Hey, is that Jake Spencer?

Cover for Animorphs #23: The Pretender by K.A. Applegate. Published in November 1998 by Scholastic. Cover illustration by David B. Mattingly. A red-tailed hawk morphs into some common variety of brown rabbit. That is, the rabbit is on the bottom-left, the hawk is on the top-right, and there are three transitionary stages in between. Ears gradually emerge. The wings turn into arms. Talons become paws. Beak to nose. That kind of thing. The background is a cloudy gradient, going from purple at the top to yellow-orange at the bottom. There is also a hazy, translucent boy seen directly behind the hawk. Additional text: "Tobias is about to discover the secrets of his past..." "TV. Watch Animorphs on Nickelodeon." [My own recommendation: Stick to the books.]

I wondered about the image of Hork Bajir and humans living side by side if the Yeerks were defeated. Humans didn't have a great record of getting along with people different from themselves. Humans killed one another over skin color or eye shape or because they prayed differently to the same god. Hard to imagine humans welcoming seven-foot-tall goblins into the local Boy Scout troop when they couldn't even manage to tolerate some gay kid.

Here's a paragraph you might not expect to find in a 1998 sci-fi/super hero paperback for babies.

Unless you're familiar with Animorphs, in which case you would know that the series is routinely like this.

YouTube video by QueensStoneAgeVEVO Queens Of The Stone Age - No One Knows (Official Music Video)

Does anyone know why is this Queens of the Stone Age song is in my head this morning?

If Congress is meant to represent us, they should vote like us:

Hunched over a touchscreen in a makeshift booth before dropping a sheet of paper in a box and picking up a tiny sticker.

Settling the Score: A Requiem for Wii Music Settling the Score: A Requiem for Wii Music On the morning May 9, 2006, the anxious chatter of an impatient crowd gave way to the lush tones of an orchestra tuning. It was the cross-fade of 3,000 …

I believe they were aiming for something very different than Guitar Hero/Rock Band, but they clearly didn't know how to communicate that publicly. I'm not sure they fully defined the vision internally, either.

Ingenious concept; disastrous execution.

Wow. Okay, so the Zelda movie is just going to be about two actors in costumes posing in a field? They're just going to look at nothing and express nothing? How is that a movie? How is that a movie trilogy?

I mean, wow. Seriously, Nintendo, don't do this.

I will be holding off on buying my ticket.

YouTube video by SideOneDummy Gogol Bordello - Start Wearing Purple (Official Video)

I dreamed that I joined up with some activists to encourage people to wear teal for Teal Awareness Day, and then I woke up with Gogol Bordello in my head.

Break this spell.

Dear Russia,

This would be the funniest time to release the pee tape.

YouTube video by Timeless Music Hits Shaggy - It Wasn't Me (Video)

Someone woke up with a Shaggy song in his head?

Wasn't Me.

I've sampled some more. They haven't all been to my taste. There are issues with writing, tech, and other finishing touches. A few are so thin on content that they never should have been presented on their own as commercial products.

But...there's something appealing in all of them. It's not right!

Insane Bundle with 21 GAMES for Nintendo Switch - Nintendo Official Site Buy Insane Bundle with 21 GAMES and shop other great Nintendo products online at the official My Nintendo Store.

Insane Bundle with 21 GAMES is currently $1.99 on the Nintendo Switch eShop.

The per-game price suggests that this could be the stinkiest digital garbage on the planet. Imagine my horror when I started playing one and actually liked it!

I've tried five games now, and they're all sorta nice. Eerie.

YouTube video by S P A R K S Sparks - When I'm With You (Official Video)

I never feel like garbage when I have Sparks in my head.

I do not come from a "bless you" family, so when I was very young and I sneezed in public, the phrase confused me. The actual meaning still confuses me, but at two or three years old, I couldn't even parse the words. "Bleshu" sounded like an onomatopoeic command:

"Bleshu!"
"I already did."

Pardon my tongue, darling.

Anyway. I hope everyone enjoyed zooming in on this tasty Gex feet pic.

I love high-resolution promotional art from the early days of 3D video games. In-game, you're getting 13 triangles glued together in the vague shape of a guy, crunched down and interlaced on a screen that could fit in your JNCO pockets.

And then the let loose, and wowww, those shadows and textures.

These images are from 1998!

What a tragedy that Rockstar is now fully committed to photorealistic humans and union-busting. Imagine the last quarter century if management had believed in Space Station Silicon Valley the way they believe in Grand Theft Auto or abusing workers.

YouTube video by Jelle van de Wall Ray Charles - Mess Around

I watched the John Candy documentary I Like Me last night, and unsurprisingly, Ray Charles' Mess Around is in my head this morning.

I think Planes, Trains, and Automobiles is a bad movie, through no fault of Candy and Martin. That guy was taken much too soon.

Poppin' Fresh, but his face is Willem Dafoe's face.

Hoo-hoo, kids! Wanna DIE!??

Duh, right. Sorry, I have no personal experience working in politics.

So the specific choices are left to a body person, but I'm confident the general psychology of the human being stuck in a boring meeting applies: Zoning out for idle thoughts like, "That sandwich I had yesterday was pretty good."

There's a temptation to look at a body of politicians and focus on their highest goals and philosophies; to assume they're there to change the world, serve their masters, or enrich themselves.

But they are PEOPLE doing a JOB, which means half of them are thinking about what to get for lunch.

He said you'd say that.

Gigantic, imposing, toothy monsters pose menacingly behind a cute, tiny Moogle. Text: It doesn't seem fair does it? (Page one of a two-page print ad for Final Fantasy III.)

Burning heaps of ash and charred bones where the monsters once stood. The smug Moogle remains. Text: "Who says life is fair?" (Page two of a two-page print ad for Final Fantasy III.)

Square-Enix vs. testers.

I worked as a tester on dozens of games, and the buggiest, by an incredible margin, was developed by Square-Enix. I often got paid to sit quietly in my cubicle for entire days because the builds they sent didn't launch.

So from that perspective, sure, a malfunctioning computer could replace my job.

I would have purchased a baseball game.

I'm serious. I would have paid MSRP for a video game about the sport of baseball.

Norah O'Donnell caught Trump saying some things he shouldn't have let slip, but let's be serious:

You either have to call him on his lies, even at the risk of him walking out, or you let him control the 90-minute interview...and then simply refuse to air it. Just waste that stupid baby's time.

Not to sound too defeatist.

The people in power got that way because others enabled it.

Rockstar's customers and employees don't have to take it. No one has to play their games, as it were.

Video games are nice, but dignity is way cooler.

Inside Rockstar Games' Culture Of Crunch - Kotaku In the final year of development on Red Dead Redemption 2, the upcoming Western game, the top directors decided to add black bars to the top and bottom of

Another report by Jason Schreier was my breaking point. Rockstar hasn't gotten a cent from me in the seven years since it was published. They're devastated, no doubt.

Maaaybe we'll see ramifications for busting unions, but with this much money/goodwill, there's surely another exposé coming in 2032.

If nothing else, a real boycott would be lovely. I mean, obviously you can't rely on The Gamerzz to ever stand for anything, but how hilarious would it be if Grand Theft Auto VI simply flopped?

Mediocre photograph of me in a homemade Mega Man helmet with polo shirt, tie, and khaki pants.

"MANAGER" name tag, because this exceptionally weak pun was easier than putting together a better costume.

I'd planned to do better with my All Hallow's Eve costume, but I ended up feeling miserable for most of October. Whoops.

Man, I have been pushing myself to stream one more time this month. I've done loads of prep work to make it happen today, and chums, by body is just not having it.

Chronic illness is a nasty trick, but I have Swedish Fish and Sour Patch Kids, so Halloween is still a treat.

What's Canada gonna do? Burn down the White House again?

Too late, suckas!