Current Things: December 2024
Currently Reading
Currently reading: The Signal and the Noise by Nate Silver đź“š
Currently Watching
- Dune: Prophecy, Season 1
- Silo, Season 2
- What We Do In The Shadows, Season 6
- Disclaimer
- Shrinking, Season 1
Currently In Queue
Currently Listening
Currently Planning
- December: post-Christmas trip to Kentucky
- January: Ski Trip to Québec Charlevoix
Concurrently
- It’s been a month: with the election and traveling for two weeks, I haven’t had much time for anything.
Finished in November:
Moana 2: It’s hard not to be a bit disappointed that animation this beautiful and voice acting this good is accompanied by such a bland story.
Agatha All Along, Season 1: It was running out of juice by the end, but it felt so fresh for being a Marvel property. Primarily on the performance of Katherine Hahn, but also because it (mostly) ignored the rest of the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
Anora: it’s not who you think you are, but who you actually are
Previously, in Current Things…
November 2024
October 2024
September 2024
August 2024
July 2024
June 2024
May 2024
April 2024
March 2024
February 2024
January 2024
December 2023
November 2023
October 2023
September 2023
August 2023
July 2023
June 2023
May 2023
April 2023
March 2023
February 2023
January 2023
December 2022
November 2022
Moana 2: It’s hard not to be a bit disappointed that animation this beautiful and voice acting this good is accompanied by such a bland story.
Moana 2, 2024
It's hard not to be a bit disappointed that animation this beautiful and voice acting this good is accompanied by such a bland story.
Agatha All Along, Season 1: It was running out of juice by the end, but it felt so fresh for being a Marvel property. Primarily on the performance of Katherine Hahn, but also because it (mostly) ignored the rest of the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
Anora: it’s not who you think you are, but who you actually are
The polls are close, but my running playlist from this morning clearly indicates a Kamala Harris victory. Here are the tracks that pushed her over the finish line.
At midnight, Nate Silver ran his election model’s simulation 80,000 times. 40,012 times Kamala Harris won. 39,718 times Donald Trump won. 270 times the election ended in a tie.
But this morning I went for a run, hit shuffle on my workout playlist, and it presented a much different picture: Kamala Harris will win this election and it’s not even going to be that close. Here are the ten tracks in the order that they played that pushed her to victory:
Shatter by Maggie Rogers
A little on the nose, but there’s nothing subtle about these pieces of the glass ceiling we’re walking over.
Life’s a Happy Song from the 2011 movie, The Muppets
The ultimate good vibes song: the world of the muppets may be a slightly different one from ours, but only because they choose for it to be that way.
You’ve got everything you need / right in front of you / nothing’s stopping you / nothing that you can’t do / that the world can throw at you
(Some of you may be asking why this was an option on my running playlist to begin with. Everyone else also has it on their running playlist.)
Lonely Boy by The Black Keys
There are only a few people that have lost a presidential election more than once. But if that happened to me, I imagine I’d be a lonely boy.
love is embarrassing by Olivia Rodrigo
Rodrigo’s ode to cringe kicks into another gear during that final bridge. Kamala may be brat, but the one thing she hasn’t shied away from is cringe.
I Want You Back by Jackson 5
Admittedly this seems like it would be a song that indicates Donald Trump is going to win. But remember, there’s not a single line in the song that indicates she actually did take him back. I choose to interpret this as Donald Trump saying “I want you back” and the women of America saying “Nah, we’re good”
all-american bitch by Olivia Rodrigo
When we all finally realize that the melody of The Star-Spangled Banner is from an old English bar tune, I’m pretty confident this will be our new national anthem.
Supersoaker by Kings of Leon
‘Cause the supersoaker red, white, and blue them all away / with a kiss as unclean as the words that you say
No one will accuse Kings of Leon of having lyrics that make sense. But I can think of someone that the supersoaker red, white, and blue him right away!
Anywhere with You by Maggie Rogers
Roll the windows down, kill the radio / I’d rather hear the wind than hear that song I’m supposed to know / by some fucking bro
Stone cold and what the men of America need to hear.
get him back! by Olivia Rodrigo
There are a lot of us that want to get him back, that want to key his car and tell his mom he sucks.
There are an almost equal amount of us that want to get him back, that wanna make him lunch and kiss his face.
Life is weird. People are messy. Ambiguity is often the definition of what it means to be human. But somehow– somehow – we’re all still Americans. There’s one side of today’s election that believes we’re stronger together. There’s another that believes we’re stronger apart.
If you are– like I am– on the side that believes we’re stronger together, that means together. You don’t have to like what everyone is doing and you can and should call them out on it, but leaving people behind is not the answer. That’s what Donald Trump wants to do. Let’s not do it.
(Just a reminder that this is the fourth single from 2023’s GUTS. My God, that album is a masterpiece)
Bleeding White by the Avett Brothers
[We’ll] probably never make a sociopolitical record. But if we did, it might sound something like this…
When I heard get him back! come on, I pushed hard for that to be the last song. But I wasn’t quite fast enough. No matter. While get him back! may be the song most indicative of today’s election, the first song off the Avett Brothers 2019 album “Closer Than Together” is the perfect capper to this list.
Equal parts angry and disbelieving in the situation we find ourselves in, this song sounds more like something from The Black Keys than the Avett Brothers. But there’s hope. There’s always hope:
Y’all left me behind, but I can find you / If you don’t wander too far away
Today is our opportunity to not wander too far away. I have faith we’ll stay close.
Current Things: November 2024
Currently Reading
Currently reading: The Signal and the Noise by Nate Silver đź“š
Currently Watching
Currently In Queue
Currently Listening
Currently Planning
- November: Palm Springs for Eric’s wedding with Vegas on the backend
- December: post-Christmas trip to Kentucky
- January: Ski Trip to Québec Charlevoix
Concurrently
- Vale and I are playing the new Zelda game in 30 minute chunks each day, so it’s been slow going. But man, it’s always great to have a new Zelda game!
- I did a series of posts on the issues that are bad for Trump:
Trump is a bad guy. But the bottom line is that everyone knows that he’s a bad guy and most people don’t care about it. Is that bananas? Yep! But is it true? Also yep! Any attempt at trying to convince people that Trump is a bad guy is wasted breath. But– good news– he has three weaknesses:
Republicans think of abortion as murdering babies. Ask yourself an honest question: do you think Republicans will “leave it to the states” to decide whether or not murder should be legal? If Donald Trump is elected, Republicans will push and potentially succeed in a nationwide abortion ban.
During his first term, Donald Trump and congressional Republicans tried to take health care away from millions of working families to give tax breaks to the rich. It failed because three Republicans voted with the Democrats. If Donald Trump has a Republican congress, he will try to do this again.
January 6 was a violent day: Donald Trump told supporters to storm the Capitol. Police officers were beaten with American flags. People died. Donald Trump has continually called for more violence. He & many Republicans- including his running mate- have said that he did not lose the 2020 election
If you’d like to help Kamala Harris win, focus on those three things. Put aside that Trump’s a bad guy and the outrage about his immigration policies. Avoid talking about inflation. Pretend like you don’t know who Joe Biden is. This is going to be close. We must be strategic on how we talk about it.
If you–like me– would like to see Kamala Harris win, we should do a better job of focusing on the issues that are good for her!
Finished in October:
Slow Horses, Season 4: this is a show firing on every cylinder– the difficulty of grounding this twisty of a plot in its characters is off the charts. Very excited this has already been picked up for two more seasons
Trip: Eastern Shore
Wolfs: This was a totally fine movie.
If we would like for our adult-focused movies to be better than fine, we need to pay multiple American dollars to watch movies that are better than fine.
Previously, in Current Things…
October 2024
September 2024
August 2024
July 2024
June 2024
May 2024
April 2024
March 2024
February 2024
January 2024
December 2023
November 2023
October 2023
September 2023
August 2023
July 2023
June 2023
May 2023
April 2023
March 2023
February 2023
January 2023
December 2022
November 2022
If you’re ever feeling down about being an American, please remember that Alexandra Petri is also an American
It has fallen to me, the humor columnist, to endorse Harris for president
If you’d like to help Kamala Harris win, focus on those three things. Put aside that Trump’s a bad guy and the outrage about his immigration policies. Avoid talking about inflation. Pretend like you don’t know who Joe Biden is. This is going to be close. We must be strategic on how we talk about it.
January 6 was a violent day: Donald Trump told supporters to storm the Capitol. Police officers were beaten with American flags. People died. Donald Trump has continually called for more violence. He & many Republicans- including his running mate- have said that he did not lose the 2020 election
During his first term, Donald Trump and congressional Republicans tried to take health care away from millions of working families to give tax breaks to the rich. It failed because three Republicans voted with the Democrats. If Donald Trump has a Republican congress, he will try to do this again.
Republicans think of abortion as murdering babies. Ask yourself an honest question: do you think Republicans will “leave it to the states” to decide whether or not murder should be legal? If Donald Trump is elected, Republicans will push and potentially succeed in a nationwide abortion ban.
Trump is a bad guy. But the bottom line is that everyone knows that he’s a bad guy and most people don’t care about it. Is that bananas? Yep! But is it true? Also yep! Any attempt at trying to convince people that Trump is a bad guy is wasted breath. But– good news– he has three weaknesses:
Slow Horses, Season 4: this is a show firing on every cylinder– the difficulty of grounding this twisty of a plot in its characters is off the charts. Very excited this has already been picked up for two more seasons
I always take these projections with a grain of salt, but I just bought a “like new” refurb M4 iPad Pro and the magic keyboard case for a thousand dollars less than retail. Seems like there’s a lot of these in the pipeline.
(whether I needed this or not is irrelevant–pay no attention to the man behind the curtain)
iPad Pro Shipment Projections Slashed on Sluggish OLED Panel Demand
Wolfs, 2024
This was a totally fine movie.Â
If we would like for our adult-focused movies to be better than fine, we need to pay multiple American dollars to watch movies that are better than fine.
The new Reeder and Project Tapestry do 97% of things the same. But in the 3% they don’t– 1.5% of the time I like what Reeder does better and 1.5% of the time I like what Project Tapestry does better. I’m in a pickle.
Current Things: October 2024
Currently Reading
Currently reading: The Signal and the Noise by Nate Silver đź“š
Currently Watching
Currently In Queue
Currently Listening
Currently Planning
- October: Eastern Shore
- November: Palm Springs for Eric’s wedding (maybe Vegas on the back end?)
- December: post-Christmas trip to Kentucky
- January: Ski Trip to Québec Charlevoix
Concurrently
- New Zelda game! Starring Zelda! In the style of Link’s Awakening! Time to dust off my Zelda-playing machine (i.e., my Nintendo Switch) and get to saving Hyrule.
- A few highlights from what I wrote this month:
- I put out my digital yard sign as to why I’m voting for Kamala Harris and Tim Walz
- I went and saw Weezer and Bruce Springsteen and wrote about the limits of nostalgia
Finished in September:
The Wild Robot: just as much a meditation on the necessity of community as the plight of parenthood. Screenplay did a ton of good work introducing a lot of tough concepts without flinching. This also may be my favorite animation that Dreamworks has ever done.
Finished reading: On the Edge by Nate Silver 📚 Silver lays out a clear and compelling case for us all to be taking more risks. His framing (gambling, crypto, AI, with a dash of politics) is inevitably going to turn people off, but he gives each subject a fair shake– none of it is universally negative or positive. His conclusions are not far from my own.But…this book is Exhibit A of what people don’t like about Nate Silver: while I think he’s “right”, his prose is dripping with the fact he knows he’s right. He spends the book showing the divide between two groups–the Riverians and Villagers– with a very clear framing of building up his side (the Riverians). But then in the last three pages of a 500+ page book, he concludes that the members of the two tribes need to stop moving towards the tails of their group. He’s right about this, but I wish he’d spent more time on what a hybrid Riverian/Villager looks like.
Overall, if you can put aside the negatives, this is a vital book– risk is a subject that’s not well understood and Silver clearly shows why this is hurting society. jordon.me
Beetlejuice Beetlejuice: the world and cast are left (mostly) intact, so it would be very difficult for this to be a bad movie. But wow– it did its damndest to be completely forgettable: no new ideas and nothing to say
The Bear, Season 3: this was the vibes season. Not bad, but it just didn’t have the propulsion that previous seasons had. Still one of the best on TV
Previously, in Current Things…
September 2024
August 2024
July 2024
June 2024
May 2024
April 2024
March 2024
February 2024
January 2024
December 2023
November 2023
October 2023
September 2023
August 2023
July 2023
June 2023
May 2023
April 2023
March 2023
February 2023
January 2023
December 2022
November 2022
The Wild Robot, 2024
Just as much a meditation on the necessity of community as the plight of parenthood. Screenplay did a ton of good work introducing a lot of tough concepts without flinching. This also may be my favorite animation that Dreamworks has ever done.
Currently reading: The Signal and the Noise by Nate Silver đź“š
Finished reading: On the Edge by Nate Silver đź“š Silver lays out a clear and compelling case for us all to be taking more risks. His framing (gambling, crypto, AI, with a dash of politics) is inevitably going to turn people off, but he gives each subject a fair shake– none of it is universally negative or positive. His conclusions are not far from my own.
But…this book is Exhibit A of what people don’t like about Nate Silver: while I think he’s “right”, his prose is dripping with the fact he knows he’s right. He spends the book showing the divide between two groups–the Riverians and Villagers– with a very clear framing of building up his side (the Riverians). But then in the last three pages of a 500+ page book, he concludes that the members of the two tribes need to stop moving towards the tails of their group. He’s right about this, but I wish he’d spent more time on what a hybrid Riverian/Villager looks like.
Overall, if you can put aside the negatives, this is a vital book– risk is a subject that’s not well understood and Silver clearly shows why this is hurting society.
Be kind. Keep it simple. Tailor the message to the audience. Listen. That’s how you change minds. All elections are important, but this one is doubly so: these two have very different views of what America is and what it should be. I think America is great with some tweaks. So does Kamala Harris.
The anonymity of political canvassing is nice: you go to a stranger’s door and make your case. It’s clean. It’s low on emotion. But I’m skeptical of its effectiveness. Instead, speak to your neighbors! Post on your socials! Blog about it! The people who know you know you. They trust you.
That’s why I wrote this blog post about why I’m voting for Kamala Harris and Tim Walz and posted a link to it on the front page of my blog. It’s my digital yard sign– one that can have as many characters as I like and can go into the nuance of why I’m voting the way I am.