OMG. Tom Hanks, tight action, amazing film. Brilliant.

It expresses my deep regard for the Mighty Democratic Underground. And my love of this nation.

Every Oscar, period. A Powerhouse.

Good night, my brave comrades.

US NAVY ROCKS.

"Happy Putinfall to one and all!"

"Have you put up your Putinfall decorations yet?"

"Hey, uhhh -- I was wondering -- if you wanted to go -- to the Putinfall dance with me --"

It's going to be a wonderful first Putinfall. My favorite holiday. The best season, a season of hope and renewal.

Chortle.

I went to the Macy's at Downtown Plaza in Sacramento to get a pair of pants. Hadn't been there in a long time; I telework, and so even though my building is downtown I haven't been there in more than six months.

I parked in the underground garage and climbed the metal stairs to the surface -- a door let me out at the west end of the mall, right near the Macy's. The mall has an open-air corridor all the way through the center of it, and as I walked past it to get to the Macy's side door on the other side --

"DON'T PANIC!" I heard someone shout. From the corridor I heard other people shouting, a woman screamed -- and then suddenly from either side of the escalator in the center, I saw what the tumult was about.

Perhaps twenty to thirty (sixty?) high school kids were riding electric bikes at high speed right toward me, all of them popping wheelies, fat front tires spinning in the air as they came on at maybe twenty miles an hour --

"DON'T PANIC!" I saw one of the front riders shout again. I froze in place, trying to judge what to do next -- a kid coming right at me was having a tough time holding the wheelie, wobbling back and forth with a look of concern --

At the last second he lost it, and veered right at me. These bikes are heavy, with the big battery on the bottom below the pedals, heavy frames and super-fat tires -- if he hit me it was going to do some serious damage, so I judged the distance and jumped back to let him clear me -- right into the path of another kid roaring by right behind me. I scooted forward a millimeter and both kids shot by me so closely I felt the air pulse from both sides.

The rest weren't as close, but they were moving fast. A couple behind me shouted as they were nearly run down -- another man in front of me dodged a close call as the literal horde of electric bikes streamed by us -- and then the kids were gone, laughing harshly and whooping as they escaped down the wide concrete path that led past the Holiday Inn and toward the freeway.

I stood there for a moment, caught in the rush of fight-or-flight adrenaline -- and shock at a brand-new thing I'd never seen before. I felt like an elder witnessing the birth of a new generation, a bubbling up of tension and frustration I hadn't known existed.

The guy in front of me caught my eye, shook his head and cursed quietly. The couple behind me clutched at each other and looked around and into the mall corridor as if there might be more -- and then we all finally returned to our paths. I went into the Macy's with my heart still pounding.

I asked the sales clerk about it as I paid. "We can't stop them," she whispered, and looked around her as if they might hear her. "Sometimes they come in the store and ride around, go up and down the escalators and scare everybody." I raised my eyes with disbelief, but she nodded her head affirmatively.

As I walked back to the car I stayed light on my feet and kept my eyes on the corridor -- nothing but regular mall shoppers, though. I thought about it as I walked down to the car -- while I've been staying in my house working on my double screens with my laptop, the world had changed. I hadn't kept up.

I'm not the guy to judge these kids. I did some really stupid stuff at that age, and even after that age -- I get it. I've just never seen that particular manifestation of teen angst before -- an electric-bike high school gang terrorizing a big mall to display their feelings of anxiety and powerlessness in the face of an uncertain future.

"Don't panic!" Indeed. Thanks for that at least, kids. And good luck to us all.

https://youtube.com/shorts/tHbbBekgwQk?feature=share

Did mine.

Shopping malls open. Restaurants packed. "It's like 2019 there!"

Her husband's been in bed for five full days now, headaches, bodyaches, nausea, fatigue. They can't find a rapid test at the CVS.

He's double-vaxxed, no booster, his company requires it. But she's not. Mentioned Facebook as the reason. No symptoms yet --

But the two little girls, 2 and 4, went right back to their private Christian daycare when they returned.

Flying back to California she felt the heaviness of the oppressive mask mandate return --

They're taking the job. Everything's cheaper in Texas, she says.

Like life, apparently.

Oldie but goodie.

They think they will write the history, but history begs to differ. People of good conscience will study these years and write the truth of it: frightened, ignorant Americans followed sociopaths down old dark roads known all too well to anyone who reads history.

The leaders of this clownish parade of mass murder and mayhem will be infamous forever, but the true highlights framed for the future will be the attempted overthrow of a democratic nation by frightened, ignorant Americans guided by hostile foreign interests and the cunning but criminal capture of a Supreme Court by those same zealots. Those two stories will stick.

They think the things they say will shield them from the harsh judgment of history, but their names will live on as popular villains of fact and fiction for the next thousand years. This will happen. Count on it.

I love a good ghost story, but that's not what this is.

This is a warning about what happens when ignorant people get scared and follow an opportunist down a rabbit hole.

It's Korean, Netflix original, and it's freaking me out.

Best political thriller of the year -- way relevant for us, you'll understand what I mean if you watch it.

Just shivers. Woah.

Ron "The Ghoul" Sweed circa 1972 saying it right out loud on broadcast television. I'd never hear of this fellow until today. But I ran across a link to the wikipedia about the first black-owned television station in the United States (WGPR, an interesting story in itself featuring The Scene, a 'Soul Train' style dance show and some other truly interesting variety shows) and their Detroit broadcast of 'The Ghoul' after Kaiser Broadcasting took him off the air for his politically-charged, popular segments like this one.

He passed away in 2019 but was clearly loved by his diehard lefty fans. The clip above is about Nixon's visit to Russia in May of 1972, and he pulls no punches.

From the wikipedia:

Known for his zany, early-adolescent humor (particularly surrounding his abuse of a rubber frog named "Froggy," his well-known penchant for blowing up model ships and aircraft with firecrackers, and his habitual smearing of Cheez Whiz over everything in sight), late night monster movies were a unique experience for Cleveland viewers in the 1970s. Catch phrases included "zingy-zingy," "Overdey!" and "stay sick, turn blue".

The Ghoul would typically take an unbelievably bad horror movie and dump in sound bites at appropriate moments, using audio clips from novelty records, George Carlin, Firesign Theater and rock albums of the '60s and early '70s. And whenever a character took a drink of something on-screen, The Ghoul would supply a good, loud belch.

Shooting from no-budget studio sets, the Ghoul inserted his own dialogue and sound effects over insufferably bad B movies, blew up food, model cars and figurines with firecrackers, and produced strangely compelling, culturally relevant skits and parodies. The show was destructive and childish enough for little kids, subversive and timely enough for young adults.

The Ghoul was well known enough in the Cleveland and Detroit markets that some of his catch phrases ("Overdey!", "Hey group!", "Scratch glass, turn blue", "Stay sick, climb walls", "Pluck your magic twanger, Froggy!", "Holy Parma", "Amrap" and Froggy's "Hiya gang, hiya hiya hiya!" are still widely recognized among the children of the 1970s.

An interesting side element is that the aforementioned rubber toy referred to simply as "Froggy" (and much abused by the Ghoul) was a toy dating from 1948 by a company named Rempel and featured often in comedic skits on the 1955 television show Andy's Gang where he was named Froggy the Gremlin. The Ghoul's oft-uttered catch phrases "Hiya, gang. Hiya, hiya, hiya" and "Pluck your magic twanger, Froggy" originate from that earlier show.

I would have loved this guy in 1972, but I was growing up in Dhahran. Missed his wave altogether until this very day.

Bonus Clip of the opening show for The Scene: