Because I’m a pedant, I’m annoyed when people say the U.S., India, or right-leaning EU states are “revanchist”. Yes, they’re bad. No, they’re not trying to regain lost territory. However, Russia and China absolutely are. This misuse dilutes the seriousness of Taiwan threats and the Ukraine War.

Kinda sublime how Stranger Things now stirs nostalgia not only for the 80s but also for when Netflix was something people actually liked using.

Criticizing Mastodon for having less user retention, engagement, or [insert metric here] than its competitors misses the whole point of Mastodon. It’s like criticizing a public park for having less engagement than a casino.

In addition to its big twist, The Crying Game also features the rare “American doing a serious British accent” (Forest Whitaker). The reverse is so much more common.

I feel little nostalgia for the Obama era. This may be an age thing; it was hell looking for entry-level work with 10% unemployment and tight monetary policy. But also don’t there were lots of deportations and even same-sex marriage was something enacted by SCOTUS, not the White House.

Nintendo was founded the same year Van Gogh painted The Starry Night.

It’s the summer of 2010. Life is good and you’re a Cleveland Cavaliers fan, too. Someone steps out of a time machine, says they’ve traveled back from 2026, and hands you a folded slip of paper. You unfold it and read: “Trump criticizes LeBron for not standing still during national anthem.”

Sometimes obscure song lyrics just careen around forever. “A maze of bars and rented rooms remains,” “all neon all surface,” and my personal favorite “alone with my thoughts, yeah alone with my cellphone.”

Cocktail, Vanilla Sky, and Digger were all Tom Cruise vehicles. That’s range.

Painting I did as a teenager

I feel bad that Digger is a flop (well relative to its massive budget; it still has grossed over $40 million) because it’s maybe the only good movie ever about climate change.

Gen-X guys¹ love to say Nirvana was the last canonical rock band, whatever that means. However, here are some of the latter-day rock acts with more monthly Spotify listeners:

• Oasis
• Coldplay
• The Goo Goo Dolls (!)
• Arctic Monkeys
• Radiohead

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1. I don’t really hold Chuck Klosterman in high regard. ↩︎

The main differences between Trump and Romney’s presidential campaigns were Trump’s greater moderation on abortion, gay rights, Medicare, and Social Security. Indeed, that’s probably why he won.

One reason I struggle to get into any modern fiction is that most major novelists now have MFAs, and so they’ve all learned the same techniques and want to dazzle you with trauma.

People lose perspective with time. For example, Obama didn’t think Ukraine was worth fighting for against Russia, didn’t support same-sex marriage his first run (and only belatedly the second time), and signed the legislation that repealed the 40-year ban on petroleum exports.

Wanna feel old? Trent Reznor is only 8 years younger than Johnny Cash was when he recorded his version of “Hurt.”

I’ve been selling on eBay to try and declutter but I can’t bring myself to sell my 90s Magic: The Gathering decks

Sometimes I can’t believe I still get to text every day about Greek and Latin lit with a woman who walked up to me sitting outside a cafe listening to Joy Division on a Discman in 2004. A friendship for the ages.

One of the most distasteful forms of 9/11 apologism from the left was that there was a legitimate grassroots beef with the U.S. being in Saudi Arabia, a country that requested said presence and otherwise would’ve been flattened in the Gulf War and/or destroyed by Iran.

People will unironically post stuff like “having ADHD means hitting someone with your car and not realizing it til a year later,” as if it’s some sort of flex about how quirky they are