To be crystal clear, I would never pay $6,000 to pretend to be an inhabitant of the Star Wars universe for two days. Maybe in 1978, but not in 2022. If you love LARPing, more power to you. It is not my thing.

Joel Cunningham, writing for Gizmodo/io9, outlines what you get for that crazy sum. Disney is expensive across the board, but this seems outrageous. Still, you get what you pay for according to Cunningham.

I wonder how long they can maintain that price?

I don’t know about you, but I have a general feeling of helplessness right now, and I don’t like it. I imagine we are all experiencing that same depression and inability to fix [waves hands around randomly] everything. The pressure keeps building.

Flashpoints are happening in a dozen different places, and I feel apprehensive. I know part of me wants to return to some sense of normalcy, and another part knows that’s never happening. My world of pre-March 2020 is never coming back. I want what’s been taken away from me, and it feels, lately, that it’s just out of reach. Probably permanently.

Additionally, I’ve been working on my mental health. The pandemic was not a horrific turn of events in my world like it was for so many others. I was lucky. Still, it took its toll on me. My communication was poor. I was having trouble just talking with my wife. We are still working on it.

Now, as we navigate the post-pandemic world, the feeling of pressure keeps building.

How will you handle it? How will I handle it?

I don’t know.

Casey Newton wrote a lengthy piece about Donald Trump’s new social media app, Truth Social. It’s really good.

What else is there to say about Truth Social? It’s based on technology from Mastodon, the open-source social network. Its parent company, Trump Technology & Media Group, hopes to go public this year through a lucrative SPAC. Its terms of service document, like its user interface, appear to be largely copied and pasted from elsewhere. It prohibits “false, inaccurate, or misleading content,” a policy whose successful enforcement would represent a first in the history of the internet.

I’m sure the spin is they are a network for everyone, but no one believes this nonsense. It’s a social network made by Trump people for Trump people. Guess what? That is not a lot of people. Also, no liberal would ever sign up for Truth Social (even if they could, but they can’t right now because the app sucks). It is a waste of their time. Just like the other “conservative” social media apps.

That leads to these apps’ second problem: their market is smaller than they think it is. To hear Farmer and Miller tell it, the world is desperate for a less restrictive approach to content moderation. But TikTok, the most popular social network around, is also arguably the most restrictive — certainly in terms of which posts are allowed to go viral. The world is voting with its eyeballs, and the majority of people clearly prefer apps with robust moderation.

The free market wants moderation because most people don’t want to have to deal with the trash. That’s why people get banned and de-platformed and the like. I’m not a fan of engagement with Trump people. I don’t find it fun, amusing, or entertaining. I find it sad. I would jump on a social media site filled with smart, intelligent, progressive liberals. Of course, that would fail just as quickly as one designed for Trumpists.

Just like Truth Social.

Sally Kellerman, best known for her role as Margaret “Hot Lips” Houlihan in M.A.S.H. and Dr. Elizabeth Dehner in the Star Trek episode, “Where No Man Has Gone Before” has died at the age of 84.

She was obviously great in M.A.S.H and Star Trek, but I think I liked her performance in Back to School best.

Russia has invaded Ukraine. So far, this has been a conventional war with shelling and missile strikes.

I think this is the first major European war in which one country has invaded another with the intent of permanently taking its territory since World War II. Chilling stuff.

The New York Times has a continually updated breakdown of what’s happening.

Also, don’t forget Ukraine was at the center of the second impeachment of Donald Trump, which he only survived because Republicans could not be seen voting against the sitting President and also the reason Paul Manafort went to jail. Of course, Trump praised Putin’s “savvy” invasion. What a sniveling lapdog.

Probably the best reason Ukraine was invaded was to try and stop the country from joining NATO . As you might already know, dear reader, when one NATO country is attacked, ALL NATO countries are attacked, and we’d be knee-deep in World War III.

It still might come to that.

From Patrick Rhone:

These days, Hanlon’s razor is about the only way I can make sense of the world.

Unfortunately, I share this sentiment.

Star Wars YouTube scholar So Uncivilized dives into the sins of the sequel series from The Force Awakens devolving Han Solo into an anti-hero, The Last Jedi subverting itself, and The Rise of Skywalker existing, and in doing so, creates an anti-trilogy intrinsically tied to the past while opposed to it.

His insight is spot on.

My hope is Dave Filoni can “fix” it all.

It’s TWOsday!

Today (February 22, 2022) is both a palindrome and an ambigram in some formats, which is cool.

I’m also afraid, 2/22/22 will be remembered as the start of a massive European land war.

Or maybe just as code for urgently needing a public restroom.

Chris Branch, writing The Athletic Pulse newsletter, outlines the mess at the end of the Wisconsin versus Michigan basketball game.

In the final minute of Wisconsin’s 77-63 win over Michigan on Sunday, Badgers coach Greg Gard called two timeouts with less than a minute to go, the last one coming with 15 seconds left. They were functionally unnecessary, though Gard said he wanted to give players more time to advance the ball against Michigan’s press defense.

The timeouts triggered a fracas that could change the makeup of the Michigan coaching staff. A full Pulse breakdown:

First, watch the video. You’ll notice the handshake line is proceeding as usual, until Michigan coach Juwan Howard tries to walk past Gard without shaking hands but tells Gard “I’ll remember this.” Gard becomes angry at this, physically stepping in front of Howard to discuss their issues.

Howard was mad. He puts a finger in Gard’s face, yelling — ostensibly about that unnecessary timeout. A near-melee ensues, including Howard throwing a sort of open-hand punch/slap at Wisconsin assistant Joe Krabbenhoft. Players got involved and a couple of real punches were thrown. No one was injured, but it was an ugly scene.

Michigan and the Big Ten condemned the altercation. Suspensions are possible. Don’t be surprised if Howard faces a lengthy suspension or even termination. That feels harsh, but things aren’t great at Michigan right now. It might be a final-straw situation.

The even-keeled takeaway: Two things can be true here. Gard probably shouldn’t have called that timeout. Take your win, head to the locker room and celebrate properly. No need to filibuster in front of your opponent after you’ve won handily.

Howard probably should’ve given a begrudging handshake and gone home, stewing on the loss in the safe confines of his own locker room with no national TV cameras in sight.

First, he should be fired. If you or I did something similar, we’d be fired immediately.

Second, I would bet the farm he won’t be fired.

Third, my gut says Howard is suspended for the rest of the season and the players are suspended for at least one game.

UPDATE: Exactly what I thought

Nightbirde, who went viral after her performance on America’s Got Talent has died after a cancer battle.

Her story and performance of her original song are amazing.

Her line, “You can’t wait until your life isn’t hard anymore before you decide to be happy” was inspirational.

She was brave and positive.

She was just 31.

Kevin Wildes has an ice-cold take that should settle the Michael Jordan versus LeBron James GOAT debate once for all. It’s just brilliant.

"I'm going to invent a player here: guy w/ 2 titles, 2 Finals MVP, league MVP, 3 All-Defense teams, DPOY & 9 scoring titles. That's the difference between LeBron & Jordan. Everyone's says it's close, it's not. It's a full HOF career better. LeBron's still chasing." — @kevinwildes pic.twitter.com/3liYzaECK2

— First Things First (@FTFonFS1) February 21, 2022

Cracked’s “Roger” is a real straight shooter known for telling it like it is in their Honest Ads series. ​So, he’s been enlisted to share the truth about the “exciting world of non-fungible tokens.”

This whole series is smart and funny.

The Athletic has everything the casual professional baseball fan might need to know about the lockout they might have only just started noticing.

MLB and the players association met for 15 short minutes Thursday, but the sides will likely reconvene soon to go over the players’ latest proposal. The details are tedious but they show progress in the negotiations. Key date to keep in mind: February 28, the deadline the league has set to get a new CBA done if they want the season to begin on time.

Seems stressful. And impossible.

Kevin O’Connor breaks down why the Bulls rookie’s game is advanced beyond his years, how he fits on this team, and what he needs to do to become a star player.

Steal of the Draft. Illinois fans knew.

Ryan Holiday has an essay that speaks directly to me personally even though it was written for everyone.

America has many problems. Reading too many books is not one of them. In fact, I would argue that our problems stem from the exact opposite. We spend too much time online. We watch too much real-time (partisan) news. We have a poor understanding of history and our founding principles. We say experience is a great teacher and neglect the hard won experiences of the people who came before us and did us the service of writing that all down. 

Read the whole thing.

Eliza Strickland and Mark Harris, writing at IEEE Spectrum, outline a trend I never would have thought possible. Hundreds of recipients of retinal implants will be “in the dark” after the company makes them goes out of business—an outcome expected imminently after layoffs at Second Sight, which no longer makes the devices. The story is horrifying.

These three patients, and more than 350 other blind people around the world with Second Sight’s implants in their eyes, find themselves in a world in which the technology that transformed their lives is just another obsolete gadget. One technical hiccup, one broken wire, and they lose their artificial vision, possibly forever. To add injury to insult: A defunct Argus system in the eye could cause medical complications or interfere with procedures such as MRI scans, and it could be painful or expensive to remove.

For me, this is the story of the week. I am blind in my right eye and I always look at technological developments surrounding “bionic” eyes. The Six Million Dollar Man notwithstanding, medical technology has not advanced enough to reconnect the optic nerve so I quickly move on when the story is about “fixing” retinal blindness. Still, the ramifications of this is uncharted. Smart patients will start demanding rights to service, repair, and upgrade these kinds of implants and the technology has to become available when company’s go belly-up.

What do heart transplant or cochlear implant recipients do?

Bernie Miklasz, on his Bern Baby Bern column for Scoops With Danny Mac, has a few smart thoughts about the DH coming to the National League

Pitching has become so specialized, MLB makes extensive use of designated pitchers — mostly relievers that have a specific duty for a specific situation and rarely work more than an inning at a time. They’re specialists. They aren’t asked to hit. They aren’t utilized for their fielding. They aren’t on the club to steal bases.

Maybe they’ll drop down a sac bunt now and then, but the sacrifice bunt is slowly fading. In 2009, MLB pitchers delivered 671 sac bunts. Last season, there were only 421 sac bunts.

Most of these highly specialized relievers hunt strikeouts and others entice ground balls. They aren’t nine-inning ballplayers who bring a complete set of skills to the job. And there’s nothing wrong with that. We just accept them for what they are — specialists. That’s what confuses me about the DH argument.

If you flat-out dismiss the DH as a one-dimensional specialist that violates the tradition of the nine-man game, then what’s up with the double standards in play as you accept dozens and dozens of one-dimensional specialist relievers?

There’s a hard line of separation in today’s game: teams invest small fortunes in pitching. They want good pitching. They need good pitching. They need a deep supply of pitching. None of the salaries being paid to pitchers contain one dollar invested with the pitcher’s hitting in mind.

So why do we continue to insist that pitchers hit?

It doesn’t help the team. It doesn’t help the pitcher, it doesn’t enhance offense. And we’ve seen pitchers hurt and miss considerable time — including Wainwright in 2015 — while swinging and/or running.

What, exactly is the benefit?

Yes, yes, yes. A thousand times yes.

Now, if the Cardinals want to bring Albert Pujols back… I’ll enjoy every minute of it as a fan. It really does not make sense from a baseball perspective, but maybe DeWitt is quietly freaking out about the possibility of lagging home attendance in 2022.

Maybe…

Jeff Maurer has a fun Substack called I Might Be Wrong, writing humorous essays. He was a former Senior Writer for Last Week Tonight with John Oliver, so the guy has some chops.

It was recently brought to my attention that I needed to read one from way back in January, where he wrote a review of Joel Coen’s The Tragedy of Macbeth as if his brother Ethan wrote it, and it is one of the funniest things I’ve ever read. It starts off this way and never lets up:

In The Tragedy of Macbeth, long-time Hollywood presence Joel Coen — who has 18 prior films to his credit — takes sole creative control of a project for the first time. The result, not unlike the tale of Macbeth itself, is a tragedy of epic proportions.

In the interest of full disclosure, my editor has requested that I mention that I was Mr. Coen’s writing partner, producer, and creative collaborator on the aforementioned 18 films. I am also his brother. We parted ways prior to Macbeth in a split that the press described as completely amicable. Despite my prior association with Mr. Coen, I feel that I am entirely capable of reviewing his work in a fair and objective way.

Macbeth is Joel Coen’s shittiest movie by several billion light years. If all the elephants in all the world crapped into the same canyon for 100 years, you would still not have a pile of shit half a large as Joel Coen’s dumb-as-a-dog-dick rendering of this classic tale. One can’t watch Macbeth without getting the sense that something is missing; some inspired element that gave Mr. Coen’s earlier work an aura of ebullient genius is absent this time. The wit, verve, and undeniable rugged machismo that characterized the other 18 films in which he happened to be involved are nowhere to be found here. Ultimately, one must conclude that what’s lacking is talent itself.

The ending of the second paragraph and the start of the third made me laugh so hard it was embarrassing. Just read the whole thing.

JJ Abrams says a new Star Trek film “with the original cast” will start shooting by the end of the year.

— Jason Lynch 🇺🇦 (@jasonlynch) February 15, 2022

Matt Shakman, fresh from directing WandaVision and has done work on Game of Thrones, has been tapped to direct. It will be interesting to see if the powers that be are able to snag the “Kelvin Timeline” cast. Who knows if the script is any good?

I am not holding my breath on any of this.