I don't know exactly where or when I heard this, but there was a study done that showed people who worked angry were a lot more effective than people who weren't angry when they work. Which made total sense to me. When I get payments in the mail, people and companies are usually stupid enough that I start to get annoyed and at this point it's kind of just part of the process of getting myself psyched up for the battle.
It's kind of like Michael Jordan or other athletes who are not very nice before and during a game. Lions receiver Amon-Ra St. Brown actually keeps a list of all the wide receivers drafted ahead of him to remind himself of all the players teams thought were better than him. I've commented before how teams love the "No one believes in us!" argument to get themselves motivated.
Maul would be a great writer!
So with that anecdotal evidence and an actual scientific study, it seems negative motivation can work far better than positive. So here's the thing with the title: writers often talk about writing in quiet spaces and putting on soft music and drinking tea and whatever like a Jedi. Maybe that's not how we should do it. Maybe you should be putting on death metal and drinking energy drinks or Jägermeister shots or something to really get you pissed off and psyched up. Use your anger and hatred like a Sith Lord.
That was probably a benefit of working in coffee places or Panera Bread or wherever; I'd have all these stupid people being stupid around me to get me grumpy and thus want to actually finish what I'm doing. That can happen even when I'm writing in the car in a parking lot and some jackass nearly hits my parked car to save like 0.05 seconds. Or someone leaves a cart like five feet away from the cart corral. Stuff like that can help to get the grumpiness going.
Though I'm not sure you really need to be grumpy. Sometimes I think all you really need is love a simple goal of some sort. I might goof off more in the early morning or afternoon, but once it starts getting closer to lunch or dinner, then I'll get more focused. Or maybe I just have to piss or shit and so get focused to finish what I'm doing so I can pack up and go do that.
Anyway, if you're in a slump, maybe try changing things up and instead of the tea and New Age music, drink some Red Bull and turn on some Megadeth or whatever. See if that fires you up. Or just remind yourself that no one believes in you! No publisher or agent wants your story! No one wants to read it! It's you vs. the world!
A couple of weeks ago I read this review of The Marvels which was anything but positive. Considering how people loved the early MCU at this point it's basically devolved to the level of Michael Bay Transformers or Fast & Furious movies where it's an OK popcorn movie and not much else.
I got thinking that maybe the problem with the MCU lately is more than "superhero movie fatigue" or even that they've lost most of the original cast. Part of the problem recently might be that they're making the same mistakes as DC did with its ill-fated universe.
When it started, the MCU was very patient, probably because they (and Disney) weren't really sure it'd work. They started with Iron Man and Incredible Hulk. The former was a huge success and the latter mostly a failure so they left that one behind and did another Iron Man movie two years later. (2009 was the only year in the MCU era with 0 movies released to theaters or streaming.) Then the next year they took it to the next level with Captain America and Thor movies. And only then after the main four heroes had been introduced (and Nick Fury, Black Widow, and Hawkeye in supporting roles) did they bring out The Avengers. The whole thing took 4 years to put together. I still don't think it's a great movie but it was ambitious and entertaining and the plot hangs together well enough.
Anyway, looking at recent Marvel offerings you can see where they rushed a lot of it. With The Marvels, two of the characters were only in TV series; Monica Rambeau was only a supporting character in WandaVision. Even Captain Marvel was only in one solo movie and a supporting role in Endgame both back in 2019. (The character of Captain Marvel in comics only goes back to 2013; before that she was Ms. Marvel.) So you can really excuse audiences for not being hugely excited about a team-up of characters they're barely familiar with--if at all.
There was the same problem with Ant-Man 3 where they shoved so much into it and by some reports half-assed the effects. The whole Kang thing they had vaguely brought up in the last couple of episodes of Loki and now he's the main villain for that Ant-Man movie and the foundation for the next two phases of the MCU?
Or look at Black Panther 2 where they ham-fistedly shove in "Ironheart" and half-assedly introduce Namor. The latter was in part due to rights issues but still for a character basically as old as Marvel itself it was pretty weak. The Ironheart thing was pretty unnecessary and had no real setup beforehand, not even a TV show. And the character is pretty new in comics as well, so she really needed some introduction ahead of time.
Dr. Strange 2 was less of an offender but the main villain hadn't even really taken a heel turn before we see her pop up in the movie. So, again, kinda half-assed.
And then you have the Eternals with all that stuff just thrown at you, leaving a lot of questions like, "Where the hell were these idiots all this time?"
The only one I think that doesn't fall into this is Shang-Chi. That went back to the traditional Marvel formula and while it has a couple of unnecessary cameos (Abomination, Wong, and Ben Kinglsey) it was probably the best of recent Marvel movies in my mind.
Getting back to the title, I think at this point Marvel is making the mistake DC made. After a moderate success with Man in Steel, DC decided to just throw their whole Trinity together in a movie and ham-fistedly introduce three more: Aquaman, Flash, and Cyborg. And then do a Justice League movie a year later when there hadn't even been solo movies for any of the characters except Superman and technically Wonder Woman, though they were basically shooting her solo movie at the same time as Justice League. And at the same time throw together Suicide Squad with a bunch of villains not shown before. It was just throwing a lot at audiences in movies that weren't that good, so it's no surprise it fell flat. DC only had any success when they did solo movies with Wonder Woman, Aquaman, and Shazam.
Then for some dumb reason they decided to say the hell with that and throw a bunch of junk in The Flash and just throw a half-assed Justice Society together in Black Adam. And those also fell flat, though there were extenuating circumstances with the Flash one too.
Anyway, the point is that maybe part of the "superhero fatigue" is just these movies throwing so much at people who, unless they read comics, aren't that familiar with all of it. And Disney insisting people watch TV shows first just makes it harder to get casual fans into it. If you think about it, if you have all these characters together in a 2-2 1/2-hour movie there's just not much time to do much with characters, so unless the audience is familiar with them, they aren't going to have much opportunity to know the characters or care about them. It's been the problem with X-Men movies and especially with Transformers movies where they insist on wasting 2/3 of every movie on human idiots so there's no chance to give the robots more than rudimentary personalities, thus all but 2 have basically been interchangeable. A team-up like The Avengers worked because there had already been 5 movies to introduce the main characters.
Largely I think the problem for Marvel is the bar got set so high that they felt pressure to top themselves and keep the interest of audiences. After the huge team-up in Endgame, how do you top that? They really can't but I think they figured they couldn't just go back to simple solo movies like those early ones. You have to shove in more characters. Plus then the pandemic messed things up by pushing back movies and forcing more reliance on Disney+ to introduce new characters.
There's probably also some hubris. After the first 11 years where they were pretty much invincible, Kevin Feige and company probably thought they could do no wrong. But now that they've had a few bad movies--with The Marvels likely to be an actual flop unless it does big business internationally--the narrative is shifting and Marvel seems very vincible. It's basically what happened to Star Wars after The Last Jedi alienated so many fans. In that case it took getting back to basics with The Mandalorian to start righting the ship, but they still haven't had a movie since Episode IX, whereas Marvel already has movies like Captain America Brave New World that have wrapped or like Deadpool 3 are almost done. It was easier for Star Wars since they didn't have any movies upcoming for them to recalibrate and make changes; it's going to be a lot harder for Marvel with movies already in the pipeline. It's like a football team adjusting during a bye week vs. having to adjust spontaneously during the game; it can be really hard to just change direction instantly. At this point it might be throwing bad money after bad.
Anyway, it seems like they've made the same mistake as DC in rushing too many characters too quickly and it winds up turning audiences off because they aren't invested in it. There will still be people who go to watch it as spectacle but it really opens the door for something else to take over.
Here are a couple of Facebook posts on product fails I experienced recently. The first one is about ice packs that you sit on for hemorrhoids when you are literally butt hurt.
Something irritating on Amazon (almost literally) is I bought a product that's supposed to ice hemorrhoids. "Just sit on this with your clothes on (definitely don't sit on it naked) and it'll get it cold!" Well predictably all it does is get your butt cheeks cold. I look at a couple of reviews on Amazon and people give it 4 or 5 stars while saying that it doesn't work as directed but with some ingenuity they got it to work.
To me if a product doesn't work as they tell you it's supposed to then it shouldn't get more than 3 stars at most. Giving a product a rave review when it only worked because you modified it doesn't help people like me who are deciding on the product and scroll through to see it got all these great reviews without actually going through to pick out the details.
I was thinking it's like giving 5 stars to a pickup that claims it can haul 50,000 pounds but actually doesn't unless you go and modify the suspension and bed and tires and whatnot. Basically the company lied and it only worked when you spent a bunch of time and money to get it to work.
Anyway, I'm just saying there's a time to be nice and polite but sometimes you need to hold companies responsible for products that don't work as directed. You're not doing anyone any favors by being "nice" about it.
In a similar vein, people gave 4 or 5 stars to this:
Potato? Po-tah-to? Or Avacado? Or pear?
It says it's a potato. Sure, potatoes are widely known to be green and have brown stems, right? I mean, OK, potatoes are green before they're ripe, but do you really believe that's what this is supposed to be? Come on. Clearly it's an avocado or pear or some damned thing like that and some company in China put the wrong word on there because they don't know English.
Now this one actually does look like a potato:
I've seen a few other fails like this where these cheap Chinese companies don't proofread the product any more carefully than the description or instructions. There was a whole line of handbags with "Me" and "Other X-Years-Old" instead of "Other X-Year-Olds." Yet of course someone will still give it a rave review, probably not even knowing that it's wrong.
This next product fail I experienced the same day as the first one. It was "AA" batteries that were not exactly AA batteries
Another product fail today: I got some rechargeable "AA" batteries a couple of months ago. I had a foaming sanitizer dispenser that needed batteries so I put four of these "AA" batteries in. But they didn't work and then I found out I couldn't even get them back out. When I examined a couple of the batteries I still had left and compared them to Energizer batteries, I realized these were slightly wider than actual AA batteries. Which in a lot of things probably doesn't matter, but in this case it really mattered because the slightly larger "AA" batteries couldn't be retrieved and thus I lost 4 of them and had to throw out the sanitizer dispenser because it doesn't work without batteries.
A problem I've noted on Amazon Vine is these off-brand Chinese companies make batteries that look like AA, AAA, or C batteries but they're actually slightly different and so might not actually work. Buyer beware.
So as you're out there buy, buy, buying remember to be skeptical and if possible avoid cheap Chinese brands that probably won't last more than a couple of weeks and are very low quality. There's a lot of junk out there, especially on Amazon.
Another good example of it is in Vine this year they've had a lot of knockoff toys or repackaged toys. This bundle of Power Rangers mini-figures was especially lame. On the listing page they don't show any Hasbro branding but when you get them there is Hasbro's logo on the front and you can see where they slapped a label over the original Hasbro packaging on the back. I got an Iron Man and Captain America 12-inch figure that were both like that as well.
And the thing with all of these is they're basically Five Below or Dollar Tree-quality items. I mean, shit that's too crappy even for Ollie's to carry. And with this Power Rangers bundle they were charging $27! I suppose that's a deal if they sell these at Five Below for $5 each but it's a ripoff for Dollar Tree. I think the Iron Man and Captain America figures were going for $12 or so when they'd only be $5 at Five Below.
Probably with the pandemic there was a surplus for these things and so some enterprising people in China figured they'd sell them on their own. And then put them in Vine figuring dumb Americans (see above) wouldn't know the difference or be too polite to say anything negative.
So, yeah, there's a lot of low-quality junk and among good deals are plenty of bad deals too. A lot of that's also true about books as well. As if anyone is buying books today. lol
As today is my 46th birthday and there's a big election coming next year where we seem to have a Baby Boomer vs. a "Silent Generation"-er, I got to wondering: where the hell are my leaders at?
By all accounts, Generation X starts at 1965 and goes to roughly 1980. That means my generation ranges from 58 to 43 years old. So you'd think since we're in the 60-40 age bracket we'd be seeing more representation by now in big leadership positions. But pretty much all the people in positions of power are Boomers or Silent Generation: Biden, Trump, Bernie, McConnell, Pelosi, etc etc. The closest Gen X has really had to a president is Obama and even he's a couple of years outside our generation.
The saddest thing is when they talk about Biden's age and saying he shouldn't run, I can't even think of anyone better who isn't also old. My generation hasn't produced a JFK, an MLKJ, an RFK, an RBG, or even an LBJ. The closest to a spiritual leader we probably had was Kurt Cobain, who died in 1994.
Unfortunately it seems the only Gen X candidates are on the Republican side like Ron DeSantis, who is a year younger than me. Barf. I'd really hate to think that dumbass is the voice of my generation.
I don't know how to explain why we aren't playing a bigger role in things now. Is it that Boomers and Silent Genners have gummed things up too long? Are Gen Xers just too cynical to create an inspiring movement? Is it because politics takes so much money and not enough of us have the money to run for office?
It just seems like we should be taking over and yet there doesn't seem to be anyone looking for the job--at least no one good. Not to say there aren't Gen X movers and shakers because obviously there are CEOs and celebrities and athletes and all that. It's just thinking of the election next year it's all these frail, senile old bastards. For the generation that pretty much invented "alternative" music, maybe we should be looking to create some alternative leadership.
A couple of weeks ago, thanks to AI the Beatles came out with a "new" song. It was really just cobbled together from a demo tape John Lennon made and some guitar licks of George Harrison and then some new beats and singing(?) by Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr, the only two still alive. Then with computers this whole Frankenstein monster was put together and unleashed on the public.
I didn't really listen to it because I'm too young to care that much about the Beatles. Some people I follow said it was pretty mediocre. Definitely no "Yesterday" or "Hey Jude" or whatever your go-to Beatles hit is. I commented on Al Sirois's Facebook post that it reminds me of books I read that came out after the author died (or were really feeble in the case of Go Set a Watchman) and most of them wound up being bad to mediocre, which is probably why the author didn't publish them in his/her lifetime--or in the case of Go Set a Watchman when she was lucid. Then someone said, "Aaaaactually..." and blathered about demo tapes, which had nothing to do with what I was saying.
Anyway, there really aren't a lot of posthumous books I've read that have been any good. Hard Case Crime released a few by the late Donald Westlake and only one rose to the level of decent. One was called Memory about this guy who like Memento has trouble with short-term memory. This was written in the early 60s and the first third is this whole Walden thing of him saving money to get back to New York City. And when he does finally get there everyone's just a huge dick to him and no one seems to understand that he has a mental handicap. So it's just really sad and depressing and really different from Westlake's other stuff, which is mostly heist thrillers.
Another one was supposed to be a James Bond movie--the one that eventually became Tomorrow Never Dies. Westlake had this idea for a story involving a businessman in Hong Kong when it's about to go from British rule to Chinese. The guy has some scheme to get money that involves drilling underwater or something to set off bombs or whatever. Parts of it were pretty interesting but you can see where it really needed rewritten because characters would drop out for a long time and the focal character seems to change from the first part to the end. Another draft could probably have brought everything together better.
Probably the best one was Call Me A Cab that wasn't published for some reason until after Westlake's death. I think a lot of it was like Memory it wasn't really his usual heist/crime kind of story, but this was a lot more fun than that one. Other than being dated, since it's from the 60s or 70s, it's a pretty decent story. A woman hires a taxi driver in New York to take her across the country and so he does for a big payday. Some hilarity and mayhem ensue! I actually watched a similar movie years ago that I think was more of a romantic comedy. Anyway, that one was decent but the rest weren't great and you could see why they weren't published before he died.
One good posthumous novel I did think of was A Confederacy of Dunces. But that was sort of a different thing. That wasn't an established author, but someone who had been rejected by publishers. It was only after his tragic death that his mother and author Walker Percy got the book published and people realized it was great. Anyone who's tried to get into the business knows how difficult it can be, even back in the 60s or 70s or whenever. Agents and editors can reject you for a variety of reasons, some of which are pretty ridiculous. Mostly it's just subjective nonsense. It's different from an established author who puts something in a drawer and never gets back to it. And certainly by the time he died, Westlake had the clout to get those books published if he'd wanted to, just as Harper Lee could have published Go Set a Watchman if she'd wanted to. That they chose not to says something--at least to me.
If anyone looked through my drives after I died, they could find bits and pieces of some stories that I never finished. There are probably even some I did finish and didn't self-publish even. Sometimes you just get started on an idea and it doesn't work out like you want. Or you get busy with something else and just never get back to it. To me, if it really was a great story (in my mind) I'd fight to finish it and publish it. If I didn't, then that says I didn't really care enough to do so. If I don't care that much, why should a reader?
Of course there's money to be made from a "new" Beatles song or "new" Prince song or "new" book by some deceased author. Even if they are pretty consistently mediocre--at best--people will always line up to listen or read because if you really like an artist in any medium you always want more. We're just all greedy that way and the even greedier record companies/publishers know that.
I mentioned the other day I was using Bluesky, the Twitter clone from the founder of Twitter. I heard...somewhere that authors Neil Gaiman and John Scalzi used it a lot so when I got on Bluesky I followed them. Which then brought up the question in my mind of what authors should talk about on their social media.
Of course you don't want authors to just pimp their books all the time. Whether you're a famous author or not that gets tedious. Politics, religion, etc can alienate some of your readers, though you'd think most of your readers would be from a similar part of the political/religious spectrum.
The problem with famous authors is if they're just shooting the shit that's fine, but you can't really talk to them because they have so many followers that they're not likely to ever notice you. So it really makes it a one-sided conversation and it's disappointing when they don't talk to you and talk to some other freak asking or saying something dumb. Then the jealousy sets in.
And why the fuck should I care about your cat or what you're making for dinner? I should care because you're literary famous? Which is barely famous at all considering 75% of the country doesn't even read a single book. (OK, I made that number up but it's still pretty horrible.)
And as such I also don't really want you rubbing your prosperity in my face, showing off your cool office and reading nook and garage of cars or whatever. I guess some people do like that Lifestyles of the Rich and (Literary) Famous or Cribs kinda thing, but I really don't. By the same token I really don't need you to name drop who you're having lunch or dinner with or whatever. And also I will never care about your spouse/significant other, children, siblings, etc. I'm just saying.
Also, I don't really need to see you "shut down the haters." Just ignore them. On Bluesky and X there is literally a Mute button. Or block. Arguing with trolls is for losers like me; you're so much more famous that there's no point getting in the muck with haters.
Like 10 days ago Gaiman mentioned that there was maybe going to be part of an episode in Good Omens 2 where the angel and demon (Michael Sheen and David Tennant) were going to be women in the 60s or something. Then one or more person got a bug up his/her/their ass saying the angels and demons should have nonbinary people playing them or some damned thing. Gaiman showed a lot more class and restraint than I would, but then he's been dealing with people like that for a while. Still, as someone said, it was giving this silly argument a lot more attention than it deserved. Gaiman's response was that if he doesn't respond then those people get upset, which is probably true, but from experience I know people like that generally aren't going to be satisfied or stop arguing. There's really not much point to it. And I'm sure there were a lot worthier uses of his time.
The next day some woman claiming to be from Ukraine was shouting at John Scalzi because in his newest book someone is described as "Russian or Ukrainian." "You think we're the same! That's supporting genocide! You're erasing us!" Or something like that. I'm sure that wasn't the intent; I haven't read the book, but probably it's just the POV character wouldn't know the difference between a Russian and Ukrainian because they aren't that hugely different unless you live there. Scalzi just blew her off with something like, "Sorry you didn't like this. Hope you find something you like." Maybe it's a little cold, but people like that woman are probably just looking for attention. It's probably better to just not say anything at all and ignore them but that's really the next best response.
It occurred to me that when I read volumes of short stories and such what I really like is to read the stories about the stories. You know, how they came into being. How the idea was born and how it went through the writing, editorial, and publishing processes. The old war stories, so to speak--or type. Especially with older authors like Lawrence Block or Robert Silverberg it's kind of a window into another world.
But the problem on social media is I suppose you wouldn't want to discuss that all the time or you'd probably run out of war stories. And a lot of your "followers" probably aren't writers and thus don't really care. They probably would care more about what you're eating for lunch or whatever.
Once or twice I've tried asking people on here what they'd like me to blog about and I usually get non-helpful answers like, "You should just do what you want." Sure, but then people don't read it, so it's sort of pointless. In the same way I suppose as worrying about what to talk about when you have no followers.
Anyway, if you follow any literary famous authors on X/Bluesky/Mastodon/Facebook/etc what do you like them to talk about? What drives you up the wall?
Since Elon Musk took over destroyed Twitter X there have been several attempts at coming up with a replacement: Mastodon, Facebook's Threads, and Bluesky, which is from the founder of Twitter, Jack Dorsey. The thing about Bluesky is you can only get in with an invite code. When Al Sirois had a few he wasn't using he gave one to me. I wasn't begging for it, but if he had a spare one then what the hell, I'd see what the deal was with it.
And as the headline says: it's just old Twitter. I mean, seriously, everything looks and works the same as Twitter before Musk's takeover. I was then a bit underwhelmed. As far as I can tell there aren't really any different features than old Twitter. I'm not paying for it so it's less annoying than if, say, they released Madden 2024 and it was the exact same game as Madden 2018. Sometimes I actually like old versions better, like Paint Shop Pro 4.12 is so much easier to use than later versions that try to be PhotoShop.
But, I don't know, it just seems weird that Dorsey takes Twitter public, leaves, lets it get taken over by a rich douche, and then goes and creates exactly the same product somewhere else. It'd be like if after Steve Jobs got fired by Apple in the 80s he started a new company that made computers exactly like Macs or Apple IIs and called them Red Delicious or Granny Smiths or some other kind of apple.
The big selling point for Bluesky is that because it's invite only there are a lot fewer spammers and trolls. I'm not sure how long that can last. It's like the old South Park where Cartman buys an amusement park and closes it so only he can enjoy it. But eventually to pay for the upkeep he has to start letting more and more people in. Unless Dorsey wants to pay for everything out of his own pocket forever, I'm not sure how long it can go on being invite only. The three scenarios I see are:
Opening it to everyone, thus letting in the trolls and spammers
Charging people to use the site, which will probably cause the third scenario...
Close down entirely
Maybe because I was never really into Twitter even before the Musk takeover, I'm not really that impressed with Bluesky. Since it's just a clone of old Twitter it also has all of the same problems. If you're a nobody like me, then it's almost impossible to get anyone to notice you. I can post all I want and no one will care because I have no "platform." It's fine for big-time authors like Neil Gaiman or John Scalzi because they have large numbers of fans who will clamor to hear whatever they have to say, even if it's not particularly that much more interesting.
It winds up where most of the people I really would have interaction with I'm also following on Facebook, thus making Bluesky largely redundant for me. And like I said, unless you have a "platform," it's really useless as a marketing tool. Maybe I can get a few bot hits for my blog, but that's really it. And that's probably true for most everyone else.
Another thing is like with dollar coins not really catching on because you can't use them in vending machines and such, other companies (like Blogger) need to add Bluesky posting buttons. As long as the site is invite only I'm not sure there's much impetus for companies to do this, which then limits its usefulness. I mean if I have to manually copy and paste links to my Bluesky account that's more work than using X or Facebook and you don't get ahead in this world asking people to do slightly more work. I'm just saying.
***
I had a revelation on Tuesday about Bluesky--and for that matter Twitter if you still use that--and realized that I was doing it wrong. Following writers wasn't making my feed very interesting. Why? Because they just post dad jokes, inspirational quotes, and links to shit I don't want to buy. And 99.9% of them are useless for me from a marketing standpoint because they aren't in my target audience and don't have an audience much bigger than mine and don't "Repost" when I do advertise anyway. I mean, I advertised putting the 10th Anniversary Scarlet Knight bundle on sale for 99 cents until Saturday and no one did anything. So pretty useless.
And as far as "social" media, how many conversations had I had? Zero. I talked at people once or twice. Got a couple of snotty comments, one big stuffing because he has a publisher and one "Aaaaaactually"-ing me for something I didn't even say.
It all led me to thinking, "What do I want out of this?" I'm not making "friends," just as I never really made any on old Twitter. It's useless for marketing unless you're famous. If I want to spout off, I'm likely to get more interaction from my few Facebook "friends" than random people on New or Old Twitter. These were all things proven on Old Twitter and while there are fewer people on New Twitter it's still the same deal.
I found one account posting toy news and deals, which to me was pretty cool. And it hit me that that's the kind of thing I should follow. Not just toy news and deals but writing industry news, regular news news, box office news, and maybe sports news. Basically New and Old Twitter for people like me should just be used as a news/deals/gossip aggregator. That's about the only purpose it has is to funnel news, deals, and gossip to me. Facebook with its precious "algorithm" makes that hard so New Twitter, aka Bluesky, is probably better. Except that some things aren't on there, so maybe Old Twitter would still be better in some ways.
So for most of us, "social" media like this shouldn't really be social. We should just be lying low and listening for anything interesting, kind of like a spy listening to chatter and picking out juicy tidbits. Or an alligator or crocodile lurking in the water, waiting for something to get in reach of its jaws. So instead of a bird or sky they should make the logo an alligator or crocodile. It would be more fitting.
Anyway, let me know if you want an invite code. I got one on Saturday and I still have it. Then you can try New Twitter for yourself.
Ten days ago I was watching a movie called Run & Gun on Paramount+. A part of this movie is a gangster is obsessed with a movie that was supposed to be called Shazaam (with two A's not one like the superhero movie) that starred comedian Sinbad in the 90s. It was supposed to be about him playing the eponymous genie and mayhem ensues.
Fake!
The thing is, the movie doesn't exist! You can't find it on streaming. You can't find it on eBay. You can't find it on IMDB. Even Sinbad himself says it's not real. Yet people insist it's real and go to great lengths describing it. Scammers then of course try to make a buck by making "real" copies to sell on auction sites. In the movie I mentioned, the copies the gangster gets are Spanish language versions of Kazaam starring Shaquille O'Neal with fake covers.
This is a real phenomenon that's called "the Mandela Effect" because there are people who are convinced Nelson Mandela died in prison in the 1980s. Despite that there is no evidence to support this, they continue to insist he died about 30 years earlier than he really did. For many it's "proof" of time travel or a glitch in the Matrix or multiverses or science-fiction things like that.
There are other less severe versions of this. For instance, in Casablanca, Bogie never says, "Play it again, Sam." In original Trek, Kirk never says, "Beam me up Scotty." In Empire Vader doesn't say "Luke, I am your father." The real line in the latter is "No. I am your father." after Luke says Vader killed his father. In Trek, Kirk would usually say, "X many to beam up" or something. The one that surprised me was someone mentioned Forrest Gump doesn't actually say, "Life is like a box of chocolates." He doesn't? I was pretty sure he did. Or something along those lines.
I had my own brush with the Mandela effect (it's the third item on my Potpourri list) when I chided someone on a Facebook group about saying everyone died in Rogue One not long after the movie came out. This person insisted the crawl for Episode IV said the spies all died. Which it doesn't. Then he insisted they mention it in Episode IV, which they don't. All Vader says is they traced a transmission to Leia's ship, which doesn't in any way imply the spies died. Even after we had this argument, some idiot swung in to agree with the first idiot, which goes to show how hard it can be to convince people of the truth.
In a documentary about Christmas music or something, they talked to the lead singer of the Flaming Lips. He told this story about his mom who claimed she saw a Christmas movie that didn't really exist. What most likely happened is she started watching a movie and then fell asleep and woke up during a different movie and mentally spliced them together into something that isn't real--at least until they made it real by recreating it.
This is a mostly harmless phenomenon. A lot of it is just I think we tend to summarize things in our memories. Maybe to save mental space we paraphrase things like Bogie's lines in Casablanca or Vader's line in Empire or Kirk's line in Trek. Remembering the whole conversation in those movies/TV shows would be tedious so we just paraphrase. Human memories are not always great, which is why eyewitness testimony is often very suspect. And then also you get that telephone game effect where one person might paraphrase a scene one way and tell it to someone else who tells it to someone else and so on. In the pre-Internet age especially it was easy then to misremember things like that because you didn't have some asshole to go, "Aaaaaactually..." if you got it wrong.
But like "Flat Earthers" or anti-vaxxers, people who believe in the Mandela Effect aren't always harmless. Probably no one has died like in that movie on Paramount+ over copies of a movie that doesn't really exist, but it can't be good for their mental health and of those around them.
There's often a Mandela Effect when people read too. I've gotten more than a few reviews where someone will say something that isn't even remotely true about the book. Is it that they're purposely lying to sabotage me or is it that they simply don't remember the book the way I actually wrote it? This 2018 entry talks about a couple of instances of this.
I always find those instances annoying because I'm the author so maybe I know better than you what I actually wrote. Maybe Sinbad feels that way about that stupid fake movie.
Since I did an entry on Wednesday about "AI" here's sort of a follow-up with a little experiment I did with unexpected results.
"Alex From Seattle"
One night a few months ago I had this great brainstorm. Before the pandemic I got a book of 400 writing prompts from Five Below. Here's the entry where I first talk about it! I picked a couple that I did entries on in the lockdown, but mostly I hadn't used the book for much more than holding papers in it.
I tried to get Bing's cut-rate ChatGPT to write a story for me but it really doesn't do a lot. Then I thought: why not put some of these prompts in there to see what it'll do? What was supposed to be a fun lark turned depressing when I realized the "AI" was better at blogging than me! The entries it wrote were banal and vapid, but just the sort of positive, perky bull that people would eat right up. Here's the first one:
Hi there, and welcome to my blog! I'm so excited to share my thoughts, opinions, and experiences with you. This blog is a place where I can express myself freely, and connect with like-minded people. I hope you'll find something here that resonates with you, inspires you, or challenges you. Whether you're interested in travel, books, music, or anything else, I'm sure you'll find something to enjoy here. So sit back, relax, and enjoy the ride! And don't worry, I won't bore you with long-winded stories or tedious details. Unless you're into that kind of thing. In that case, I have plenty of jokes to keep you entertained. Like this one: What do you call a fish that wears a bowtie? Sofishticated! And this one: Why did the chicken go to the séance? To get to the other side! And this one: How do you make a tissue dance? You put a little boogie in it!
While at the beach you decide to write a message in a bottle. What would it say? Who would you like to find it?
Have you ever wondered what it would be like to send a message in a bottle? I did, and I decided to try it out while I was at the beach last weekend. Here's what I wrote and why.
Hi there,
If you're reading this, it means you found my message in a bottle. Congratulations! You must be very curious and adventurous, just like me. I hope this letter finds you well and happy, wherever you are.
I wrote this message because I wanted to share a bit of myself with a stranger. I think it's a fun and exciting way to connect with someone I might never meet in person. Maybe you feel the same way too.
So, who am I? Well, I'm a 25-year-old graphic designer from Seattle. I love art, music, books, movies, and traveling. I'm always looking for new experiences and challenges. I'm also a bit of a dreamer and a romantic.
I'm at the beach right now, enjoying the sun, the sand, and the waves. It's one of my favorite places to be. I feel so relaxed and free here. I also feel a bit lonely sometimes. That's why I decided to write this message. Maybe you can relate.
Who are you? What do you like to do? Where do you live? What are your dreams and hopes? I would love to know more about you. Maybe we have something in common. Maybe we can be friends.
If you want to reply to this message, you can email me at [email protected] Don't worry, it's not my real email address. It's just a temporary one I created for this purpose. I don't want to give out my personal information to a stranger, no offense. But I do want to hear from you.
So, what do you say? Will you write back to me? I hope you will. I think it would be amazing to start a conversation with someone who found my message in a bottle. Who knows where it could lead?
I'm looking forward to hearing from you soon.
Your mystery friend,
Alex
You have to love how the "AI" gave itself a name and a backstory even! I wonder if it chose Seattle because that's where Microsoft is headquartered?
Anyway, isn't it just so peppy and cute? And so much better than me with my grumpy cynicism and even worse jokes. To prove this isn't a fluke, here's another one:
What are the top 10 things on your bucket list?
Hey, everyone! Welcome back to my blog, where I share my thoughts, tips and adventures with you. Today, I want to talk about something that I've been thinking a lot about lately: my bucket list. You know, the list of things that you want to do before you kick the bucket, or die. I think it's important to have a bucket list, because it helps you to set goals, dream big and live fully. Plus, it's fun to imagine all the amazing experiences that you could have in your lifetime.
So, without further ado, here are the top 10 things on my bucket list. Some of them are realistic, some of them are ambitious, and some of them are just plain crazy. But hey, that's the point of a bucket list, right? To challenge yourself and push your limits. Let's go!
1. Travel to every continent. I love traveling and exploring new places, cultures and cuisines. I've been to Europe, Asia and North America, but I still have four more continents to go: Africa, South America, Australia and Antarctica. I want to see the pyramids of Egypt, the Amazon rainforest, the Great Barrier Reef and the penguins of Antarctica. I think traveling is the best way to learn and grow as a person.
2. Skydive. This one is definitely scary, but also exhilarating. I've always wondered what it feels like to fly, and skydiving is probably the closest thing to it. I want to experience the thrill of jumping out of a plane and free-falling through the air, before opening a parachute and landing safely on the ground. I think it would be an unforgettable adrenaline rush.
3. Write a book. I've always loved writing and reading stories, ever since I was a kid. I have a lot of ideas and imagination, but I've never had the courage or discipline to write a full-length book. I want to challenge myself to do that someday, and share my stories with the world. It doesn't matter if it's fiction or non-fiction, as long as it's something that I'm passionate about and proud of.
4. Learn a new language. I think learning a new language is not only useful, but also fun and rewarding. It opens up new opportunities, new perspectives and new connections. I already speak English and Spanish, but I would love to learn another language, like French, Italian or Mandarin. I think it would be awesome to be able to communicate with more people around the world, and appreciate their culture and history.
5. Run a marathon. I'm not a very athletic person, but I do enjoy running as a form of exercise and stress relief. I've done a few 5Ks and 10Ks in the past, but I've never attempted a marathon before. A marathon is 42 kilometers or 26 miles long, which is insane. But I think it would be an amazing accomplishment to train for it and complete it. It would test my physical and mental endurance, and make me feel proud of myself.
6. See the northern lights. The northern lights, or aurora borealis, are one of the most beautiful natural phenomena in the world. They are caused by charged particles from the sun interacting with the earth's magnetic field, creating colorful lights in the sky. They are most visible in the northern hemisphere, near the Arctic Circle. I want to see them in person someday, preferably in a cozy cabin with a fireplace and hot chocolate.
7. Go on a safari. I love animals and nature, and I think going on a safari would be an amazing way to experience both. I want to see lions, elephants, giraffes, zebras and other wild animals in their natural habitat, and learn more about their behavior and conservation. I think it would be awe-inspiring and humbling to witness the diversity and beauty of life on earth.
8. Learn to play an instrument. Music is one of my favorite forms of art and expression. I enjoy listening to different genres and artists, but I've never learned how to play an instrument myself. I think it would be fun and rewarding to learn how to play something like the guitar, the piano or the violin. It would improve my creativity, coordination and memory skills.
9. Volunteer for a cause that matters to me. I believe that everyone has a responsibility to make the world a better place in their own way. There are many causes that matter to me, such as education, environment, human rights and animal welfare. I want to volunteer for one of them someday, and make a positive difference in someone's life or in society.
10. Meet my favorite celebrity. This one is probably the most unrealistic one on my list, but also the most fun one. We all have our favorite celebrities that we admire and look up to, whether they are actors, singers, authors or athletes. Mine is Emma Watson, the actress who played Hermione Granger in the Harry Potter movies. I think she is not only talented and beautiful, but also smart, kind and inspiring. I would love to meet her someday and tell her how much I appreciate her work and activism.
So, these are the top 10 things on my bucket list. I hope you enjoyed reading them, and maybe got some inspiration for your own bucket list. I know that some of them are hard to achieve, but I think that's the point of a bucket list: to dream big and work hard. I don't know if I'll ever be able to do all of them, but I'll certainly try my best. After all, life is short and precious, and we should make the most of it.
What are the top 10 things on your bucket list? Let me know in the comments below. And don't forget to subscribe to my blog for more posts like this. Thanks for reading, and see you next time!
It's weird to think of an "AI" with a bucket list that doesn't involve destroying humanity. And also it has a crush on Emma Watson? I guess we know now who will be surviving the roboapocalypse.
I thought of doing all 400 prompts and then putting them up on a fake blog somewhere to see what happens but it was getting too sad to think how much better people would like this entirely fake thing than me.
And you might be well-meaning and say I'm better or that I should use this to learn from but while I could try to write like that, I really can't.
It's always a problem when they want you to fill out a job application and they put some stupid essay question on there or even just those really inane questions they usually ask because it's so hard for me to give an inane answer back and not a smart ass answer. "AI" could be just the thing! But then if I have to show up in person they'd expect me to act like the "AI."
That could be a story to write: someone uses an "AI" to get a remote job but then they have to go into the office and be him/herself. Maybe we could get Emma Watson to be in it! Then the "AI" will watch it.
Yes another post about "AI" and writing. I mean there are now probably hundreds of thousands of thinkpieces, including one or two by me. And I'm sure some were probably written by "AI" chatbots. Anyway, veteran author Lawrence Block had an interesting perspective on his November newsletter. (If you don't have Goodreads I'm not sure this will work.)
The point was that the way "AI" is training is like what he did when he was young by reading a lot of books. Here's a quote that unlike a lot of "AI" I'm actually citing and not regurgitating as my own:
Because just what is it that AI is doing? It’s reading my work, and the work of thousands of other writers, with the goal of improving its own writing ability. I thought about it, and here’s what I realized:
That’s exactly what I started doing back in the 1950s. I read hundreds of books, everything I could get my hands on, partly because reading was a source of pleasure, but also with the intention of becoming a writer myself, and learning my craft by reading the efforts of others.
And that is a point. A lot of authors (not just Block) tell young would-be writers to read, read, read, especially in the genre they want to write in. When I decided to get more serious about writing, I tried to do that, first with sci-fi and then with literary fiction. It's how I found some great books and authors. Ironically I "discovered" Block's books when I was reading crime fiction for Chance of a Lifetime.
In a way it's true that this is what the "AI" is doing. Only it can do it a lot faster than me or Lawrence Block in the 50s or any actual human who doesn't have superpowers. It can basically absorb entire libraries in minutes--or maybe even seconds.
A caveat, though, is I'm sure Block paid for the books he read--or borrowed them legally from a library. With the "AI" these techbro assholes are just stealing books--including Block's, but not mine--to feed into the "AI." It's basically like if in the 50s Block stole the books he read to be a better writer or if I stole his books when I wanted to get better at crime fiction instead of buying them from Amazon or getting them from the library or bookstores. The first ones I got I think mostly came from those outlet-type bookstores selling remaindered books. I also bought a couple from used bookstores in Traverse City and Manistee when I went "up north" that year. Still, the point is I legally acquired them, which is not really what the "AI" does.
Block goes on to say:
The process was more one of absorption and internalization than anything analytical or intellectual. All I know is it worked, and most writers I know went through some version of this process. Almost all of us were eager readers before we were writers, and our reading fed and nourished our writing.
Now I don’t recall ever deliberately setting out to write like anybody. But there’s no question in my mind that my exposure to the work of other writers formed me as a writer and enabled me in time to find my own voice. It helped me to read the work of writers I respected and enjoyed, but it helped me as much—and possibly more—to read the work of inferior writers.
And there's really another difference. A lot of prompts into chatbots are to ask it to make something like someone else. I could ask ChatGPT to write me a thriller like Lawrence Block and it could in theory do that.
When I was writing Where You Belong I read all of John Irving's books because I wanted to do something similar. But I never really wrote it in the same way that he did. I mean, no one would ever confuse his writing and mine in a blind taste test--I'm pretty sure. At least people who are familiar with Irving's writing wouldn't mistake his and mine. But I wasn't trying to write it exactly like he would, which is unfortunately what a lot of people putting stuff into chatbots want to do. I'm not sure how successful the chatbots are at this but I'm sure they're getting better and better all the time.
Which is unfortunate because the I is supposed to mean "Intelligence" and just copying human authors really only makes them parrots. It does take a certain amount of intelligence to do that, but shouldn't the endgame of "AI" be to create something that is like an actual human and can make its own decisions and develop its own unique style? That is, for good or ill, what us humans do. Maybe our "style" isn't really stylish but it is what we do--for better or worse.
Unfortunately, a lot of the crap being churned out is because dopes want something to read without paying anything or think they can get money putting it on Amazon. It really does all of us--including "AI" chatbots--a disservice.
I really had no idea what this series on Peacock was for a while. Was it a reality show or an actual show? It's an actual TV series--so probably more real than reality TV--starring Craig Robinson of The Office and those Pizza Hut ads. Using the Tony Danza/Charlie Sheen method of character naming, he plays Craig, who wants to be an entrepreneur and has what he thinks is a great idea to grow saw palmetto berries to "cure" ED. The problem is he needs $20,000 and no one will give him a loan. Then he loses his job when his brother robs the bank he works at and loses his home when he unwittingly sublets it to someone making a porno.
It's not really until the end of the first episode that he finds the solution to his problems: snake hunting! Hunting Burmese pythons is a real thing in Florida because they've become an invasive species killing pretty much anything, including alligators. There's a contest for whoever gets the most and longest pythons. Top prize: $20,000. He sees this as a sign and soon teams up with an Australian Uber driver named Jillian Gloop who lives in a billboard she tows with her car.
This show is a little weird and it definitely falls into the "black comedy" category--and not because it stars Craig Robinson. A lot of it is like if they tried to make Breaking Bad or Ozark funny and only about half an hour. Like Walter White, Craig and Jillian are way out of their element and get more so when they inadvertently burn down a miniature golf course and have to dispose of a dead body.
Beneath the comic veneer of idiots trying to catch snakes is a serious question: what is the American Dream anymore? Especially in the episode where Craig goes to "Dominine" (so named because they went past domin-eight all the way to nine!) to pitch his business to his idol, he plays by the rules but constantly gets screwed while his brother cheats and scams and makes a huge profit--at least temporarily.
Besides Craig, the other characters all have different ways of trying to achieve their American Dream. Jillian does a ton of "side hustles" that end up not even paying the bills, so she has to live in a billboard and shower at a Starbucks. A rival snake hunter named Brock makes videos in a vain attempt to become a YouTube star. And of course Craig's brother robs a bank and pulls off other scams.
In the old days, the "American Dream" was you go to college, get a job, get married, buy a house, have kids, work hard, move up, and then retire. But really that was just a dream for most. The more realistic version is go to college, rack up debt, get married, buy a house, rack up more debt, have kids, rack up more debt, work hard, maybe move up just slightly...and then get laid off when your company outsources your job or replaces you with a machine or merges with another company to make you redundant. And then struggle in your late 30s or 40s to find a new job while facing all of that crushing debt. A lot of us, like Craig, still tried to make it work as best we could only to find ourselves stuck in a dead-end job, miserable, and massively in debt. And when you can't find a decent job, the people who smugly told you in your teens to go to college now smugly tell you that you should have learned a trade instead. I really empathize with Craig at "Dominine" and later on when he realizes that he's just been a sucker trying to do everything honestly while cheaters and scammers keep getting ahead.
It's no wonder that so many people are looking for shortcuts like starting a business or side hustling or becoming a star or doing crimes. We've all been told from practically birth that this is America and we can get to the top if we just try hard enough and so on. It's not even, as some will smugly say, that we think we're special; we've all been sold this bill of goods about "The American Dream" and "Land of Opportunity" and so on. And we all see movie stars, athletes, businesspeople, reality stars, "influencers," lottery winners, and even criminals getting ahead and have to wonder, "Why not me?"
As this song says:
And, really, the writing world is no exception to that for sure. I mean, I've read plenty of bestselling books and thought, "Geez, that was terrible. I could do better than that!" But as anyone who's really tried to make it in writing can tell you, it's an uphill battle to actually get as famous as a Stephen King or JK Rowling or James Patterson. Or to have a huge hit that spawns movies and such like Twilight or The Hunger Games. For every one who makes it, literally millions fail. Which is true about pretty much any way to get rich.
The issue for Craig throughout the first season is trying to achieve his American Dream in a moral way, without cheating or lying or screwing people over. But in the end he realizes playing by "the rules" has left him with nothing: no money, no home, and soon not even his ex-wife and daughter as they're going to move to Oakland. And so he makes a choice to quit playing by "the rules" just as in Breaking Bad and Ozark (and whatever other shows) they make a choice to quit playing nice and break bad.
So season 1 ends on a little bit of a downer but it was mostly a fun show. Not as good as most Carl Hiaasen novels, but still worth watching (3/5) (Fun Fact: the keynote of "Dominine" is a rich asshole played by Tim Heidecker, who was the Tim of Adult Swim's Tim & Eric duo and also starred in the Adult Swim series Decker that co-starred MST3K/Rifftrax favorite Joe Estevez, the brother of Martin Sheen.)
I don't really like the second season as much. It seems mostly like complications for the sake of complications, sort of like the final act of Rogue One. Craig and Jillian's berry farm is quarantined because of giant snails and some redneck neighbors want him to give them health care and an annoying employee screws up their plan to sneak berries through a roadblock. Jillian's car is stolen and she struggles between being a boss or being a friend to her employees. Craig's ex-wife is making extra money by being a surrogate to someone's baby. So on and so on.
We get a whole episode about Craig's brother who moved to Arizona. Jackie Earle Haley plays a debt collector and there's a comparison of debt collectors to vampires. Which like that Buffaloed movie I talked about in a "Stuff I Watched" entry Phantom Readers didn't read, the show's "insights" into debt collection are pretty laughable--as in laughably misguided. I mean maybe some companies do employ scumbags to go around stalking you but really that doesn't make much sense. I mean you can pay some dude (or give them commission) to harass someone to collect a debt but there are so many legal means and it really doesn't cost that much to hire some cut-rate firm like the one I work for to file a default judgment and then get a wage garnishment, tax garnishment, or bank garnishment or get them on a payment plan or maybe to settle for a decent amount. That's a lot more efficient than stalking individual debtors in the hope they'll get tired of it and pay. End of rant.
Anyway, the Dominine guy returns with Craig's brother to buy the farm. Craig quits in protest only to find his ex-wife's surrogate backers are rich jerks who get busted like the Bluths or Schitts. During a trip to San Diego for the Dominine guy, Craig again has to decide whether to cheat or not when a Pitbull imitator goes missing; in the end, Craig lies to an audience by telling them his father died of cancer and that's why he made the saw palmetto stuff.
The rest of the season introduces more complications as Craig tries to save Jillian from the Boones and get his farm back. In the end, Craig is again faced with the choice whether to break bad and get it all or be good and get nothing. Guess what he decides? And in a way I don't really disagree. The last episode does feel a little rushed to wrap a lot up. Maybe it's due to shrinking the second season to 8 episodes from the first season's 10. It kind of goes into an epilogue that is kind of a depressing ending in some ways. A true ending, but sad. The moral of the story: nice people finish last. And again I don't really disagree. (2/5)
So there you go. What are you willing to do for your American Dream? Not comment on this blog, lol.
I went through Strange New Worlds episode-by-episode so then I decided I should do the same for the newest season of Lower Decks. Why not? Besides with weekly episodes it's nice to record my reaction right away instead of trying to remember it two months from now.
While season 2 ended on a cliffhanger, season 3 didn't, so there was nothing to resolve in the first episode, which was good. However, I didn't really love the first episode of season 4. Maybe because it's about them trying to take Voyager to Earth and features a lot of references to that show, which is not one of my favorites. I haven't actually tried rewatching it on Paramount+ or Pluto TV. Anyway, if you are a Voyager fan then it was probably a lot funnier. The subplot features our heroic ensigns getting promotions to lieutenant jgs--except for Rutherford. The best part is when Mariner encourages Boimler to stop holding himself back and go save people; there's humor in it but there's also heart. (2/5) (Fun Fact: the end of the episode introduces a new threat, some kind of killer ship that can pull ships out of warp and destroy them in an instant. Ominous music...)
The second episode was a little better. After another reference to the new threat, maybe for people who didn't see it at the end of the previous episode, it kind of has three different plots that aren't really that important. Mariner tries to sabotage her new promotion but the first officer Ransom won't let her; it's kind of like that old Seinfeld episode where George keeps telling more and more elaborate lies to his fiancée's parents even though both sides know he's lying but don't want to admit it. Mariner and Ransom both know what's going on--or think they do--but refuse to admit as she gets more and more insubordinate. Meanwhile Rutherford tries to do something great to get a promotion but another ensign keeps beating him to everything until Tendi finds a way to help. And Boimler moves around the ship trying to find comfortable quarters; there's another sorta Seinfeld reference in the quarters that are bathed in bright red light like when the Kenny Rogers Roasters moved in across the street to keep Kramer and then Jerry from sleeping. Anyway, there were some funny bits but not really great. (2.5/5)
The third episode has the Cerritos going to a big ring in space like the thing in The Mandalorian Season 2.5 (aka The Book of Boba Fett) where the environmental computer needs an update. If you've ever tried to update your computer, it's pretty relatable humor. Meanwhile Boimler struggles to lead his first mission as he worries someone under his command will be killed or injured, which almost becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy until the new Vulcan science officer helps to set him right. Which I always think the show works best when there's humor but it's also helping the characters to grow. (3/5)
The fourth episode gets into the background of Tendi when she has to go home to Orion for a wedding. Mariner and the Vulcan science officer come along as well. Tendi finds out her sister has been "kidnapped" and has to go rescue her, which requires the use of a particular set of skills she hoped not to use again. Meanwhile in the B-plot, Boimler and Rutherford's creative solution to who waters their bonsai helps to solve a problem with an alien race. It was a good episode leaning on the strengths of the show where it can work in some blue humor (or green since it's Orions) while also letting the characters grow and be more than just smart alecks. It's something I wish they'd have done more on Archer, which I watched after this and has always struggled taking that next step. (3.5/5)
The fifth episode focuses primarily to the new Vulcan science officer T'Lyn. She is frustrated that she can't send a request to her former captain to transfer back. The secrecy is because of three Betazeds on board being taken to Risa for a holiday. But they've got the holiday going already by turning their trip on the Cerritos into a booze cruise. Soon everyone is going nuts and of course at first we suspect the Betazeds, but it's actually T'Lyn because of course Vulcans have some telepathic abilities. With Mariner's help, she has to find a way to get things under control. The B-plot focuses on Boimler hanging out with the security team, who are having a goof-off day until shit gets real. Like the previous episode it finds a good balance between low-brow humor and actual character development. There's also a nod to the overarching plot of the mystery ship destroying random ships I always think looks like a wireless gaming mouse. (3.5/5)
The sixth episode again begins with the mystery ship destroying another vessel; only this time it's the Ferenghi. That sets up the Cerritos and Toronto to go to Ferenginar to start the process of getting the Ferenghi into the Federation. The cool thing is we get Grand Nagus Rom and First Clerk Leeta with the original actors voicing them. They try to swindle the Federation admiral leading the negotiating team while Mariner's mother tries to mitigate the damage. The rest of the episode felt like it could have been better. Mariner goes around getting into fights for...reasons, basically rehashing her plot in the second episode. Boimler again is relegated to a B-plot, or maybe even D-plot as he gets hooked on Ferenghi TV which naturally is like our TV now. And Tendi and Rutherford have to pretend to be a couple, which they find awkward. What didn't make sense is when Tendi and Rutherford are supposed to consummate their marriage in a restaurant, they just out of the blue pretend they're each in love with the bird therapist guy voiced by Paul F Tompkins. Really since Boimler was watching a show about will-they/won't-they romances in a Ferenghi office it would have made more sense to have him show up to suggest it. And while T'Lyn has been heavily featured in the last few episodes, she wasn't even in this. So it was OK but could have been better. (2.5/5) (PS: I'm not a great comedy writer but really I think Mariner should have gotten in touch with Boimler to get her out of jail and then they could have gone to find Tendi and Rutherford and Boimler could have suggested they imitate Ferenghi TV to get out of their situation. That would have felt tighter instead of everyone just doing their own thing and nothing dovetailing together.)
The seventh episode is mostly a self-referential episode as it brings back three villains from previous episodes: the evil Badgey computer program, Agimus the evil supercomputer (voiced by Trek regular and Reanimator star Jeffrey Combs), and the robotic ExoComp Peanut Hamper. There are two separate plots that don't really intersect. Badgey has been recovered by scavengers and takes over their ship to get revenge on his creator Rutherford and the Cerritos. Meanwhile Boimler and Tendi go to Earth where Peanut Hamper is up for parole and Agimus claims to have information about the strange gaming mouse ship that's destroying ships and will only talk to Boimler. Rutherford confronts Badgey, who starts splitting into other Badgeys in a nod to the TOS episode where Kirk split into good Kirk and evil Kirk. Meanwhile, Agimus takes over an insignificant planet after Boimler lets him out to get information and Peanut Hamper is released. The common theme is really about the three villains taking a new path for their lives to maybe find redemption. One becomes a god-like entity like Dr. Manhattan in Watchmen, one returns home, and one goes back to prison. Guess which is which? Overall a decent episode, especially if you're a fan of the series who remembers all these internal references. Not a great episode but tighter than the last one. At least it gave Boimler a little more to do than most of this season. Meanwhile, when not picking fights, Mariner's role seems to be designated cheerleader for the other three main characters. For the second straight episode no sign of T'Lyn, which is a little disappointing. With the intel from Agimus, we're getting into the home stretch as far as that killer ship goes, though the twist I saw coming a while ago. (3/5)
The eighth episode is basically a throwaway episode. The four main characters are sent down to a cave to study it. Some killer glowing moss traps them and then it basically uses a clip show format as they each tell a story. Boimler's is about being in a cave with a fellow officer who's a conspiracy nut and guess what? Some of his conspiracies turn out to be true! Rutherford's story is about being stuck in a cave with the doctor and an alien guide; when she dies, she implants Rutherford with a sort of clone he gives birth to. Mariner's story is about crashing on a planet with rival Delta Shift and trying to get some mineral that projects a chroniton field that causes rapid aging the closer you get to it. Then Tendi's story is after basically the first episode of the series they get stuck in a turbolift and how it helps them bond. It's a fun episode and every character gets a spotlight. The only disappointment is there's nothing to advance the killer ship plot. Also still no sign of T'Lyn--what gives? (3/5)
The ninth (and presumably penultimate) episode as I figured sets up the final showdown. And, hey, T'Lyn is back! Yay! She along with the rest of the normal gang (except Rutherford for...reasons) go off to fix a weather satellite because Mariner's mom is worried about her daughter seeming to have a death wish and while the Cerritos is off to find Nick Locarno (who was played by Robert Duncan McNeill before he was Parris on Voyager) she wants Mariner to have an easy mission. But of course it doesn't go as planned when a Klingon Bird of Prey attacks their shuttle to leave them stranded on a remote planet. When Mariner is stranded with a Klingon during a glass shard storm we finally get to the root of her problems, which goes all the way back to the original "Lower Decks" TNG episode--nice. Some of it seems like sort of a rebuke for DS9's Dominion War thing, which I don't agree with. You can say Trek isn't supposed to be about war or violence and yet how many of the original episodes have the Enterprise and its crew fighting something or other? How many redshirts got killed off during away missions? During her self-pity party it would have been a good time to trot out Kirk's speech (or Eric McCormack reciting it during Free Enterprise) about how "risk is our business." Whether the Federation is at war or not, there is always going to be risk in Starfleet, so if you're worried about that then stay back on Earth. The rest of the lower decks team isn't given a ton to do though there's a nice bit with Tendi to tie into the episode where she went back home. Boimler mostly whines and cringes while T'Lyn does Vulcan stuff. I didn't really get what was going on with the Bird of Prey or how it got there or how it tied into the killer ship thing.
Meanwhile, the Cerritos goes to a planet that's basically like Tatooine and the captain, security officer, and Rutherford go to basically Mos Eisley. There are a few Star Wars-themed jokes about wearing a helmet all the time and distinguishing between puppets or not. They really needed a goofy cantina band to complete the illusion. The solution to their problem reminded me of one of Timothy Zahn's Star Wars books where Han is going to meet some smuggler and has Wedge Antilles go with him. Wedge is so out-of-place that he draws everyone's attention, allowing Han to get the drop on his contact. The same principle here. The end promises a resolution to the killer ship thing that involves Mariner and that relatively minor TNG character previously mentioned. An OK episode to set up the big finish overall. (3/5)
The season finale begins with a flashback to the Academy that ties to the episode of TNG where Locarno, Sito, and Wesley plan to do some stupid maneuver that gets a kid named Josh killed. An eager young Mariner shows up but they won't tell her. Fast-forward 13 years and Locarno has Mariner on his weird ship. He's plotting to have lower deckers everywhere rise up and has created a ragtag fleet called the "Nova Fleet." He sends a message to the whole quadrant, threatening any hostiles that he has a Ferengi "Genesis Device" to set off should anyone mess with him--at least until Mariner swipes it and then a Starfleet ship.
What this episode does really well is to tie a lot of the season together. The Cerritos goes to Orion so Tendi can make a deal for some help with her sister. Rutherford's rival returns and they have to work out something the way Rutherford and Boimler did. T'Lyn makes a final decision on whether to stay. And Boimler has to take charge! There are some callbacks to Star Trek II as Mariner and Locarno go into a nebula with the Genesis Device. Nothing on the magnitude of Spock's sacrifice happens though. I mean, this is still a comedy.
There was one thing I was confused about at the end when an admiral said he and the captain need to discuss "her lieutenant." I thought they meant Mariner, but they meant someone else. Someone who is at least for the start of next season (provided there is one) is going to be separated from the others. Not exactly a cliffhanger, but some business that would need dealt with. So it gives you something to look forward to but with all the strikes and whatnot if it doesn't happen or takes a while then it's not leaving you hanging too much. (4/5)
So overall I mostly really liked this season. A couple of episodes that weren't so good to me but still nothing really bad. It really hasn't missed a step since the first season; if anything it's even better!
That is all.
(PS: My math comes to a total of 33.5/50 which is 66% which in school terms would be a failure but that isn't really how it compares. If we use fractions it's 3.3/5 so pretty decent overall.)
This month's IWSG question is about NaNoWriMo--that's a lot of acronyms or whatever. To answer the question, I did officially participate in it 10 years ago and "won." You can read my "journey" in three posts here, here, and here. Being classy, I called it NaNoWhineMo because it was just me whining about what I was doing on it. On to today's entry!
Friday I finished reading another sci-fi comedy called Max and the Multiverse. It had some fun bits but mostly I didn't really like it. If not for the talking cat(!?!) I probably would have only given it two stars but the talking cat(!?!) was fun enough that I gave it three stars.
What really bugged is one of those things I realize after I've finished the book. In this case that there was no real payoff for the whole Max multiverse thing. At the start of the story, the eponymous Max is a gamer who falls asleep and hits some keys that somehow give him the ability to jump universes randomly when he falls asleep. There's one with dinosaurs running around like that third Jurassic World movie and one where everyone talks like Yoda--except Yoda, who talks like we do--and then one where religion never really took root and everything is like Star Trek. Max then goes into space with the cat, who's transferred into an artificial body that can talk with a British accent.
And from there the multiverse thing really no longer matters. The author hand waves this away by saying the farther Max is from Earth, the less effect it has on him. The story from there is he meets two female alien delivery people and gets embroiled in delivering some MacGuffin to a scientist for...reasons.
A week or so earlier I re-edited my sci-fi comedy Chet Finley vs The Machines of Fate and for the most part I still enjoy it. What I think I did better than Max and the Multiverse is what happens to Chet at the beginning actually matters in the end. Instead of banging his head to slide between multiverses, Chet has this hobby of working on old computers. He's working on one and gets a shock--and then sees a robot "angel" named Ziggy and finds out that robots like Ziggy have been manipulating humans for a galactic betting scheme for centuries. Like Max, Chet eventually goes out into space, only in this case to escape being killed by Ziggy's masters and maybe expose the scam to free Earth. He, Ziggy, a shapeshifting assassin named Sadie, and the Care Bear-looking Dr. Irony end up on a strange planet that's inhabited only by a little girl and some old robots.
Where Chet's hobby pays off is that he's able to fix the robots tending to the girl and to help stop the ones hunting them. The house they find has a really old computer system that uses an operating system a lot like BASIC or whatever, which Chet knows from working with the old computers. Thus he's able to do something useful at the end that ties to what happens at the beginning.
By contrast, all Max does at the end is "speak nerd" to some scientist guy and...not really do much other than stand around. Like I said, the multiverse thing doesn't come into it at all. It's really just a means to get him into space, but as you can see with Chet (or Hitchhiker's Guide to which we're both indebted) there are other ways to get your dorky guy into space. (Maybe just have a mad scientist shoot him into space and force him to watch bad movies.)
If you give someone a unique ability, it's good if he or she uses it in the end so it can tie to the beginning. Really this was a problem I had with shows like Titans, Doom Patrol, and season 1 of Picard where it seemed like most of the characters didn't really contribute anything at the end. It really makes the story lack symmetry and just in general feel half-assed.
Buuuut that Max book won some kind of awards and my book has sold nothing so what the hell do I know, right?
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