Daring To Be Stupid
The subject line this time is the title of a Weird Al song, which is relevant because Weird Al is probably going to cause the next issue to be delayed. The next newsletter is scheduled for the 4th of July weekend, but I’ll be out of town that weekend for a Weird Al concert in, of all places, Beaver Dam, Kentucky. I’ve seen His Weirdness once before during the Ridiculously Self-Indulgent Ill-Advised Vanity Tour several years ago, but this will be the first time seeing the full show with all the costumes and special effects. I’m really looking forward to it. I’ll get the newsletter out the next weekend.
Deal of the Month
I’ve been writing a lot about AI at The Death Cookie, so I’m making Blasphemous Temple of Yargolith this month’s deal. Use the link here to get it for $10 instead of the usual $15 (now through July 15). The adventure was produced using AI a couple years ago, but at the time it took at least as long to turn the AI output into something usable than if I’d just written it and hired Josh & Leighton to do art.
Stuff I’m Working On
I’m a little behind on My Name Is Hood, but I’ve got some time off work this week so I’m planning to catch up.
I’ve got more new T-shirts up at The Invisible Market. A couple of them will only make sense to people in western Kentucky, but the other two are universal themes, like cocaine and Discordianism.
Other than some game writing, the shirts, and the previously-mentioned Death Cookie articles, I haven’t gotten much done in the last few weeks. I’ve been trying to get back on a regular writing schedule and it was going well until I lost two days getting my car repaired. Then a piece of software I’ve come to rely on changed their pricing so that the plan I’d paid for a year membership to was useless without an upgrade, so I’ve spent about the last 4 days finding and now migrating to an open-source version. Enshittification is real.
Media Blitz!
Reading
The bad thing about short story collections is that they’re easy to put down, so I’m not sure I’ve read anything from Dangerous Visions since the last newsletter due to other books distracting me.
I’m only about a chapter in, but I’m looking forward to Fully Automated Luxury Communism by Aaron Bastani. It’s about the coming AI dystopia. My Death Cookie article that’s coming out from behind the Patreon paywall this week covers similar themes.
Matt Taibbi & Walter Kirn have moved from discussing short stories to novels. I wasn’t planning to re-read 1984, which is the current book club topic, but hearing them talk about it caused me to start. My copy has an introduction by Walter Cronkite, not the hilarious trigger warning from Walter’s copy.
I wrote a review of Gamemasters: The Comic Book History of Roleplaying Games. You can read it here.
I also read Weird Heroes of Public Access, which has a 90s indie game vibe I really enjoy.
Finally, I read Diogo Nogueira’s zine Just Make Shit! Nothing groundbreaking here, but it’s a good pep talk if you need some motivation.
Watching
Finished The Last of Us. It was another one of those cases where I wasn’t entirely sure that season was over until no new episode came out.
Got around to two of the Tom Segura specials on my list, Disgraceful and Mostly Stories. Both were very funny and I will watch more.
Crackcoon has a VelociPastor vibe, but with even worse acting and a shittier puppet, but it’s got some pretty good lines like “nuttier than a squirrel turd” and “What in the name of Dolly Parton’s big old sweet titties is going on?” You know from the title whether or not it’s for you.
Finally watched Balls of Fury, which I’d never seen. I didn’t realize that everybody was in this movie, or that it was made when Patton Oswald was only 12.
CHIPS: Two funny guys reboot a classic TV show. What’s not to like?
The Rehearsal is one of those shows that you can’t go into a lot of detail on without possible spoiling, but I loved it. It’s not for everyone, but give it at least a few episodes to before you write it off.
Kate: This looked like the closest I’m going to get to a Lucy McClane movie, so I watched it. It’s a pretty standard revenge flick, but Woody Harrelson’s always fun and Marry Elizabeth Winstead would make a pretty good Ripley if they ever start making good Aliens movies again.
Captain America: Brave New World was a perfectly acceptable variation on that Marvel movie we’ve all seen 30 or 40 times now.
Currently on the last season of Atlanta. I knew I’d like it because Donald Glover is apparently good at everything, but I didn’t expect to enjoy it this much.
Listening
My plan to really listen to music once a week has about a 50/50 success rate so far, and since I’ve mostly been hitting shuffle my only real insight is remembering that vintage AC/DC and Aerosmith is good shit. That being the case, I’m circling back to Weird AL for this week’s top five.
Top 5 best Weird Al Songs
Dare To Be Stupid
Everything You Know Is Wrong
CNR
One More Minute
Albequerque
Honorable Mention: Nature Trail to Hell
That’s it for now, so I’ll head back to the data mines. The plan is to be back up and functioning normally before my vacation starts on Thursday.
TYTYVM,
Steve
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