Here’s my yearly roundup of all the yearly wrap up videos. First up, YouTube Rewind. This may be the last year I include it. One, it’s not a great video, and two, I recognize less and less of these creators each year. My bits of Youtube aren’t represented (and that’s okay!).
Next up, DJ Earworm’s United State of Pop:
And here is Google’s year in search:
I’m working on putting together my 2018 year in review video, that will be up sometime soon!
Elections have consequences. The Justice Department filed a brief to support of businesses being able to fire workers for being trans.
And the presidential administration has fired HIV+ Airmen, because of their status, right before Christmas.
The administration also shut down a study looking to cure HIV.
President Obama is featured on the final Hamildrop:
Steve King says that Nazis from Austria would be Republicans here…and he’s not wrong.
A Florida man was kicked out of his apartment because he’s gay, and has no legal way to fight it, the sad reality most of the country lives in.
The first teaser for Avengers: Endgame has dropped:
A gay professional wrestler in Australia is using his OnlyFans account to raise money for suicide prevention, and I think that’s both wonderful and admirable, as well as a great use of the platform (and his physique)!
And the teaser trailer for the Downton Abbey movie has also dropped:
NASA’s new Mars lander, Insight, has sent back selfies from the surface of the red planet!
And finally, the president of the company that owns Grindr, thinks gays shouldn’t be allowed to get married.
Happy Guy Fawkes Day! (one of my annual posts). For the love of all that you hold dear, make sure you have a plan and go vote tomorrow. Do it for the people you love who at this point don’t see a future. We’re all depending on you.
Remember, remember the Fifth of November,
The Gunpowder Treason and Plot,
I know of no reason
Why the Gunpowder Treason
Should ever be forgot.
Guy Fawkes, Guy Fawkes, ’twas his intent
To blow up the King and Parli’ment.
Three-score barrels of powder below
To prove old England’s overthrow;
By God’s providence he was catch’d
With a dark lantern and burning match.
Hulloa boys, Hulloa boys, let the bells ring.
Hulloa boys, hulloa boys, God save the King!
A penny loaf to feed the Pope.
A farthing o’ cheese to choke him.
A pint of beer to rinse it down.
A faggot of sticks to burn him.
Burn him in a tub of tar.
Burn him like a blazing star.
Burn his body from his head.
Then we’ll say ol’ Pope is dead.
Hip hip hoorah!
Hip hip hoorah!
(Note: I’m still processing the mass shooting in Pittsburgh from this weekend. But we all also need and deserve spaces to put the world behind us and have a bit of normalcy. I’m taking that space.)
First up today, the trailer for Aquaman looks really awesome!
It’s just a teaser, but the live action Aladdin looks neat and I got really excited for it:
In horrific news, a transgender girl was excluded from an active shooter drill at a school. So not only do we have to have active shooter drills at schools, but they were fighting over where she should go. The world is disgusting.
An eight year old pulled a 1,500 year old sword out of lake. I”m pretty sure she is now our Queen.
Randy Rainbow is back with Just Be Best:
Currently, the Pittsburgh Cultural Trust is hosting the Festival of F1rsts, and I’ve been lucky enough to catch four premiers!
First up, was “Manifold” a live concert and projection onto the side of the Benedum. It was live after the performance of “The Show That Goes Wrong” and was pretty neat, although sadly, I didn’t realize it was a live orchestra until after.
Just a few steps away, we stopped by to see “Beyond” which I really loved. You step into this corridor and the screen at the end, as well as the sound, lights and fog surrounding you give you a ten minute show!
Next, I saw Cirque Eloize’s “Hotel.” I’ve never seen a circus show before, and if Beyond din’t make me miss my Burner friends, this certainly did!
And finally, I was able to see Quantum Theatre’s “Chatterton.” Much like their production of “TAMARA,” you move about the space and don’t see the whole show, following different characters as they interact with each other. “Chatterton” took place in three time periods, and was a wonderful mystery to piece together, it’s still playing, so if you get a chance to go see this world premier, do it!
As a bonus, not specifically part of the Festival of Firsts, but after The Great Race Expo, I stopped by Rethink Perception, a small, temporary art gallery filled with works from the US Veterans’ Artists Alliance.
To see all the photos and short videos from my Festival experience, you can find the gallery here.
Alright, let’s see what we have today, it’s a fairly short update.
First up, what we witnessed on Friday, while showing the absolute strength, resolution and power of women and sexual abuse survivors, was, all-in-all, one of the most heinous things concocted by the Republicans in the 242 year history of this country, and that is saying something. Don’t forget to take some time for yourself and self-care, and if you need help, reach out.
A priest in Chicago defied the Archdiocese and performed an ‘exorcism’ of a Pride flag, burning it. A reminder, the Catholic Church is a hate group, full stop.
There’s a new trailer for the next Fantastic Beasts movie:
Google celebrated Mister Rogers this week with a wonderful Doodle!
That’s it for today, have a great one!
As part of the 25th anniversary of Myst, Cyan launched a crowdfunding campaign that, among other things, included copies of all the games on Steam. Being my favorite game, I jumped all over it, and last night finished up playing through Myst ME. I figured I’d write about each game as I finish them up.
Myst, being my favorite game of all time, is one that I’ve played many times. So I was able to go through faster than someone figuring out the puzzles for themselves for the first time (Revelation will be tough, I tried to put most of that game out of my head). But I made sure to take the time to read all the journals and enjoy the ambiance.
It’s a bit dated of course, but for 25 years old, it still holds up, and it’s amazing the type of innovations they were able to figure out to make the game work and make it an immersive experience.
As always, I left the Selentic Age for last, but at least now, my ear seems to be much better trained than the last time I played through.
I think the Channelwood Age is my favorite, but just walking around the island of Myst itself is always such a pleasure. The bundle includes RealMyst which I’ve never played, so I’m excited for that, and I’ll be doing that last, and at least just wandering around a bit instead of playing the whole game again.
I also, of course, love the look of Stoneship, and Mechanical was actually the first Age I remember getting to. It also reminds me of Garrison from URU, so it’s neat to see that influence.
The ending is so well written, and such a wonderful way to conclude the game, leaving you with an emotional journey, as well as teasing Riven. I’ll be starting Riven probably sometime next week, but that’s a much, much larger game, and I think has the hardest puzzles of the whole series, so it will be a while before I”m back writing this again.
Alright, let’s see what we have today. First up, in case you forgot, the TEA party didn’t actually care about deficits. They were just racists.
Also, Debra Messing is not messing around. Good for her, a fuck Susan Sarandon.
Brett Kavanaugh, who is incredibly anti-gay, won’t say on the record his opinions about same-sex marriage and anti-discrimination laws. But his court writings reveal he’s as far, if not further right, than Scalia.
In that vein, 16 states are petitioning the US government to let them fire workers for being gay, after that executive order was struck down.
The Russo Brothers put out an awesome video that goes over all the deaths in the MCU:
Kipchoge broke the World Record in the Berlin Marathon this morning. Dumb Runner, always spots on, weighs in.
I wrote a while back, at least I think I did, about the article ‘the epidemic of gay loneliness,’ and a recent Savage Love column looks at that as well, a good read for everybody.
In case you need some positive news, a heartwarming letter from a gay man’s little brother went viral.
Okay, that’s all for now, but I’ll be back soon!
Alright, let’s see what we have today. First up, it’s almost time for NaNoWriMo! This will be my 13th year!
Dominic Monaghan has joined the cast of Star Wars: Episode IX!
In case you (for whatever reason) thought otherwise, the SCOTUS nominee, Brett Kavanaugh, is opposed to same-sex marriage and would certainly rule against it (if there is a conservative majority on the court, it will be back and I’ll lose my rights).
In other horrifying news, the administration has now directed federal contractors that they can discriminate against LGBT people based on ‘religious beliefs.’ Remember when I said that elections have consequences? Yeah, this is not good.
The anti-gay baker from the Masterpiece decision is back, and now is saying he doesn’t have to serve trans customers.
2 Political Junkies covers the grand jury report about the Catholic Church:
While the Catholic Church was protecting and covering up the sex-crimes of some of its members, let’s all remember that it was also lecturing everyone else on the evils of:
Birth control
Abortion
Masturbation
Sex outside of marriage
Not being straight (i.e. being either “L” or “G” or “B” or “T” and so on)
Any number of other issues regarding “sexual morality”The word you’re looking for is hypocrisy. Huge blatant hypocrisy.
No amount of contemporary apologies will change that.
Okay, onto some better and more beautiful news, there is a fake final image sent by the Cassini probe, which is beautiful (but fake because it wasn’t the last photo sent). The last photo is also breathtaking:
There’s a couple things I try to do every day: a quick meditation, rolling or stretching my legs, and getting back on track with tracking my calories. One thing that I was doing daily, for about 10 months or so, was using Duolingo to ‘learn’ French.
My plan had been to attend the Gay Games, which were held in Paris in August. I ultimately didn’t go, but even after I knew that was going to be the case, I kept with my French practice until my birthday this week.
I learned two things. One, Duolingo teaches foreign languages in a way that’s not all that compatible with how I learn. And that’s okay. I have two friends who are foreign language teachers. One uses Duolingo as homework for her students to do each week. The other doesn’t use it, since it’s only based on memorization, not actually learning the grammar rules. What I learned about myself is that I need to understand the grammar rules, just memorizing vocab and matching up nouns with the right verb form wasn’t helpful.
And two, French is a silly language. Granted, English is even worse, and I’m sure it was augmented by Duolingo’s format, but there were so many weird quirks that made no sense (and were never explained) that it was frustrating.
So I stuck it out until my birthday, and then with the new year (to me), I decided to drop French. I was never going to be fluent in it, although I did enjoy picking up a few things, and I hoped that I would have at least been able to not be completely lost while in Paris.
