Okay, to break my own rule: I think HAMILTON is a solidly built musical with some great songs that can never quite transcend the fact that it was written largely as a way to make Lin Manuel Miranda famous.

Ok I had to go find the clip bc this is the energy I will be bringing when anyone ever asks me if I use this ugly nonsense x: www.instagram.com/reel/DQun5Qr...

I still lurk in the Target employee reddit and this has been the top post for a while now:

in addition to being a grotesque imposition on employees, this would be enough to get me to stop going to Target even without the other stuff. eye contact? invasive questioning? please allow me to do my shopping as i prefer, rapidly and with absolute silence.

was sitting here thinking “what do I do tonight,” as though there wasn’t a new Vince Gilligan show starring Rhea fucking Seehorn waiting on my TV.

the only time it was monitored was a year or two when my dad would read Stephen King books before me and decided if i was ready for them. i went against his wishes with IT, and it's the closest thing I have to a "coming of age" story.

yes hello yes.

cannot stress this enough: we do not need to improve ice cream.

question for my fellow fiction writers: do you regularly start a story with an idea you like, only to have it peter out in a page or so after the initial novelty wears off? it seems to happen to me every time i'm between big projects, and i can never tell what will click and what won't.

a recent episode of 5-4 included some clips of ACB doing the press circuit to try and improve the Supreme Court's (deservedly terrible) image, and i am legit unsure if this lady would pass a Voight-Kampf test. the Stepford Wives were more human.

posted about politics again. sorry. please just know that, just like you, i am on the morally correct side of everything.

really enjoying Joe Hill's latest KING SORROW. a big book, but very well-paced (sometimes maybe a little too fast, but there's a lot going on), and Hill's ability to make familiar archetypes into complex, morally fallible individuals is on point. also, the scary bits are extremely good. #FridayReads

as a Gentile, I always appreciate getting to learn about other cultures, and there are several words tossed around casually in this episode that i'd never heard before. (it's also so funny that sometimes i had to stop listening so i could breathe again.)

had one of those "oh duh" realizations last night: withholding SNAP benefits isn't really part of any plan, it's just Trump believing that, since he is president, all of the government's money is his.

I wrote about why I can't sleep at night: the devaluation of so many things (critical thinking, creativity) I thought were paramount. lithub.com/when-we-deva...

as a man whose spent his entire professional life in libraries, i can confirm this. it rules.

yeah, sorry, I saw BEETLEJUICE BEETLEJUICE. some of it, anyway. i will no longer be tricked by studios attempting to mine the few remaining pop cultural bright spots of my childhood. (also, Joe Dante is why GREMLINS and GREMLINS 2 are good.)

Parks & Rec talk is weird because like all Michael Schur shows, i really enjoyed it for a couple of years and have no interest in ever watching it again. i think it's silly to blame a show for politics, tho. (yes, even the West Wing.)

fantastic work here by Scott on a movie i really loved--someone really needs to put this out on disc, because I don't want to subscribe to Netflix again.

basically every 2024 truism is dead. Trump did not build a lasting multiracial coalition or turn young men into committed Republicans. You don’t need to cave on trans rights to win. The pundits have nothing left to tell you.

good news makes me uncomfortable, but, like, a good uncomfortable? like, I’m kind of getting why masochism is a thing.

They also literally ran how we needed them to stay safe, despite the fact that 9/11 happened on their watch and the only policy shift was “ram a war down the country’s throat.” And they won. Maybe the first time I was really conscious of how fucked our politics are.

not to harsh a good buzz, but it's depressing that the only consequence so many of these monsters face is "dying of old age."

here's a question for you: someone just asked me about a book or short fantasy/sci-fi story that had, as a side-plot, a mushroom cult where people who ate the spores would have their brains taken over. does that ring any bells? (person said they thought it _might_ be Dresden Files related.)

this is a bummer, given that Star Trek: Beyond was excellent, but i won't be sad to see Quinto go. (bad Spock! he was a bad Spock!)

I see we’re fighting autism wars today. Here’s a fun fact: it does not require a cure

so wild how many democratic contests these days come down to “charismatic people saying ‘I want to make our lives better’” versus “hideous gargoyles who swear they’ll only drink a -little- of your blood.”

So they publish books that are only 14 words long?

there was a dude asking people to sign a petition to “keep men out of women’s sports,” and I managed to walk by him without flipping his table over, which is kind of a mixed win.

Bye. Dick.

resisting the impulse to apologize for saying “tits”

I don’t like the word “tits.” It sounds contemptuous of breasts, and that is not a position I can support.

finished @johnlangan.bsky.social's terrific new short story collection Lost in the Dark and Other Excursions. don't really have anything pithy or smart to say, other than i very much enjoyed it, and if you are into horror and you haven't read Langan, you should get on that.

Please help out Carol if you can. I cherish her, and she is a lovely, perfect angel. She's struggling atm and could really use a boost.

Kinda wild how many New Yorkers are apparently terrified of having a good mayor for once.

I think the world will be better off if we just don’t talk about Hamilton for a while. Give it fifty years.

he’s been in some fun movies, but for me, Dwayne Johnson’s greatest achievement will always be that SNL sketch I saw on TikTok where he plays a scientist who invents a robot that sexually molests children.

I saw some of K-Pop Demon Hunters, and it is super charming and the songs are very catchy, and I think, sadly, I am now officially too old for that kind of thing.

anyway, welcome to "for fuck's sake, can we at least have a month before you jam Christmas down our throats" November.

hm. i guess i could change my picture/username back, but i kinda dig this.

i hate that AI has now caused me to question the authenticity of cute animal videos online, which is my primary use of social media. i don't even know if this baby penguin actually wore a beret to go buy a tiny baguette in paris

ALTERED STATES: Men will literally ingest enough hallucinogens to transcend time and de-evolve into the abyss rather than go to therapy. Great flick.

One of my roommates has his TV so fucking loud the house is vibrating and when I asked him to turn it down a bit, he told me I needed to tell the first floor guys to turn it down, and I fucking hate people so much sometimes.

I don’t like lying because it feels like I’m making continuity errors in real life.

You know who could make a good Kolchak? Marc Maron.

It’s me! I don’t see many people talking about Gibney in the context of King’s work, and I has thoughts.

starting my annual Halloween marathon with I WALKED WITH A ZOMBIE.

Here’s my second King essay of the week. Particularly proud of this one, so please check it out!

yeah, this happened the entire day and is still happening. spam calls at three minute intervals, non-stop. did Homer get another autodialer

We started our Stephen King retrospective with a look at why The Stand seems to defy adaptation. Now here's @plumberduck.bsky.social with a corker of a piece on why a successful video game based on King's work remains even further out of reach.