I have a complete set of these, minus the holographic cards, because a friend I had in elementary school gave me his doubles.

This song by Slot. I know nothing about the band except that they’re Russian so I’ve always been a tiny bit worried I was actually listening to some anthem singing the glories of the Putin regime.

I rewatched What You Leave Behind yesterday and I’m like 99% sure that shot was in the episode.

I think that pretty much sums up the entire ethos of Silicon Valley these days.

Legend has it they ain’t nothin’ to fuck with.

The story behind this band is actually pretty crazy. The Shaggs were sisters who grew up in a house where there really wasn’t any music. Then their father was told by an astrologer (or some kind of fortune teller) that his daughters were going to be famous and influential musicians, and he got completely obsessed with the idea. He bought them all instruments and forced them to play (but for some reason didn’t bother to spring for actual music lessons). If I’m remembering correctly, he even pulled them out of school at some point so they could focus on music full-time.

So basically these sisters were basically locked in a basement and forced to invent the concept of music from scratch. It’s like some crazy thing an anthropologist would study.

The only reason we still know about them is because people (not the least of which being guys like Kurt Cobain and Jello Biafra) found the record in thrift stores and bargain bins and began passing copies around, and it became kind of an underground obsession among punk, indie, and experimental musicians. So they did actually end up being famous and influential in a way, but not in the way that makes anybody rich, which is probably what the dad was hoping for.

I read it in the voice of the principal of Sunnydale High School.

I saw a cooking or travel show that featured the guy who grows those a while back. Apparently they taste absolutely amazing, but I can’t imagine justifying spending that much money on a strawberry.

I think a big problem is a lot of the explainers for new users, at least the ones that were around back when I first joined Mastodon, were or are absolute dog shit. They were all existential explanations rather than practical ones. I was trying to figure out which instance to join, and why one might be better for me than another, and every explainer I saw was basically a variation on, “iT’s JuSt LikE EmAiL. wHy Is tHaT hArD? sToP bEiNg So sTuPid, DuMmY.” None of them really explained the user experience, and how different instances might affect it, let alone the existence of the local and global feeds and how your instance choice affects those. It was like asking someone how to use chopsticks and them telling you, “It’s easy. Just put food in your mouth with them. Works just like a fork.”

Technically true, but it omits some pretty crucial information.

Once you’re into it and have the lay of the land, it seems really simple in retrospect. But if you’re coming in cold with no idea how any of it works, and the only help you get is some dickhead shouting, “EmAiL! iT’s LiKe EmAiL!” then the learning curve seems a lot steeper than it actually is.

Much like the word “woke,” MAGA conservatives have stripped DEI of its original meaning. As conservatives use it now it’s basically just a socially acceptable stand-in for the N-word (or the F-word, depending on context). Like just a couple of days ago I was at a burrito place and the guy a couple spots ahead of me in line said, “This DEI cashier better not fuck up my order again.” It was very clear what he meant was, “This N-word better not piss me off.”

Any time you hear conservatives say “woke” or “DEI,” you can almost always mentally swap it with the N-word or the F-word and what they’re saying will make a lot more sense.

What A Life by The Meffs was a good one. Lotta good stuff happening in the UK punk scene right now. Australia too.

And also objecting to Tom Morello making a political statement as if he wasn’t an honors graduate in Political Science from Harvard University.

I’ve seen her a bunch of times going back to the '90s, and I’ve never seen her put on a bad show. She’s one of four musicians I’ve ever seen live that managed to be charismatic and engaging while sitting down behind a keyboard, and one of two who weren’t miming.

According to the caption under the picture, it’s Emily Blunt…

I keep getting served some supremely mediocre eastern European hip-hop in Release Radar and other Spotify-generated playlists because of some guy who performs as Devo. Same with guys performing as Slayer, Poe, etc.

A lot of the time they’re listed on the track along with two or three other people, so I go to the pages of those associated acts and tap the “don’t play this artist” option in the three dots menu, and that usually cuts down on how much I see them in my feeds. At least until they do a new collab.

And while we’re on the subject, if Spotify could also stop lumping several artists of the same name together on the same profile, that’d be great. There’s an old surf-rock band called the Astronauts that I listen to sometimes, and at one point there were albums from at least four different bands included on their discography page. There’s still at least two.

Given Tesla’s usual build quality I feel like it’s pretty much inevitable that there are going to be an enormous amount of skull and limb injuries from those gullwing doors.

Because they still have guns in Star Trek, and Spock and his crewmates carry them all the time? Those TOS phaser pistols don’t even have trigger guards, so it’d be logical to think trigger discipline would still be a thing.

Patriot cells.

Boss makes a dollar, I make a dime

That’s why I poop on company time