Steven Harper's Blog, page 10

Easy Solutions

 Okay, the answer to this one was right out there:https://www.washingtonpost.com/.../carolyn-hax.../Short version: My mother-in-law wants to force me to choose a collectible so she can give me piles of them, but I don't want the clutter in my house. What do I do?Advice column readers chimed in with various solutions, from "tell her you'll just throw them out" to "tell her you collect something tiny, like antique buttons, and then keep them in a tiny box."Aw, come on, folks! The solution is simple: "Great, Mom! I collect hundred dollar bills."

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Lion King Pass

So Disney is doing a "live-action" animated prequel to THE LION KING:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o17MF9vnabg

The animation looks cool, and if I had no idea this was a prequel, I'd probably be intrigued.

However...

The problem with prequels with a "before he became evil" character is that they're inherently tragic. We KNOW it's going to end badly. This is why I generally don't like them. Sure, there's supposed to be suspense generated by the question, "What happened that the character became evil?" because no one is =ever= inherently selfish or cruel or self-serving--they must have gone through some kind of tragedy to make them evil. But this is so rarely done well that it's not worth watching. The ONLY character arc of this type that riveted me was watching Lex Luthor develop in SMALLVILLE, and that was because of Michael Rosenbaum's fantastic performance that showed us Lex battling the darkness already inside him.

This trailer, meanwhile, runs in entirely the opposite direction. Apparently, Mufasa is a lost lion cub found by prince Maka (who eventually becomes Scar). Mufasa is eventually adopted into Maka's family. The trailer spends a lot of time showing how much Maka wanted a brother, and how much joy the two brothers share, how deep their brotherly bond runs. The trailer shows not a hint of darkness in Maka, who is instead exuberant and loyal and utterly loveable.

But we know he has to turn so evil that he deliberately murders his brother, tries to kill his nephew, and turns the area around Pride Rock into a wasteland that starves his people. This means the movie is going to send this exuberant, loyal, loveable little kid through some kind of horrifying hell and torture him until he becomes black and twisted.

This is not a movie I want to watch. Not even for Lin Manuel-Miranda's music. Hard, hard pass.

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Political Shift

As a veteran political junkie, I've noticed something: the Democrats are having a major mood change right now. Let's look.

When Obama was running, the mood was somber, serious. Stay with it, buckle in, do the work. Yes, we can!

When Hilary Clinton was running, the mood was horror and disbelief. There's no way =he= can get the nomination. Well, crap! Okay, well, he can't become president. Can he? No. No! NO! What just happened?

When Biden was running, the mood was need. We've been bereft of good leadership and good government, and we're in need. We'll toss this guy and fix things. We're still doing that, in fact.

When Biden ran again, the mood was resignation. Okay, Joe, if you're gonna run, we'll stand behind you. Sigh. But you know, we kind of hope ...

When Harris started running, the mood was relief and happiness. Whew! We don't have to worry about the media's continual attacks on Biden's age while they ignore Trump's. And wow! This is awesome! A biracial woman in the White House? Totally there! The orange guy is going down and we're going to move forward.

When Wallz joined the campaign, the mood turned to joy and celebration. This is gonna be such fun! We're bringing happiness and energy back to the government. Joe was affable but low key. Kamala Harris is exuberant and energetic and she LAUGHS. The other side is trying to make fun of her laugh, but we're loving it! And Wallz is Fun Dad. Yay!

We've been starved for happiness in politics. The GOPers who make the news are the ones who preach doom and gloom, fear and hatred. Especially hatred, along with its children racism and homophobia. The orange guys rallies and speeches are relentless attacks on his opponents. Name-calling. Disparagement. Lies. Sneers. There's no smiling. And when have you ever seen Trump actually laugh about something? He wears a perpetual angry scowl. He talks about what he wants to stop--immigration, LGBT rights, health care, school funding. Not a word about what he wants to =start.= Trump and his followers aren't here to make anyone's lives better. They're here to tear down and destroy. No happiness. 

We've been living under a cloud of seriousness or unhappiness for so long, we've forgotten that we can have joyful candidates. 

Harris and Wallz have brought that back. The mood is celebratory. The sun has come out and we're having a party! It's been so long that we've forgotten how it feels.

It feels nice.




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Trope!

 TV/movie trope I can live without:

AGENT: "But who did this? Just give me a name!"

INFORMANT: "I can't give that name. It would put you in too much danger."

AGENT: "I need the name, or thousands will die!"

INFORMANT: "It's too dangerous to tell you. I just can't."

This kind of thing throws me out of the story. It can't be "too dangerous" for someone to know something. (Corollary bad trope: "I can tell you my super-hero secret identity. It would put you in danger!" How, pray tell?) And if the informant doesn't want to speak because they're being spied on, why have the meeting at all?

It's a poorly-done attempt to manufacture suspense, and you can practically hear the keyboard clatter behind the dialogue.

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Grindr and the GOP

 This simultaneously makes me laugh and pisses me off:

https://www.rawstory.com/grindr-2668764731/

TL;DR: Usage at the hookup app Grindr is spiking in Milwaukee because of the RNC.

Funny? Sure is. All those men who howl that they're straight, straight, straight get away from their wives for a week and they're ready to climb into bed with a different guy each night.

But.

These are men who have joined a party that is doing its best to destroy LGBTQ people. At best, this party wants us swept aside and ignored. At worst, it want us dead. And these men loudly support all that while they quietly have sex with men.

Why do they do this? I really can't say. Maybe they value power--or a slim chance at it--more than they do their own lives.

Maybe they're psychopaths and have no empathy for their fellow LGBTQ people.

Maybe it's the allure of the forbidden and they don't understand--or refuse to try--that giving in to this allure while claiming to be straight is lying to themselves.

Maybe they figure being in the RNC will benefit them economically but don't want to be rejected socially, so they make an outward show of heterosexuality.

Maybe they're self-loathing gay men who outwardly try to be straight but give themselves a weekend pass to indulge their true selves when they're out of town.

Maybe they were raised in GOP families and are too scared to come out (which I can understand) and go all-in with the anti-gay party to reaffirm their public heterosexuality (which I can't).

Or maybe they're just selfish, self-centered asses who have decided the GOP will benefit them somehow and are willing to sacrifice the rest of us for that.

Whatever the reason for their behavior, it's not merely offensive. This is the worst of cowardice, hypocrisy, and selfishness. If they're too scared or feel they aren't in a position to be publicly gay, I get that. Not everyone can be openly gay, even today. These men can join the GOP publicly and quietly vote Democrat in the privacy of the voting booth. But giving money to GOP candidates? Attending the RNC? Campaigning against LGBT rights? What the hell are they doing?

Over the years, I've met a number of men who are married to women and say that they're straight, but they slip out for a quickie with a guy once in a while. Their reasons are varied and interesting. "My wife won't have sex with me, and it's easier to deal with a guy on the side--women want dinner and drinks and romancing, but guys get straight to business." "I wouldn't want to marry a guy or even kiss one, but sometimes you just need oral from someone who knows what they're doing, you know?" "I'm straight, but every few months, I just want a guy to bend me over the bed. I don't know why. But I'm definitely straight."

That's cool, gentlemen. Everyone has their thing. But you don't get to have your thing while working hard to hurt a community you're part of, whether you acknowledge it or not.






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Conditioning and Cats

The cats each have their own private food dish. Each bowl has a chip in it that reacts to a chip in one of the cat's collars, and only that chip. Dora's dish won't open for Dinah and vice-versa. This keeps Dora from pigging down Dinah's food and also cuts back a little on Dora's eating.  When I feed them, I put the dishes in the same spots in the laundry room and the cats go straight to their own dishes.

A couple days ago, I accidently swapped spots. I didn't notice, either. Dora was very clingy and demanding all day that day. In the evening, I grabbed the bowls to refill them and noticed my mistake. Oops! Interestingly, Dinah's bowl was empty, and Dora's was completely full. In other words, Dinah had figured out what went wrong and happily ate from her bowl in its new location. Dora apparently couldn't figure out why her dish wouldn't open and it didn't occur to her to try the other one, since it had never opened for her before.

Classical conditioning! Though Dinah seems immune. Either that, or Dora's a few watts short on her lights.



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Deep Fry Saturday

 I've been prepping the last couple days for an Independence Day picnic. It culminated today with frying chicken. I got out my deep fryer, filled it with oil, breaded the chicken, and set to work.

When all the chicken was fried, I had this vat of hot oil, and it felt like I should do something with it other than just let it cool and throw it away. (I don't strain and keep used oil because I know I won't use it before it goes bad.) So I sliced up a potato for some french fries for lunch. And then it occurred to me that I've been wanting to try making onion rings for a while, and this was the perfect chance.

I peeled and cut an onion into thick slices, then popped the rings out. I spiced up some flour with salt, pepper, and smoked paprika, dipped the onions in beaten egg, then into the flour, then back into the egg, and then into bread crumbs. In retrospect, it probably would have been a little easier to make a basic batter with the flour and egg and flavorings. A note for next time! 

The rings went into the deep fryer, where they sizzled enticingly. When they looked done, I fished them out and tried one. Wow! So good. Both crispy and tender. The onion also held together. This was light years ahead of the flash-frozen, mushy-interior onion rings you get at most diners and fast food restaurants.

So we'll keep this in the rotation.



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A Million Boxes Interview

A while ago on Facebook, I posted my confusion about the One Million Checkboxes site. Later that day, a reporter from the New York Times saw the post and interviewed me about it. Here's the result!

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/07/03/style/one-million-checkboxes-game.html

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The Internet of Cat Boxes

Last year, I bought an automatic litter box. It's very high-tech. It senses when a cat climbs in, weighs the cat, waits until the cat leaves, and then cycles itself. The "box" is actually shaped more like a dryer drum with clumping litter in the bottom. It cycles by turning the drum, which runs the litter through a strainer that clears out the clumps and drops them into a waste bin below. 

It's a wonderful invention. Before I owned this device, I used a traditional cat box with clay litter. I don't like sieving out daily clumps and would rather empty the whole box every few days. Either way is messy and gross. But the automatic box can go an entire week without needing to be emptied, and the clumps are whisked away into an air-tight drawer lined with a plastic bag. When it gets full, I just pull the drawer open, lift the bag out, and drop it in the trash. No touching of cat clumps involved!

The box keeps track of all kinds of data--how much each cat weighs, how often each visits the box, how often it cycles, how often it fills up. And it sends this data to an app on my phone. I still get disconcerted when the litter box sends me a text. (I could shut them off, but then I tend to forget to empty the drawer and the box stops working.)

It does have a flaw, though.

Last night, I emptied the drawer and ran the bag out to the trash, which was already at the curb for pickup. Something distracted me, though, and I completely forgot to replace the bag and put the drawer back in. This morning---aaaaaagggghhh! Cat clumps all over the drawer space and on the floor.

I went through two pairs of rubber gloves and I don't how many paper towels sprayed with cleaner getting it all cleaned up. Then there was the sweeping and the mopping. And the ew, ew, ew!

This was totally on me, but you'd think a device that can tell our two cats apart would have a sensor that says, "Drawer's open! Hold off on cycling!" Maybe I'll write customer service.




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The Newsletter Is Back!

 I've joined Substack. Man, it's easier to use than Mail Chimp! My July newsletter is now out. Some great news about my books here:

https://stevenharperpiziks.substack.com/p/steven-harper-piziks-newsletter-july



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