Greetings all!

Recently, I noticed a significant uptick in the number of Whatsapp voice messages that I've been receiving, so I thought I would throw out an editorial to let you all know my feelings on such missives. Here are my feelings:

I hate them. 

(Keep in mind, if you have sent me a Whatsapp voice message recently, I am most definitely not talking about you. You are special to me. You don't count as someone who has annoyed me with a Whatsapp voice message. Seriously, you are different than everyone else...why don't you believe me?). 

Look, here's the deal, friends...Whatsapp is awesome. I mean, it's so awesome that it has replaced texting. Then again, I think it IS texting, but it's not. Not really. It's with an entirely different app. And you can send pictures and stuff. But you can send pictures and stuff with texts, too, so I guess texting is Whatsapping, but I digress...

Whatsapp was meant for texting. But somewhere over the last year or so, people have started sending voice messages over Whatsapp. Usually, it's because the thing that they have to tell you is too long to type. So, they send a voice message. This is a selfish act. 

Voice messages on Whatsapp are inconvenient. Why? Because you have to listen to them. 

Someone sends me a voice message over Whatsapp. Is it important? Is it not important? I don't know, because it's a voice message. The only way to know if this message is important is to listen to it. But I can't listen to it, because I'm in a grocery store check-out line. I can't listen to it because I'm in a movie theater. I can't listen to it because my kids are standing right beside me. Worst of all, I can't listen to it because I'M IN CLASS!

A BRIEF HISTORY OF RANDALL: I was a curmudgeon when texting started. People would sit and type out those messages and all I could think was, "Why don't you just call them?" But then, texting became more convenient. And I guess I overestimated how much human beings don't actually want to talk to each other or have genuine interactions, because texting became the de facto means of communication in the world. Texting is fine, I guess, but I still don't understand why people don't want to talk to each other. Again, I digress...

Recently, people have been going back to actually talking to other people. But it's not talking.  They're not talking to people. They're sending their voice to people. And they're forcing other people to listen to their voices, because the people on the other end of the line HAVE NO CHOICE BUT TO LISTEN TO THE VOICE MESSAGE. It's a hostage situation. It's aggressive. It's threatening. You must listen to this message, is what is being said. 

You're sending me a voice message and I don't have any other choice but to listen to that voice message, because it's there and I don't know if what you're sending me is important or not, because I CAN'T READ IT...I CAN ONLY LISTEN TO IT. And it's a TWO MINUTE MESSAGE! OR A FIVE MINUTE MESSAGE. You are literally forcing me to listen to you for FIVE MINUTES!! That's not right or fair.

So, here's Randall's solution: Just call. 

If the thing that you want to say is too long to type, then just call. Call me. Call your friend. Interact with them. OR if your message is too long, just dictate your message into the app and let the computer type it for you. It does that, you know. It types your messages for you. 

But don't leave them a voice message, because it's just wrong. 

Wrong, wrong, wrong. 

MEDIA DIET

I suppose we should talk “Tenet”. Went to see it last Friday and when I walked out of the theater, I wasn’t sure if I actually liked it or not. What I did like was the fact that I came out of the theater thinking about it. That’s the sign of a good movie. So, after some friends said they were going back to see it the next day, my daughter and I decided to go back and see it a second time to see if we could actually understand what was happening in the darned film.

It was better the second time, and it’s the type of film that rewards multiple viewings. I would venture to say that it is Christopher Nolan’s best film yet. Personally, I think the Batman movies were crap and Inception was overrated tripe. But I like Nolan’s ideas and he appears to be getting better at executing them over time. I liked “Interstellar” a lot, and “Dunkirk” was great (though a bit detached…just like the British!).

“Tenet”, however, is one that I think will be remembered. My only problem is that I had (and still have) a lot of trouble figuring out the internal logic of the film. Time travel movies do that. And I know how difficult it can be to mess with the internal logic of time travel, because I wrote a choose-your-own-adventure-type book a few years ago called, “Boyd McCloyd and the Time Traveling King”. It’s coming out soon, nerds.

ARTICLE OF THE WEEK

Remember the article I sent you on MSCF a couple of weeks ago? They’re back at it. MasterWiki is a site that has been created to serve as a visual repository of material that is stolen from those Master Class programs that you see on the web. Have a look before it gets taken down (if it’s not taken down already).

TO BE SORTED

Aside from the fact that there’s a website called, “Apartment Therapy”, I find that I really, really want one of these. Now, I just need a yard…

OPEN TABS

I am one of those “older” people whose eyesight has deteriorated, mostly in the three years. If this simple fix is true, then it’s pretty amazing. (Goes to the hardware store to build his own kit…not knowing if it will work or not).

We need more pen pals in the world! (via Kyle)