matt

And I’m sure if I saw it now it would be grotesque and voyeuristic, but they let the trans people explain themselves! And it just seemed really understandable even to me as a young person that some people’s gender identities were different than how they were born.

I think I’m broadly the same as you (just basically a really good person lol!) but I also vaguely remember some E! or VH1 trash reality show that I watched when I was like 10 all about sex change surgery.

Who knows, the ketamine story might show up on the real thing.

Honestly this is just making me want to rewatch The Expanse

So much big shit happens in the first two episodes that the showrunners clearly see as, like, Red Wedding-style shocking twists and set pieces. But they’re not shocking if they happen every twenty minutes, nor are they effective if we don’t care about any of the characters yet!

Theres so much in this where they’re clearly trying to be Game of Thrones, which doesn’t work (a) because that doesn’t work tonally for a sci fi show set 50,000 years in the future, and (b) because the show lacks all of the rough humanity and amazing characters of a GoT.

I’ve started Foundation (the TV show) and while I’m definitely going to stick with it for a while longer, I can’t help but be so frustrated that 90% of tv shows … look and feel the exact same! Where are the tonal experiments???

lol @ 2026 America passing infinitely more radical housing policy than most places in Europe

It’s Seachtaine na Gaeilge at the moment (semi-official Irish language week) so we’ve been trying to speak more Irish at home. It’s crazy what you can say a couple of days in that you couldn’t say before. It’s just lodged there, waiting to be activated!

i, for one, am delighted that we finally have a definition of “woke”

Been seeing a lot of pundits and writers I like and respect lately saying that the American empire is in decline, and I … just don’t see it? Where is the evidence that the US is any less powerful than before?

Useful sure, in the same way a weapon is useful. A dream? Nah. I’m going Luddite

In theory, no it doesn’t!

So funny that these were the people giving out about cancel culture lmao

Revisiting this and it is so unbelievably good. Do yourself a favour if you haven’t heard it before

lol no they were not

The same dissonance is seen everywhere: “Hamas are terrorists who do not represent the Palestinian people” and “All Palestinians are potential Hamas terrorists.”

PMSL at this

For my sins (and podcast) I read that book, which at the very least gives a real insight into his worldview - it’s neoliberalism all the way down, the logic of the market internalised so much that it doesnt even appear as ideology. I will never believe for a second he’s changed

Thanks both! I’ll be doing some digging

Is there a way to check / confirm whether a short-term let us legal or not?

Breaking Bad literally only works in any way whatsoever because you sympathise with him on some level! What would the show even be if you didn’t?

I agree with this. They should’ve made Walter White wear a big t-shirt the whole time that said BAD GUY on the front.

Still listening to Shabaka this morning. For sure one of the weirdest and most innovative albums I’ve heard in a long time. No idea what people in general will make of it

90% of Spielberg films. There’s something about the combination of the types of musical scores he employs with the “oh my god we are going on an adventure!” tone that puts me off them so intensely.

The new Shabaka album Is dumbfounding. Demented. It’s flute EDM!

Pro tip: if you're going to send someone a nonsense letter that you hope uses enough serious sounding "legal" language to be taken seriously, you should probably make sure you delete the bit at the end where ChatGPT offers to write a different version lol

My bench 😭

Never mind the super artists like Swift who absolutely do make loads of money off their records but want to gouge their fans anyway

As far as I can tell this isn’t actually true? Concert tickets are expensive primarily because tours are more expensive now?