ROLEY

Category: Blog

  • Tuesday, July 16th 2024

    In all of history, it turns out that there is nothing like a crisis to take control of the narrative. It’s the best way to help people point fingers at someone for something they’re also guilty of. The more dire the circumstances the better. Gabby Giffords would like to have a word with us about this.

    CORRECTION

    Starting, I have a correction to make. My friend the photographer who was recently laid off has a website, but it’s different from the one I *thought* he had. I linked to his FB Page yesterday, even though I really can’t stand Facebook. Here’s his page on Pixels. Please take a look at his work and buy something. He’s a great guy and a great photographer. Thanks.

    NEW IDEAS

    Thinking of new content ideas for the blog/podcast. I’ve long had the idea to do a rewatch of Doctor Who, starting with An Unearthly Child in 1963. There certainly wouldn’t be a lack of content. Other shows I have had the itch to do is Bosch, and The Newsroom. I did give some thought to doing a review of WWE Raw and Smackdown, but that would be an impossible turnaround for me. I started watching Bond Movies starting with Dr. No, but the further I got into it, the more creeped out I got by how Connery’s Bond would not be tolerated today at all. Different time, I suppose.

    LINKS 2 3 4….

    What about a separate page here on the Site dedicated to daily links? See here for an example.

    LAYING OFF THE SHINY

    I may have reached the point where the new shiny stuff doesn’t excite me. I upgraded my phone, and as it turns out my new phone is going to be able to do the new AI stuff that Apple is going to release in the fall, but all I wanted was the damn camera. AI doesn’t grab me. Maybe it should, but I also realize that AI is coming for my job one of these days, so I can’t find the room to get that excited about it.

    Additionally, I find myself sick of consumerism, late-stage capitalism I’m supposed to think is synonymous with freedom. I don’t think the new shiny is synonymous with freedom. It’s synonymous with bankruptcy. At least, that’s what Living Color told me.

    JUST ANOTHER WORD FOR…

    ‘Freedom’ has become a word that means whatever the person or group using it wants it to mean. I invite you to go back to the opening scene of the first episode of The Newsroom for a better explanation of the use of that word. I might be a bit idealist, but I don’t think it was always so. You could say the same with ‘American’. I do not have to be a white cis Republican Evangelical to be an American. I don’t have to be a woke bisexual atheist to be one either. There is no real definition other than through the lottery of life I was blessed to be born here. The rest I get to decide because I am allowed to, and folks that would like to set our watches to 1952 don’t get to choose that for me.

  • Monday, June 15th 2024

    Recently I thought I’d try writing things—jokes, mainly-as they came to me. I liked it, but it just doesn’t fit with my mindset of what I (think I) want this site to be. I am forever a work in progress. There was a time where I was convinced that being forever a work in progress was a bad thing. I think there were people around me that were frustrated that I couldn’t be set in one thing, but that’s just not me. I’m going to be 54 next week, and my GAF was all but destroyed years ago.

    It’s not me, it’s you.

    Apparently my former employer is still ‘restructuring’. I saw that some remarkable human beings I had the pleasure of working with were told that his services are no longer required. I’m sure it’s nothing more than cutting the higher paid people in order to have someone else do the same job (or twice the work!) for less money. Still, the thing that’s really bothering me about this round is that it involved call center associates. They said over and over when I dodged the first two rounds of layoffs was that they weren’t going to touch the call center floor. I guess that’s been forgotten. It was only a matter of time. The company makes cameras and printers, neither of which are widely used by consumers anymore, and they were way behind the curve on things the rest of the camera world had embraced years earlier.

    I know it’s not supposed to be personal, but when you invest a great amount of yourself and your time it’s hard to not take it personally. In my case, I’ve always felt it WAS personal. It really destroyed me for a long time to the point that I couldn’t do anything creative at all. I hope my friend can bounce back better than I did. I also hope he can make an honest go with his photography business. I’d like to direct you to his photography website, but it appears to be down. So I’ll direct you to his Facebook Page. Please have a look and if he brings back his shop site, please consider buying something from him, and by all means spread the word.

    We’d like you to decide, even though you’ve already decided.

    I honestly don’t know how this isn’t the simplest of decisions. I don’t care who the Democratic nominee is, I’m voting for that person because I am not interested in opening the Seventh Seal of the Apocalypse. Is Biden older than dirt? Of course he is. Do I care? Maybe, but that’s what the 25th Amendment is for. I’m waiting for the first Republican to say a damn thing about the 25th Amendment, but if I was a betting man, I’d bet they will stay quiet about handing the Presidency to Kamala. Funny thing, that. I bet they do return to the birtherism real quick, tho.

    That said, Biden hasn’t helped his cause. The stuttering is baked in, as far as I’m concerned. What isn’t baked in is the switching up of names, the rambling and gibberish with no real direction, and the long—LONG—pauses. Yes, Trump does it too. Breaking News: They’re both old as fuck. However, that’s the ballot. Unless there’s a real, successful draft at the DNC in Chicago (the irony!), Biden is the nominee. No draft movement has ever been successful.

    He’s Just This Guy, You Know?

    Trump is the immediate existential danger, but if I’m being honest it’s not Trump himself I’m worried about. What worries me is the Zaphod effect.

    In the classic-oh-my-god-this-is-required-reading novel The Hitchikers’ Guide to the Galaxy, the President of the Galaxy is Zaphod Beeblebrox. He brings nothing to the table. He’s a party animal and an idiot. But his antics distract the people so they’re not paying attention to the folks really doing the work. That’s Trump.

    Trump is going to Trump. We know this. They know this as well, and they’re counting on it.

    Yeah, but when is the Two Minutes of Hate?

    The RNC convention started today, and maybe I’m just old. I remember conventions being run differently. Not covered differently (although I can make that argument as well), but it seems more like a marriage of informercial and cult worship than it used to be. I’m watching C-SPAN for neutral coverage (because I am that nerd), and some minor amusements.

    • *First, I see Marsha Blackburn, the protokaren from Tennessee, found the time to brush that rats nest she calls a hairdo.
    • Second, it’s funny to hear the band playing Where The Streets Have No Name, but dare not speak a word of it.
    • They’re doing the nomination election at 3pm on the first day. Why the first day, and why not in Primetime? Also, it has been my experience that at some point, someone makes a motion to wrap up the nomination by acclamation. Not so in this case. Ego much?
    • Junior’s a twat. Also, Junior’s a twat.
    • Youngkin is slightly less of a twat than Junior, but the twatfulness is still strong.
    • They are really calling The Orange Mush ‘the bravest man in America.’
    • All the folks who read their speeches from a phone or a sheet of paper and STILL mangled their way through their state delegate votes totals need to have a fucking seat when it comes to Biden’s stutter or prompter use.
    • You can always count on old white dudes (including me) to have the worst rhythm in the known universe. Awkward knows no party.
    • In what must be the first documented Karen moment of the convention, Senior Karen was upset that Middle-aged Chad wanted her to stop waving her Trump placard long enough for him to get a picture of…something. Probably the house band, Slightly Spicy Mayo (I don’t know, why not?), to document their playing ‘I Want You To Want Me’ for 15 minutes.

    It’s only 4pm. This should be fun…

  • KJP’s Inner Monologue

    (What in the actual, physical and spiritual fuck is happening right now? How many times am I gonna have to answer the same fucking question about this? Jesus, Mary and Frankenberry. I mean, normally it’s just Doocy that acts like a decerebate, now I have a whole fucking room of them.

    Meanwhile, I got a boss that’s hiding under his desk and shouting the Gondor calls for aid. I bet that was the movie on the flight home? While we’re on the subject…jet lag? Really? D-Day and the G7? That was a month ago. How long does it take to get back to normal? It’s six hours, not six fucking weeks!

    I swear, I can just install a See and Say in every one of these motherfuckers that just says “Is he dropping out? Does he have dementia? Why does everything here smell like formaldehyde and regret?” Get me out of here.

    I never want to see a pint of ice cream for as long as I live.)

  • Jobs For The Recently Disbarred Crazy Uncle In Your Life

    1. Quality Control for the YKK Zipper Company

    2. Masking Fragrance Tester

    3. Cloud Tamer

    4. Landscape Whisperer

    5. Box Color Hair Model

    6. “Boxcar Rudy”

    7. Sentence Diagrammer

    8. “OhHELLNOFans”

    9. The comedy stylings of Rudy and Sidney.

    10. Example.

  • LINK: The Final Days of Coyote vs. ACME →

    In a truly inglorious end, a source close to the movie doesn’t believe Warner Bros. would even announce that they hadn’t found a home for the movie. They would unceremoniously delete it. Never to be seen again.

    I can almost guarantee that there’s at least one generation of folks who would have loved to see this as a payoff for watching Wile E. Coyote plaster himself all over the desert floor over and over for years. I certainly would.

    I hope someone reconsiders this someday.

  • My Unvarnished Opinion of the Apple Vision Pro

    It makes Google Glass — and Glassholes — look reasonable by comparison.

    We’re doomed.

  • Cleaning the Social Media Gutter

    I’m noticing that quite a few people that view my stories on Instagram are people that I don’t know, and want nothing to do with. I started to go through my list of followers, and I quickly realized that leaving my account inactive for a long period of time might have been a mistake. A quick note about weeding the garden: Instagram doesn’t really make it easy, especially on the desktop version. It’s just a small scroll box in the center of the page. I really would like a way to bulk remove/block people. That should be a no-brainer.

    Yes, I realize there are 3rd party solutions that may allow you to do this, the point is that IG should allow you to do this. I’m going to look for those solutions so that I don’t have to waste more time in the weeds than necessary.

  • MarkWayne Mullin Is Not A Serious Person →

    That’s the act of an overgrown man-child with no self-control. It should be automatically disqualifying; no person who acts that way has any business in that job.

    It won’t be, of course. He caters to a crowd, a constituency that most likely approves of his behavior.

  • LINK: First-Gen Social Media Users Have Nowhere to Go →

    Ever since the popular platforms got basically weaponized, it’s been a little more like which one is the leper with the most fingers left. I’ve found myself on Threads, which is Zuckerberg. At least he’s not an insane fascist as far as we know. I hardly ever post on Facebook anymore, and I’m warming back up to Instagram since they appear to be appealing to photography again.

    That said, I’m not going to worry too much about it. I have this place, and anything I have to say I can post here.

  • LINK: James Corden Inks New Podcast for SiriusXM

    I’m reminded of the revival of the British comedy show Spitting Image (see: Genesis’ Land of Confusion video) where any time I’ve seen Corden’s puppet on the show, it is usually shot in the head. The British knew all along.

    Friends don’t let friends Corden.