.

Explode through the atmosphere, a fucking rocket on its way to etch its name across the sky only to explode spectacularly and leave its legacy falling from the sky.

Instead, I’m a half-broken sedan (well, more minivan based on weight), middle-aged and failing, and the only mark I’ve left on the world is some pets that loved me, and whom I love.

At least I know I made that difference.

(I miss you, little butts – Magnus, Loki, Nyka and Cassie Bear).

Still, is there a forty-seven club?

Could I start one?

How about ninety-seven?

Things never go how you will them to; it’s coincidence, circumstance and bio-mechanics that determine where we end up.

And for most of us, it’s the dirt, not the sky.

Target: 600 words
Written: 108 words, novella: The Mungk

Read: Yellow Birds, Karen Green
Comics: Aphrodite IX 4, Aphrodite IX v2 1-3
Music: Odds & Sods, The Who

met gala

Posted on by admin

Who cares? At least, it wasn’t entirely ridiculous this year, but honestly, it always pisses me off when you see these celebrities dressed absurdly, in a stunning display of myopia toward the lesser off classes beneath them.

What’s worse is that some of the worst offenders are those who ardently support social reform in favour of the lower classes.

Not for them, apparently. It’s hard to stomach a well-known bleeding heart celebrity who then turns around and dons some absurdly expensive dress to go hobnob with other similarly well-off individuals while sipping champagne and slurping caviar.

It is one of the worst displays of concentrated wealth and the whole “first class” citizen versus the rest of us, and even the most liberal of celebrities cream themselves in order to go and wear some absurdly lavish get-up to remind us how utterly vapid they are, and how little they actually care about the social causes they espouse the rest of the year.

It’s Masque of the Red Death shit, partying in extravagance while the rest of the world burns around them.

Fuck the Met Gala.

Target: 600 words
Written: 462 words, novella: The Mungk

Read: Yellow Birds, Karen Green
Comics: Aphrodite IX 0-3
Music: October, U2

office days

Posted on by admin

Well, every third week, my days get a little tighter, when they can no longer stand to be.

The noose scratches at my neck.

I don’t remember who put it on, but everyone that comes by seems to give it a solid yank.

To nudge the chair under my feet.

How soon we do swing.

Today’s dark musing brought to by L7 and One More Thing.

Target: 600 words
Written: 94 words, novella: The Mungk

Read: Carrie, Stephen King
Comics: Tom Judge: End Of Days 1
Music: Oceania, Smashing Pumpkins

and, we’re out

Posted on by admin

Like I said, Leafiest way possible, with a heavy helping of referees demonstrating the league’s blatant bias.

Fact: that was not a hooking call on Knies. Fact: that was a trip on a breakaway against Knies that should have lead to a penalty shot, or at a minimum, a tripping penalty (but the rule states penalty shot).

It’s still up to the teams to execute, but other than maybe games 1 and 4, I thought they played pretty well. So, it becomes a question:

If the league calls the games fairly, and applies its own rules to both teams, and doesn’t make up penalties for one while ignoring flagrant violations for the other, how does this series go? Marchand takes, at a minimum, four to six more penalties, McAvoy (aka Marchand lite), takes at least two or three. The Leafs powerplay wasn’t doing great, but still: a goal one way or the other could tip a game in a very tight series.

If say, the league applies its own standards to the Bruins, then Brad Marchand is ejected from the game for shoving a ref, followed by the requisite and automatic three game suspension, which means he’s not in game 7. (I mean, honestly, if Brad Marchand, who would make everyone’s top five list of the dirtiest players in the game, where actually called like one of the dirtiest players in the game, I don’t think he’d even have a career. Instead, he gets a free pass and makes the league look like a joke.)

If say, the referees make a proper call on Knies’ breakaway, how does the resulting penalty shot affect the game? Certainly, if all other things remained the same, it’s 2-1 Leafs at the end of the game, and not overtime.

The fact is, this corrupt manipulation of games in favour of some teams in favour of others has gone on long enough and become more and more blatant as they continue to get away with it.

I don’t know what needs to happen, but they are ruining the game for me. I used to watch all the games; now I watched a handful, only because I happened to be someplace where it was on. I tuned back in for the playoffs, but with the expectation that I was going to see exactly what I saw – the Leafs getting fucked, them not being able to play as aggressive as the other team because they know this is the case and they have to avoid the box, and ultimately, trying their best knowing they have no chance because the League won’t allow it.

Over the past thirty-ish years with Bettman, he’s taken the speed, the offense, the physicality and now, the integrity out of the game. Personally, I think #corruptNHL needs to trend so hard he’s forced to resign, or there are congressional hearings, class action lawsuits and the teams getting screwed need to hold back parity funds.

Oh, and Boston? The league wants Florida to win (they love those money-losing, small market teams that only remain in existence because teams like Toronto, Boston and New York subsidize them), so I look forward to hearing you whine about the refs are biased against you in the second round. Now, you’ll know how it feels.

#fireBettman #fireParros

Target: 600 words
Written: 128 words, novella: The Mungk

Read: Carrie, Stephen King
Comics: Universe 5-8
Music: Ocean Of Confusion: Songs of Screaming Trees 1989-1996, Screaming Trees

game 7, for reals

Posted on by admin

Today’s the day. Are we going to break the curse of the Boston strangler, or are going to Leaf it up in the Leafiest way we possibly can?

I don’t believe in curses, but I do believe in complacent cultures that think they don’t need to try as hard because they’re making money hand over fist.

I do believe in overwhelming personalities who don’t give a shit about that culture and drag everyone else along with them toward some grand dream.

One of these two teams has that. Tonight, we’ll find out who, and whether the NHL decides to screw them anyway.

Target: 600 words
Written: 60 words, novella: The Mungk

Read: Carrie, Stephen King
Comics: Universe 1-4
Music: Ocean Mist, Sublime

game 7

Posted on by admin

Just a few days ago, my sister and I were joking that, of course, the Leafs will win game 5 and 6 against the Bruins. It’s Toronto. We’re used to it.

It wouldn’t be Leafland if they didn’t build up our hopes, get us back on board and then blow it in the Leafiest way possible.

Nice to see maybe even the refs are getting a little sick of Brad Marchand; maybe the constant public attacks on their integrity and flagrant bias and/or incompetence are starting to register?

I mean, how much different would this league have been over the last 20-30 years if games had been called fairly?

Marchand might not even have a career.

Instead, we get to watch this rat fuck bend and break every rule in the book while refs shrug and say, “Well, he ain’t wearing blue.”

Target: 600 words
Written: 145 words, novella: The Mungk

Read: Gate Of Ivrel, CJ Cherryh (SO. FUCKING. GOOD.)
Comics: Inferno Hellbound 0-3
Music: The Observer Single, The Strokes

monstress

Posted on by admin

There are certain authors and creations that I’m in absolute awe of.

The ability of the Jasons to capture the feel of the South so completely in Southern Bastards. Chip Zdarsky and Matt Fraction’s incredible wit and compassion for their character’s rich internal lives in Sex Criminals. Chuck Palahniuk’s ability to create complexity out of simplicity, to blend “clever art” with something more raw.

The sheer fucking depth and expanse, both internally and in the world-building of Monstress.

Marjorie Liu has created something truly incredible, a world so full and dense that it’s hard to believe it belongs to a comic book. I’m not sure that Game of Thrones is this massive, and the written word allows for much greater detail, in general. Sana Takeda’s extremely detailed art gives that same sense so beautifully, that one almost might believe it’s building the mythos and the world on its own.

I love stuff that requires multiple readings in order to catch all the details, things where that second, third, fourth reading continues to add to the understanding, to improve the experience, to heighten the depth of one’s immersion into the material.

I’m so on board with this series, I kind of don’t ever want it to end (though it inevitably will need to, as all things do, save Batman).

Target: 600 words
Written: 68 words, novella: The Mungk

Reading: Gate Of Ivrel, C.J. Cherryh
Comics: Monstress 51
Music: The Observer, Bjork