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Hmm…

The above is a site billing itself as the new alternative to Drudgereport: populist.press. At least, it bills itself that way if you don’t have popups blocked.

They’ve certainly mimicked the look and feel of Drudge. I found when I clicked links, though, it took me to a synopsis of the story hosted on populist.press itself. Then within that item you could click to read it on its original platform. I’m not sure why they’d do it that way – it’s more work for them, if nothing else – and it means you can’t just hover over the link to see if the article is from a source you trust.

Eh. Give it a try. I have a feeling lots of news sources will be shutting down in the days ahead.

November 16, 2020 — 8:23 pm
Comments: 7

Dead Pool Round 136: Go away 2020

Congrats to BullDawgGirl, who takes the dick with Alex Trebek. He played himself hosting Jeopardy! dozens of times in movies and on TV. I wonder if that’s some kind of record?

Not a Jeopardy! watcher myself, but I gather he was much loved.

Well. Are you ready? Then we’ll begin.

0. Rule Zero (AKA Steve’s Rule): your pick has to be living when picked. Also, nobody whose execution date is circled on the calendar. Also, please don’t kill anybody. Plus (Pupster’s Rule) no picking someone who’s only famous for being the oldest person alive.

1. Pick a celebrity. Any celebrity — though I reserve the right to nix picks I never heard of (I don’t generally follow the Dead Pool threads carefully, so if you’re unsure of your pick, call it to my attention).

2. We start from scratch every time. No matter who you had last time, or who you may have called between rounds, you have to turn up on this very thread and stake your claim.

3. Poaching and other dirty tricks positively encouraged.

4. Your first choice sticks. Don’t just blurt something out, m’kay? Also, make sure you have a correct spelling of your choice somewhere in your comment. These threads get longish and I use search to figure out if we have a winner.

5. It’s up to you to search the thread and make sure your choice is unique. I’m waayyyy too lazy to catch the dupes. Popular picks go fast.

6. The pool stays open until somebody on the list dies. Feel free to jump in any time. Noobs, strangers, drive-bys and one-comment-wonders — all are welcome.

7. If you want your fabulous prize, you have to entrust me with a mailing address. If you’ve won before, send me your address again. I don’t keep good records.

8. The new DeadPool will begin 6pm WBT (Weasel’s Blog Time) the Friday after the last round is concluded.

The winner, if the winner chooses to entrust me with a mailing address, will receive an Official Certificate of Dick Winning and a small original drawing on paper suffused with elephant shit particles. Because I’m fresh out of fairy shit particles.

November 13, 2020 — 6:00 pm
Comments: 63

Spain does it again

Spain’s latest civic art restoration project was brilliant as usual. Ahem.

So, after a week of using Parler, some tips.

Clicking hashtags is useful, because you won’t be following enough people at first to make it interesting. When you do click a hashtag, the first three or four entries will be busty camwhores advertising their wares. Block them or you’ll see them over and over again, guaranteed (unless you like seeing busty camwhores – who am I to judge?).

I also report them as spam because they piss me off, but I don’t know how Parler feels about that. The platform that bills itself as ‘no-censor’ may have a funny attitude about kicking anyone, even spammers.

Second, the grifters. There are a few accounts hawking Trump commemorative coins and the like. I mute those rather than block (some paid to be promoted and I suppose it helps support the platform, but they made me feel grubby).

Third, the nuts. I mute them, too. There are some goofy-ass people on Parler, as you would expect on a platform founded on Twitter rejects. I suppose some are lefty trolls trying to make righties look crazier, but we’re perfectly capable of turning out genuine right-wing nutbars, thanks.

Follow the same people you follow elsewhere, but beware counterfeit accounts – there are lots of these. Do that enough and it starts to be a little more useful.

Once you’ve done all that…it’s still too slow and lacking engagement to be a Twitter replacement. Worth having open in a tab, though, for sure. Once they absorb the newcomers and tweak their software a bit, we’ll see.

Final tip: the phone app is swifter than the Web app.

Oh, and new Dead Pool tomorrow!

November 12, 2020 — 8:08 pm
Comments: 7

Feels icky

Assassin’s Creed: Valhalla is finally out, and it looks gorgeous. My kind of game.

Only…I dunno. You play as a Viking invading England, and the English are the baddies? That feels all kinds of wrong.

I know what you’re thinking: it’s a game. Go nuts. Have fun. But I never could cut loose and be a merry psychopath. I was always an in-game goody two-shoes.

I mean, not counting the whole ‘slay hundreds of people’ thing.

I didn’t find out until the third game that you could have sex with crew members in Mass Effect. I was horrified. What would that do to ship’s discipline, for heck’s sake?

Anyway, glad I missed it. Video game sex is cringe.

November 11, 2020 — 8:09 pm
Comments: 4

Bygone days

I remember Joe Biden used to do this really irritating thing, like a tic. Whenever he was grilling anyone in a hearing, every few seconds he would bare his teeth. It was just a flash. It wasn’t really a smile – it was lopsided and sarcastic looking. He bestowed it like a gift. Once I noticed it, it drove me up a tree.

That’s from the Clarence Thomas hearings. That’s when I first became aware of and learned to loathe Uncle Joe.

Here’s another fine moment. Remember his 1988 run, when someone asked him where he went to law school and how he placed, and he fired back with a nonsensical answer about his IQ. Oh, and that thing about a scholarship was a complete lie. Joe finished near the bottom of his class.

Good times, good times. He’s not like that now, of course. He’s just a shell. Poor old man.

November 10, 2020 — 8:47 pm
Comments: 6

Sigh. Okay.

Eh. I finally got irritated enough with Twitter to sign up for Parler. The sticking point with me was giving them a phone number. And you can’t give them a fake, because they use it to send you an authentication code (every time you log in on a new device, yay).

I’m getting sick of those – the subject line is always a number, but it’s not THE number. Who thought that was a good idea?

Anyhoo. Reactions.

The controls are slightly different to Twitter, which takes some getting used to. And as you might expect from a social media company whose backbone is composed of people who got kicked off of the more mainstream platform, it’s kind of like the rejects table in the junior high cafeteria.

Been there. Comfy as an old shoe.

My main objection is that it moves too slowly. Twitter is addictive because you’re getting those fast dopamine hits every few seconds (it’s especially addictive when you get an angry hit every few seconds, but I enthusiastically avoid that particular vice).

I suspect their site is part of the problem – it needs to be tweaked to move faster. And people aren’t as active there. But I also suspect I’m not following enough people to keep it moving. If you’re on there, hit me up. Or shout out to @StoatyWeasel on the platform.

At the moment, I’m keeping Twitter AND Parler open, to make sure I never have a moment’s mental clarity.

p.s. Yes! We have a Dead Pool winner. Poor old Alex Trebek. Not the shortest on record, but short. See you Friday!

November 9, 2020 — 8:14 pm
Comments: 12

Dead Pool Round 135: unsettled election edition

Hutch takes it with Sean Connery. Connery is and always will be the one and only 007. I’m lookin’ at you, Lashana Lynch.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going back to compulsively F5ing Twitter.

Are we ready?

0. Rule Zero (AKA Steve’s Rule): your pick has to be living when picked. Also, nobody whose execution date is circled on the calendar. Also, please don’t kill anybody. Plus (Pupster’s Rule) no picking someone who’s only famous for being the oldest person alive.

1. Pick a celebrity. Any celebrity — though I reserve the right to nix picks I never heard of (I don’t generally follow the Dead Pool threads carefully, so if you’re unsure of your pick, call it to my attention).

2. We start from scratch every time. No matter who you had last time, or who you may have called between rounds, you have to turn up on this very thread and stake your claim.

3. Poaching and other dirty tricks positively encouraged.

4. Your first choice sticks. Don’t just blurt something out, m’kay? Also, make sure you have a correct spelling of your choice somewhere in your comment. These threads get longish and I use search to figure out if we have a winner.

5. It’s up to you to search the thread and make sure your choice is unique. I’m waayyyy too lazy to catch the dupes. Popular picks go fast.

6. The pool stays open until somebody on the list dies. Feel free to jump in any time. Noobs, strangers, drive-bys and one-comment-wonders — all are welcome.

7. If you want your fabulous prize, you have to entrust me with a mailing address. If you’ve won before, send me your address again. I don’t keep good records.

8. The new DeadPool will begin 6pm WBT (Weasel’s Blog Time) the Friday after the last round is concluded.

The winner, if the winner chooses to entrust me with a mailing address, will receive an Official Certificate of Dick Winning and a small original drawing on paper suffused with elephant shit particles. Because I’m fresh out of fairy shit particles.

November 6, 2020 — 6:00 pm
Comments: 49

Rah! Rah!

If you want an explanation of how Trump might possibly pull a rabbit out of his ass, I can recommend Rekieta’s latest livestream.

Or, if you don’t have 3:44 to watch lawyers sniff each other’s butts, the executive summary: forget a new election. That’s never happened in the history of ever.

Recount is where it’s at. Or, more accurately, vote verification. Specifically, the mail-in votes. For example, one of the contested states (I forget which) usually rejects 14% of mail-in ballots for being incorrectly filled out or illegible. This year, they’ve rejected .1%. Getting some of the likely bullshit votes tossed could substantially change the outcome.

Or, if the reasoned discourse of m’learned friend isn’t your bag, hold this happy thought: I think all sides can agree that Trump is a thin-skinned, narcissistic, angry, litigious asshole with access to a lot of money and nothing to lose. He’ll drag this through the courts to the bitter end and either get a win (though that’s looking improbable) or, at the very least, so expose the rotten innards of the Democrat machine that they’ll have to clean up their act.

I understand Florida’s voting system since 2000 is fast, clean and slick as a whistle. Sometimes they learn.

p.s. Dead Pool tomorrow!

November 5, 2020 — 9:06 pm
Comments: 7

Well, this sucks

I’m having flashbacks to election 2000 and those stupid hanging chads. I walked around like I had the flu until they got everything worked out.

I am not looking forward to this.

November 4, 2020 — 8:46 pm
Comments: 13

Here we go…

Phew! They had me worried! I mailed my vote in ages ago and it didn’t turn up, didn’t turn up. Finally, there it is, registered yesterday. I suspect Tennessee doesn’t count them as soon as they come in.

So that’s me. Tennessee is a pretty solidly red state but, hey, for decades I turned up to vote in the bluest of the blue states, election after election, and didn’t consider my effort wasted.

I suspect it’ll be tomorrow morning my time, at the earliest, before we know anything. But that won’t stop me hanging out on Twitter making myself crazy into the wee hours. Feel free to hang out with me: @sweasel.

November 3, 2020 — 7:20 pm
Comments: 10