dejected_warp_core

65: Kids are out of the house, you have some money to fix a broken door, but you're just too damn tired to go breaking things or screaming about it. Also, the reason for the tantrum happened 30 years ago. So you tell your family a pointless, rambling, mind-numbingly boring story about it at Thanksgiving, instead.

<< The Monkey's Paw Curls >>

2026 marks the first year in American history where a completely home-grown pandemic forces borders to close, and air-traffic to be redirected as to avoid receiving American passengers. The EU, Arab League, and countless other countries congratulate themselves on rapidly orchestrating the containment of the disease to the USA; truly a landmark moment for international relations. Meanwhile, a Georgetown-based super-PAC "La di libertine" gains untold amounts of influence in government, following an uncannily well-timed short-sale of AI-based stocks. When asked about speculations as to their ties to Italian crime syndicates and fascist hardliners, they declined to comment.

Narrator: And that's when the Fire Nation attacked.

It really can be like night and day. My cat was so incredibly stressed out when we brought her home that she kept "fawning" all over us for the first two weeks. Lots of excessive side rubs and a general clingyness to every interaction. She needed constant touch.

After that she began to settle in and became much more herself: playful, independent, and only sometimes in the mood for a lap or a cuddle.

NGL, I was hesitating on building a MAME cabinet, but having one with the art and build of a legendary fake game? Sounds perfect.

A couple of extra things about this.

The episode was co-authored by William Gibson of all people. The fact that one of the key authors that gave us cyberpunk as a genre, went on to write a painfully mediocre TV episode about virtual reality, still leaves me kind of stunned.

WRT to "live-action standing-in for VR", it can be done artfully. Avalon does a great job of using practical effects and creative set locations to portray cyberspace. Also: there's a lot of run-and-gun here, and nobody stands around. Which is to say: they really whiffed hard on the x-files episode, as there's clearly a better way to do this.

In a small, anecdotal way, I can say with confidence that the level of fiber trenching that happened (in a major metro area) from late 1999 through 2002 was on a whole other level.

I predict a whole "Weekend at Bernie's" DeathGate scandal where a whole bunch of executive actions and auto-pen shenanigans happen posthumously under his name, even though Vance is right there. Why? Because it's exactly the same kind of greedy and stupid this administration has demonstrated so far.

I already learned my lesson here.

Last time I said something like that was November of 2019.

This is a better response than I could have hoped for; consider my curiosity sated, and I am now fascinated. Thank you for sharing this.

Fair. Off to the links you provided I go.

Ooh, I did not consider the possibility of a military court case on this. That could be a game-changer.