We have ruined everything in the name of sportsball.

Well, yes, now.

I saw the entire original broadcast run of Clerks: The Animated Series. All both episodes.

Only six episodes were produced, and they eventually aired, but I did not find this out until years later. The internet ended a longstanding era where you could be aware of and interested in something, but know fuck-all about it, and have no sensible way of learning more. So I’d heard of Kevin Smith movies - but never seen any. Watching the Clerks movie would have taken a trip to a physical video-rental store, with my parents, and then convincing them (and myself) to rent a vulgar black-and-white movie for all of us to watch together. Wasn’t happening.

I was more likely to rent and watch any of the R-rated films that somehow got cartoon adaptations - which were part of that same impotent awareness. Robocop and Ghostbusters and fuckin’ Starship Troopers were advertised anywhere and everywhere, and kids liked the shallow cool parts in the trailers, so executives said “fuck it” and licensed no-budget G-rated spinoffs to sell toys.

Anyway. The Clerks animated series exists because Disney wanted an adult-ish show to compete with The Simpsons. Everyone did. Disney knew they had a gap in their demographics for twenty-something dorks with disposable income. Aaand then they handed the finished episodes to ABC, who used a focus group of old farts and children. Of course it bombed. The premiere was the fourth episode produced, which stuck the characters in a courtroom drama, and ended with a wacky consequence-free style change wherein the outsourced animators rebelled and delivered a lolrandom dance party. The second and final episode aired was a fake clip show full of flashbacks to episodes that did not exist.

At least Clone High got an entire season.

Over water: maybe. Over land: lolno.

Moist.

It’s not a brand name. Two American companies picked different compound abbreviations at roughly the same time, and somehow one name spread here and the other name spread everywhere else.

My parents had one where it slid down, and my grandfather had one where it slid up. They looked otherwise identical.

Some thanksgivings we’d have both at the same table and it drove me up the fucking wall.

In the UK it’s mandatory, ostensibly to prevent deliberate overdoses. You can’t buy a big bottle of acetaminophen.

In part because they call it paracetamol.

Plenty happens after you die. You’re just not there for it.

I only recently tossed a Handbook Of Christian Apologetics by Tacelli & Kreeft. I was never devout, let alone outright brainwashed into anti-science nonsense, but at the cusp of my reddit atheist phase I figured a question this big deserved a fair shake. So I got a big ol’ book of the best arguments anyone had. They all sucked. So that was that.

The one that made me put the book down and go ‘yep, atheist’ was “the argument from magic.” You think about moving your hand. Your hand moves by thought alone. Magic! Therefore, Jesus. I fucking wish I was exaggerating.

Took another decade to figure out the people pushing these arguments don’t actually give a shit about being right. The point is performing loyalty to the ingroup. There’s a conclusion, and it comes from people above you, so your job is to make whatever mouth noises get there. Consistency and logic are neat features if you can manage. A monotheistic god is only the purest expression of that tribalist worldview.

South Park: “I’m afraid it was the Mormons. Yes, Mormon was the correct answer.”

Nah, like Kankri and Porrim.

How do you get tan-egg poop out of a keyboard?

Final v3 is funny cartoon man Noodle and his game-dev friend Sam talking about the creative industry. Mostly about why you shouldn’t work in the creative industry.

Well There’s Your Problem is two communists an anarchist exploring awful ways architecture and infrastructure can turn people into a homogeneous paste. Notably this one has slides to accompany the audio.

Kill James Bond is a review podcast for slagging off spy movies and related films.

Youtube videos. I used to use youtube-dl exclusively, and then that stopped working, and I’ve gradually been sucked back into just using the website. But there’s a text file with a list of URLs I’ve been meaning to grab for posterity… and it’s getting kinda fat.