I feel like it’s going to be incredibly important for people to vote this November. We’re all going to have to participate in order to tell the government that we want more policy based on science. Right now we have far too many assholes in the GOP trying to stir up yet another sad “Satanic Panic” in order to rile up their base. It’s really pathetic to see in action, and usually the people supporting this shit the loudest are jackasses like David “Avocado” Wolfe. A man known for promoting quackery to treat all diseases up to and including cancer. I can’t stress enough how badly I want Wolfe to spend the rest of his days in prison for the shit he does. It’s parasitic. This garbage person is very closely associated with the right, and quite honestly I don’t get it, other than my existing understanding that con-men like to congregate, I guess. On the outset I suppose it makes sense for grifters to associate at least somewhat with one another.

Are you absolutely livid that you can’t click on a link to a news story or article anymore without getting slapped in the face with some shitty paywall for a publisher you’re never going to give money? These assholes are already farming our data with tens of cookies and trackers, so it’s time for us to take our data back and tell them we’re going to get what we want and we’re not going to pay for it. And it’s totally legal, moral, and ethical.

I’m back on the road this month. It’s not a light travel month, either. I’m talking 75% of the month will be spent at least two hours away from my home. It’s not optimal by any means, and quite frankly I hate it. I bought myself a Steam Deck and it’s been an absolute blast to mess with. I’m realizing quickly that it doesn’t matter how many expensive distractions I take with me on the road, there will always be something very important missing from the trip. It’s depressing, really. I even set it up so that I’m staying at a hotel that has a decent bar right behind it, walking distance. It’s still just a consolation prize. I can’t cuddle my fiance because she’s not here with me. It’s honestly pretty unacceptable, and I’m done with this travel bullshit. It was great when I didn’t want to be home, when being home meant fights. It was entirely convenient to be in another state, or just hours away, and I had the ability to just shut my phone off and instantly feel better.

I just read a headline about the US Education Secretary not “being excited” about student loan forgiveness. It’s funny, though. It’s almost like you innately feel like the station of “US Secretary of Education” should be a role for someone to steward the educations of hundreds of millions of Americans, when in reality he’s just a corporate shill installed to extract as much money from students and parents as humanly possible. What a fucking shitty country we live in. We can’t have anything nice, corporations have to ruin everything that could even conceivably be great if allowed. God damn what a shame.

Don’t judge me, god dammit. Okay, you can judge me a little. Alright, maybe you can judge me appropriately, but I can’t promise that I’ll care. I haven’t started caring yet, god dammit. I’m a walking anachronism. Now, don’t go assuming that because I’m a walking anachronism that I’m also a totally irredeemable cunt. That’s just not true, and quite frankly, I’m insulted that you’d even think such a thing. But I get it. A lot of people who “reminisce” about “the way things were” are really just throwing shade at how many rights minorities have gained in the last fifty years. That’s not the kind of anachronism I am. I’m the kind where I feel people shouldn’t be cunts, but also, I’m not ready to eat bugs or die on Mars for science. I feel as though the science of today should be vetted and worked through to inform the practices of tomorrow, rather than people ever-mindlessly latching onto the latest fad because a small scale study hinted at something but could never be confirmed by large scale studies. Miss me with that shit, dog. I like my science to be well-vetted and long-standing.

It certainly seems like humanity as a species is disintegrating. We’re so hung up on how much garbage we can accumulate for ourselves individually that nobody has considered the global impact of eight billion hairless apes all doing the same selfish shit simultaneously. It’s fascinating to watch shorelines creep up, temperatures rise, forests erode, and trash piles march ever higher above the horizon. We ceaselessly want above anything we could conceivably earn, and this behavior is rewarded. I can’t say that I have all the answers, or even a handful of good ones, but I can say that what we’re doing isn’t super conducive to our species existing in the next hundred years.

Well, holy shit. I fucking pulled the trigger and ordered myself a Steam Deck. Just, goddamn. Needless to say, I’m pretty fucking excited. Didn’t go too apeshit with which one I bought. Got the 256gb model. Nice and middling. Not too little, not too much. Just right.

Man, and it’ll get here in a week or two? I’m fucking excited.

I know it’s not therapeutic for everyone, but I think it can be for nearly everyone, as it just takes practice over time. Though I get it. If you don’t “take to it immediately” it can be a bit disparaging to make multiple attempts at something purportedly therapeutic but doesn’t actually give you any benefit. If I’m being honest, I definitely fell into that camp. School forced me to journal multiple years. It was almost wholly painful, until it wasn’t.