DoNt YoU kNoW HoW tO UsE a GuN?

Today in the Kyle Rittenhouse trial... which is a whole other shit-show of injustice... there is a photo of the prosecutor pointing the AR-15 from the case at what many thought was the jury. Many pointed out that he had his finger on the trigger which started a firestorm of comments about all of the things he was doing was wrong. Wrong how? All of these commenters were gun enthusiasts or had an ample amount of experience with firearms. I agreed with everything they were saying but what I think it's funny, (strange? ironic?) when these people complain and mock non-gun people for handing firearms incorrectly and for not knowing what they know... for saying things like "OMG don't you know you aren't supposed to point a gun at anyone?" or "WTF don't you know you never put your finger on the trigger unless you intend on pulling it?!!" "IDIOT, Dont you know you're supposed to always act like it's loaded no matter what?!!!"

Actually no... No I don't know that.. because there are no regulations for requiring training or testing for skill, coordination, eyesight etc for owning a gun that says I have to by law. There's literally nothing stopping an untrained normie like me from buying something designed specifically to kill things. Other than my own sense of self control and common sense.

The NRA crowd fights so hard to keep their perception of the 2nd Amendment going. No regulations, no rules, no restrictions, but then also complain, even laugh at the audacity of someone who dares to use a gun without knowing how to use it... meanwhile fighting any law that would require what they want. What is also interesting is that the NRA for most of it's existence was the unofficial arbiters of gun control for this country. Now they're just lobbyists.

(This meme might make more sense if you watch I Think You Should Leave on Netflix)

I want to add that I actually do know all of the things I jokingly said I didnt know. I am an observant, curious, intelligent person. I was making a point, much like the scene in the meme above that not everyone knows everything even though you may assume it's common knowledge. Which is why the scene is funny, It's safe for the angry guy to assume an adult behind the wheel of a car, that's pulling out of a parking space would have a driver's license. Moreso than it would for someone with a gun to have gone to training of some kind to learn basic gun safety. Because one is required by law. One isn't. So shut the fuck up or vote for the type of gun control that deep down, you actually want.

I call him "The Photographer" (Fresh Freeze Incident Update)

Some of you might remember The Mysterious Fresh Freeze Incident I posted back in 2016.  You can click the link for the details but basically as I was about to pull out of my parking space after picking up burgers and shakes this dude is standing next to my car yelling at me.   Repeating  "DO NOT TRY TO CONTACT ME - I WILL FILE A RESTRAINING ORDER AGAINST YOU" while snapping as many pics as he could with a little point-and-shoot camera.   I yelled back to see what the fuck he was talking about but he kept snapping pics with the camera backwards as he walked away.   It was totally bizarre and chalked it up to him thinking I was someone else and just kind of laughed it off.  I wrote that blog post and then pretty much forgot about it. 

 That was until I saw him again several months later in the same part of town.  I was at a red light and I was just sitting there waiting for the light to change, checking out the scenery of the intersection and I noticed that it kind of looked like that same guy.  He already had his phone out pointed at me taking pictures!  The light turned green so I just drove off thinking "what the fuck?" ... Then again about a year later I saw him in what appeared to be a shitty dress thing and he did a double take as he saw me pass and then flipped me off.    And again closer to down town, again I was driving and he locked on me as I noticed him and he whipped out the double eagles with full conviction directly at me.  And over the past five years I've had a few more similar interactions with The Photographer.  

Just when I sort of forget about him, I'll see him again and it's as if he's been just walking around town all this time just looking for me.  Ready with a camera phone or middle fingers to let me know he remembers me and that for some reason unbeknownst to me he absolutely hates me and "will file a restraining order against me" I'm reminded of him now because just last week as I was driving home from work on the other side of town and I saw him again... and he totally saw me... snapped his sunglassed gaze directly at me and blasted me with two fully erect middle fingers.  

If anyone knows this guy,  ask him what his deal is with me... and if he thinks I'm someone else, please correct him.  Maybe it's just my car that he's recognizing as someone else.  It's a white 2011 Scion xB.  It's a little creepy but I don't really feel threatened.  It's mostly funny at this point that he's so dedicated to hating me, a total stranger, after five years.   

My Problem With Superman

original art by me @kirkiscool - come at me DC Comics. 

Ok so I probably shouldn't be going off on shit I really don't know that much about.  Especially when it's something a ton of nerds are hella passionate about and will definitely defend.  Well, despite me just casually knowing that this shit exists for the last 30 years of my life I thought I'd give my very unsolicited, uninformed opinion.   Everyone loves those.  

Even as a kid I never really could get into Superman. I've always felt like I was supposed to. He's super after all, but he's basically invincible. If you think about it, there's nothing really exciting about that. There's only one thing can harm him and it's not even something that's naturally found on earth. Why is he super buffed? If he naturally has super-strength from outer space why does he even need muscles? They couldn't just let him be super powerful and completely invincible tho they had to give him X-Ray vision too. Oh but he can't see through lead for some reason. What a bummer to end up on a planet with tons of lead on it. OK, so lead and Kryptonite are the two things that can fuck with him. He has less rules than a vampire. Wait, is he immortal? That makes having a girlfriend kind of awkward. .......Oh yea AND he can fucking fly. HE CAN FUCKING FLY!! What the goddamn fuck? One other thing I just realized... accepting the suspension of disbelief that having underwear outside the pants is just normal alien clothes, why does the underwear need a god damn belt? His whole body can defy gravity but his space underwear tights need help staying up? None of this makes sense.

How have there been nearly100 years of Superman storylines that just have him just majorly winning all the god damn time? I never read a Superman comic but I've seem some of the movies. In the movies the only trouble he ever really faces is from some rich maniac who somehow was able to get Kryptonite. It's like making a comic about a regular sized human that ends up on a planet of just ants and fights ant crime and puts on some ant glasses and works at the ant newspaper and none of the ants notice he's 800 times taller and not an ant. My point is how is this still entertaining? (actually I'd probably check out the ant movie lol)

OH MY GOD I totally forgot another power he has. I can't believe I forgot about his laser beam fucking eyes. This beautiful, perfect, immortal, X-ray vision having flying motherfucker can shoot god damn laser beams from his eyes. And now that I'm thinking about it, he can fly like HELLA fast. He flew so fast once he literally reversed the rotation of the earth and went back in time. As if that's how it works. Morons. Fuck you Superman.
And can we talk about that disguise tho? LOL. I mean, his disguise is more unbelievable to me than the whole story of an alien baby with super powers who can't be killed or hurt being blasted to Earth and raised by farmers in Kansas... without anyone finding out about it. But yea the glasses have everyone fooled? Not to mention he literally works with investigative journalists who's job is to notice shit. "KENT I need you to get to the bottom of this Superman business" "Wait, has anyone seen Clark?" "He's always busy doing whoknowswhat when there's a Superman scoop in progress..... darn that Kent!" Morons!!!!

Another funny thing is that the other super popular DC hero from the last 100 years is a guy with ZERO superpowers who is very mortal but somehow is just as successful at stopping bad guys, not dying and being a popular comic book character... and some could argue a more popular movie franchise. Fuck Superman.  Don't get me started on Supergirl.. How the fuck does that even work?  Wait, you probably totally know and will tell me all about it in great detail, I don't want to know.   And Batgirl while we're at it.  It's like the pink bike or 'Bic Pen For Her' version of comic book heroes. 

I'm sure there's gonna be comic nerds out there screaming at me for this post.  Telling me about some other important aspect to this that I'm probably missing completely that makes bazillions of people love this shit but I don't get it and don't really care.  Superman is dumb. 

Anyway, get vaccinated.  It's kind of like being Superman. Your kryptonite is anti-vaxxers and led is like, not dying from covid but you can still get it....or something...  Whatever, just get the shot. Wear a mask and don't have or attend  superspreader events.  May the force be with you.  Nanu Nanu , live long and prosper. 

Plasma Waste Converters: The Answer To Everything...

 ...and how capitalism will find a way to fuck it up. 

You know that scene at the end of Back To The Future where Doc Brown puts a banana peel and a half full can of Miller Lite into the engine of the Delorian via something called "Mr. Fusion" ? Well this is that.  Kind of.   I learned about Plasma Waste Converters on my favorite podcast Stuff You Should Know.  While listening I was thinking to myself why the fuck is there not one of these plants in every fucking town in the world?   Oh because of the shitty capitalists that run Earth.   The reason I'm so excited about this is because of what it could mean for not only the energy problem but the waste problem us dirty fucking humans have.    Watch this short video.  Or listen to the podcast I listened to.  (You should be listening to these guys anyway)

So basically, you put in literally any kind of trash, normal, gross, toxic or whatever and it converts it into a durable, useable material but also clean hydrogen gas that not only powers the plant itself but also can power your whole fucking town.  Why do we still make stupid solar panels again?  I mean, this is as clean as nuclear power but there's no radioactive waste.  Fuck, it actually eats waste. 

 For us to not be implementing this on a large scale is such a human/capitalist fucking way to go out .  We have the solution but no one wants to rock the boat. I hear the argument that it's too expensive... yet oil companies have no problem building refineries all over the country. Power plants and solar arrays and wind farms are built all over the country. Huge amounts of money is invested in oil drilling and pipelines. Landfills are probably not cheap either. It's not that it's expensive it's that it's not as profitable.  I wouldnt be surprised if energy companies were actively spending money trying to stop these plants from being built.   Chevron could buy or merge with Waste Management and invest in converting Oil Refineries into Waste incinerating power plant trash dumps. Create govt. incentives for waste companies to work with energy companies, or something along one of these lines.

This is some Star Trek "we don't use money any more" utopia-level shit that 21st century, dick-brain Earthlings aren't ready for apparently.

I Was Born in the Mid-Late 20th Century...

...Like a Fucking Artifact that Archeologists In The Future Will Dig Up and Study.

 I just read this comment on a throw away meme that's blowing my mind a little.  The meme was joking about a young person saying that teh movie The Matrix was made in the late 1900's and how its making middle aged people like myself feel old.  The comment someone wrote was talking about a conversation with a kid in the not-so-far future. "...I tell them I was born in the late 1900's ...They go tell their friends that I lived back in the old times of horses and buggies and flip phones, during Vietnam and the Great Depression and WWI because at this point the 1900's is a monolithic century in the distant past that all kinda runs together and they have no concept that 1998 was very different from 1908. " –  insert head_exploding.gif here.

It took me doing a bunch of historical photo research for work to really start to get a grasp of the 1800's.   1808 was very different that 1898. Not as different as the advancements and changes that happened in the 1900's but more that most people think.  Saying the 1900's and the Matrix movie together threw me off since we usually say "19th century" or "20th century"   I always associate late 1800's as 1808-1809 and so on.  It's funny to think that some kid is just gonna yadda yadda the whole 20th century some day tho.

I have also often wondered how the 1970's seemed so much different to me as a teenager in the 1990's than the 1990s does to me now.  So much happened from the 70's to the 90's that I'm sure people who were teens in the 70's notice the difference right? Does the 90's seem as goofy to teenagers in the 2010's as the 70's did to me? Or even the 2000's to kids in high school now? When I was a kid growing up in the 80's the 1960's was like antique Black and White, Hippy fueled Twilight Zone of giant steel cars and olden times.  Were the 2000's that much different than 2021?   Did kids growing up in the 2000's think the 80's was some ancient wood paneled, VHS cassette, neon sit-com, acid-washed, Walkman, MTV Twilight Zone?   Gah.. just crazy to think about.

Yea, The Matrix came out in the "late 1900's" Jesus fucking shit I'm an old person now.

A Year Later

Lately my Facebook Memories feed is full of all of the things that we did a year ago to "get us through a couple months of quarantine" –These things gave us hope that we could survive not only physically but mentally get us through a new temporary way of living.   And it worked– with the hopeful  idea in the backs of our heads that it was going to end soon.  Then spring turned to summer and when the sunny weather didn't 'magically' make it go away autumn arrived cases kept soaring, people kept dying reality set in and all of these fun distractions just devolved into daily reminders of how fucked up this whole thing actually is.   Stores being sold out of N95 masks turned into a new market of fun, designer pandemic masks.  This all was more of a reminder of how shitty people  truly are and how this was probably going to last a whole year.  Or longer.

 

I even jumped on the bandwagon and made some funny stickers.  My band made a social distance demo with a tongue-in-cheek title and album cover.  We were even worried the pandemic would be over before we could release it.   It came out in August. 

 It was just around a year ago I remember seeing the news stories of new Covid outbreaks in the Midwest and New England all traced back to Spring Breakers in Florida.   With every positive news story or low infection day, there was Trump telling a stadium full of unmasked people the virus wasn't real.   Eventually the howling at 8pm started to fade and the sun started to go down at 6pm.  No one sang opera from their balconies.  The Zoom parties with friends got less frequent.  Not only was Tiger King was a distant memory but Carole fuckin' Baskin was already voted off Dancing With The Stars.  We even stopped baking sourdough bread despite the stores finally restocking those coveted yeast packets. We just wanted it to end.  As I open the last Costco pack of my toilet paper stockpile I wonder if it will ever end.

Here we are a year later.  We survived the winter while going out to eat under a tarp in a freezing, semi-permanent outdoor restaurant seating structure.  The country is nearly ready to open the vaccine to all adults over the age of 18 but yet again thousands or horny dumb shit college students went back to Florida to breed a new strain of Covid-19 that they'll take home with them. To towns full of morons who refuse to get the vaccine.  So now I wonder, what kind of mutations is this virus going to morph into that will render the vaccines people are getting useless?  How much longer am I going to have to wear a fucking mask?

I think I probably said this a year ago, but this is how I think humanity dies. Not war, not an asteroid, not global warming...  just our own damn stupid selves being too bothered to stay home for a couple months and wear a mask. 

This is the One Where I Complain About Mail Trucks

Sooooo I just saw that we're finally getting a new updated US Mail truck!  My 21st century eyeballs almost popped out of my head when I saw that the new USPS trucks are NOT going to be electric.  Not only do they look like the Pope Mobile fucked a 1979 Oldsmobile Sedan,  this article says that only about 10% will be electric.  According to Trump shill and somehow still employed Postmaster General Louis DeJoy,  it would cost too much to make them electric.   I'm no expert but I bet there's another thing that costs a lot – buying 100% newly custom designed trucks from an industrial military company that have to be built from the ground up.  It's no secret that we've needed an updated fleet of the old clunker mail trucks for a long time.  In my lifetime there have been two different mail trucks I can remember; The old Jeep ones and the big boxy ones we have now.  That being said, would it not have been cheaper to buy a fleet of already existing electric vans like the Ford Electric Transit's or something and paint them white and slap on a USPS logo?  You could even use the ones they make for the UK since they have the opposite steering wheel already.   I'm sure there are "reasons" like "bigger windshield, a collision-avoidance system and air conditioning"  Novel state-of-the-art extras that consumer cars have been coming with standard for the last howevermany years!   Mail trucks not having Air Conditioning for the last 25 years is such the perfect cliche government corner-cutting measure you'd expect tho isn't  it?   

 

I might be full of shit on this but I heard the reason you see mail carriers wearing those cute mailman shorts, in rain sleet or snow is because that's the government provided uniform.  If you want long pants, no matter where you're route is, you gotta pay for them yourself.  Who needs air conditioning  anyway when you're wearing shorts tho right?  America, fuck yea!

 

It just seems like this exact thing is the most obvious thing to use electric vehicles for.  They don't need to go long distances and they're stopping and starting all the time.   Oh, kind of off topic, and I've complained about this before but, why don't mail carriers WALK any more? Even the photo below shows the mail carrier delivering envelopes FROM THE DANG TRUCK.  Maybe they're embarrassed of the shorts.  I dunno.  It's just something I've noticed.

 

While we're on the topic of "too expensive" I'm really getting tired of the government doling out blank checks to the military while simultaneously bending over backwards to help the wealthiest tax eligible entities to  pay as little in taxes as possible and saying we cant afford anything that actually benefits the country.    It's just all kinds of fucked.  This is why we can't have nice things... you know like Healthcare and Higher Education, Living Wages and god damn
environmentally conscious, modern, air conditioned Mail Delivery Trucks.  

Again. I'm sure there are "reasons" for all of this that I do not know fully or understand and some I do understand...  but wait,  why the fuck is DeJoy even still there again? He was part of Trump's attempt to suppress people's votes right?  Biden, what the fuck?......  Lock Him Up!  ...and his stupid over-priced, ugly-as-hell military-grade gas-guzzling mail trucks that we're going to be saddled with for the next 30 years.

Wear a mask, wash your hands and stop having parties. 
Thanks.

Why Isn't Trump in Jail Yet?

 

I'm getting a lot of posts in my Facebook memories today where I'm passionately sharing my opinions about the first Trump Impeachment. I'm being reminded of all the illegal and fucked up things Trump has done, that he got away with because he was president. (look up Spiro Agnew as to the weak-ass reason why) and then today I googled  "What crimes can Trump be charged with now that he is no longer president"  I have still not found a definitive list of crimes but I found this TIME article that had a paragraph that got me thinking.

"The closest thing to a legal precedent [for Biden's DOJ to charge Trump with crimes while in office] is the decision not to prosecute President Richard Nixon after he resigned from office. His successor, Gerald Ford, granted him a full pardon in 1974, arguing that a criminal trial would arouse “ugly passions” and further polarize the nation."

While an admirable sentiment, the other side of that coin is that Trump didn't feel any need to find unity from Nixon's situation.  If anything the Nixon and Agnew situation emboldened him to go ahead and do illegal shit anyway while knowing that he could get away with it.  He intentionally sought out "ugly passions" to get votes and bolster his ego.  Ugly passions is what solidified his base.  "Ugly passions" stormed and invaded the Capitol building in the last days of his presidency. 
 

Unity and less polarization seems nice but Trump, and future presidents need to know they can't get away with this shit.  A finger wag and a slap on the wrist doesn't work on sociopathic, narcissistic, compulsive lying ego maniacs. If they find a loophole they jump through it with as much shit they can fit in their pockets.

Former President Donald Trump needs to be charged and sentenced in every possible crime he's committed. No President or elected official is above the law and this needs to be made very clear for when there's another Trump.

This also goes for anyone working with him including his kids and members of congress. 

Smart Watches Are Still Dumb. PYMHM Redux

Back in 2013 smartwatches were becoming all the rage.  As I explained back then (below) I thought they were stupid and couldn't understand the infatuation with them.  I'll never have a smart watch and still think they're the stupidest idea ever.  

This old post about smartwatches and people talking into their wrist like they're a character in a 1960's spy movie got me thinking about how it's somehow become acceptable for people to be talking to their wrists, phones, cars, Alexa... even smart TV remotes.  Shut up! 

I still don't feel comfortable talking to my phone.  I feel weird still no matter how much they try to normalize it. I hate being on speakerphone and even more when other people are.  I'm constantly paranoid my earpiece volume is loud enough people can hear it. I really don't like being on the phone in public.   I hate having my phone calls on my car stereo and being able to hear people having private conversations on their mega-watt hi-fi 10 speaker sub woofer surround sound car stereos.  I never had a BT earpiece when those were cool (they were never cool).  I have a Google Home speaker that I never use because talking to inanimate pieces of artificial intelligence is fucking weird.  I can just as easily use my phone to google something.  I never could understand this trend in technology where everyone around you can hear your business. And still, never understand why people think it's ok to talk to their wrists. 

Anyway here's my thoughts on smart watches with all of it's vintage tech goodness from Dec 2013.

Post You Might Have Missed:  Smart Watches...pffft!!

I keep hearing all this buzz about smart watches. Samsung's Galaxy Gear is the supposed new hope for a smartwatch that actually isn't lame.  Many companies have announced development of different designs and products over the years but they've all fizzled out.

Vintage Google Image search for "smart watch" from 2013

 

Just about every space or future sci-fi movie has some kind of wrist worn communication device.  As the Samsung commercial for the Galaxy Gear reminds us, from Star Trek to Knight Rider they've all got some cool wrist watch that you can talk to or whatever. But here's the major problem with this idea... It's an old idea. Some of these fictional versions are concealing a communication device in a object that at the time was common for people to have.  It's an idea that was cool, when people actually still wore wristwatches. Watches are basically jewelry now.

 

Most people that are into new gadgets have already put their Timex in the back of a drawer because everyone carries a smartphone now.  Smartphones have replaced the wristwatch. It's a fact and there's nothing these tech giants can do about it.  Watches get in the way. A smartwatch will NEVER replace a 5.5" screen on a phablet.  It's just another thing to carry around.  Like iPods. They were cool until your phone could hold just as many mp3's and call people and go on the internet and play games. So, a watch-phone is just gonna be another one of those things that are cool for a minute but then people realize they still have to keep their phone on them.  Just like tablets. Lets be honest, your iPad now stays at home for your kid to play with or for you to play scrabble while you sit on the couch. They are pretty much useless and cumbersome as a functional mobile device. Nothing more ridiculous than seeing people holding up a 10 inch iPad to take pictures at an event.

 

So, what I'm saying is; No one wears a watch anymore. The screen is too small to enjoy. You already have a smartphone. No one is gonna really want or need this.

 

Google Glass, in my opinion is the path forward. Right now you'll look more stupid wearing them, than wearing a Galaxy Gear smartwatch, but it's the real future of mobile tech.

 The way I see it, why do I need to wear a camera and a computer when I have one built into my skull already. Figure out how to access that shit and put it on the internet and you've got the real future of communication tech.

Brain implants here we come!

_______________________________________________________

 I was so sure this was going to be a passing fad and would not last.   I probably would have been right too if Apple had not come out with one 2 years after I wrote this.  Fucking Apple cult.  And boy was I wrong about Google Glass.  People weren't too into everyone wearing spy camera glasses either.  Here's to hoping for brain implants!   Thanks for reading the noggins!  Happy New Year! 

WEAR A MASK
STAY HOME
WASH YOUR HANDS
REMOVE TRUMP