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Item: I'm a blue collar man in my fifties

Translation: I am a living, breathing, walking ache

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Too many people will pass around "always trust your gut!" and "your intuition never lies" content when actually your "intuition" isn't immune to either propaganda, bigotry or trauma reactions. Which is important to be aware of actually

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You know, I've never seen Donald Trump smile. I've seen him smirk like a bully in an 80's teen comedy. I've seen him bare his teeth like a predator. But I've never seen a warm, sincere, genuine smile from him. Hardly surprising, though, since there's nothing warm, sincere, or genuine about him.

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Know a conflict of interest when you see it

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They showed T2 on Comet this evening. There's something about it that I want very badly to talk about, but the subject has never come up in conversation, and even if it did I doubt if I could get any of my points made before getting interrupted and losing track of the discussion. So I'm posting it here.

The Terminator (1984) occupies an honored place in my Blu-ray collection. It's a great film, and the casting of a then relatively unknown Arnold Schwarzenegger as a ruthless killing machine was a stroke of genius.

Terminator 2: Judgement Day (1990) is considered one of the greatest sequels ever made, and I'm not here to argue that it's not. But I just haven't felt like adding it to my collection. If you love this film, that's cool, and I'm not trying to convince you not to, but I really don't think the screenwriter/director/et al thought the concept through well enough. In particular, there are three specific things about it that kind of ruin it for me.

Firstly, and probably of least importance,: nothing whatsoever against Arnold - I think he's an asset to whatever project he's involved with - but there should only ever have been one Terminator that looked like him. If Skynet was smart enough not to send the same kind of Terminator after John Connor than it did after Sarah Connor, you'd think it would be smart enough not to manufacture any two of the things to look exactly alike. Remember, Terminators are supposed to be infiltrators. If the targets are able to recognize one from a previous encounter, Skynet loses the element of surprise.

I think this is one of those instances of the realities of Hollywood casting and marketing working against the integrity of the movie's premise. After all, who in 1990 was going to go see a sequel to the Terminator without Arnie? Bloody nobody, that's who.

(A digression: another excellent example of the aforementioned phenomenon would be Judge Dredd [1995]. The way I understand it, it was only because of Sylvester Stallone's involvement that the picture got made in the first place. Now, one thing every fan of the comics knows is that Dredd never takes his helmet off where the reader can see. It's part of his mystique; when he says "I am the law" it's not just an expression. He is the physical personification of the law, and that's all we really need to know about him. Letting us know what he actually looks like under there would distract from that. I can think of only two instances in the comics where Joe Dredd appeared without his helmet. In one his head is swathed in bandages, and in the other he's wearing a disguise that makes him look like Rondo Hatton, of all people. Point is, we've never seen all of Judge Dredd's face. But you don't cast a star of Stallone's magnitude in the lead only to keep his face hidden. It just isn't done. That fact, combined with Sly's unique and unmistakable screen persona, guaranteed that he was never going to disappear into the role the way this particular role really needed. End of digression.)

My second bone of contention is rather more damning. According to Kyle Reese's testimony to Doctor Silberman in the first film, Skynet's defeat was a done deal. Reese had personally seen its central mainframe obliterated. (Remember, this was the mid-eighties. The personal computer hadn't really caught on yet and the plug-compatible mainframe was still the standard paradigm of computer systems used by the government, large businesses, research facilities, and other such institutions.) It was only afterwards that they discovered that Skynet had used an experimental time machine to send a Terminator to assassinate Sarah Connor before she could give birth to their leader. When could it have been able to send the second one?

Now, I'm aware that a later installment in the series tried to retcon this inconsistency by positing that Skynet actually sent several Terminators, each to a different part of the timeline. The problem I have with this, apart from the fact that it feels like the writers were moving the goal post in order to justify expanding the franchise, is the nature of the second Terminator itself.

The T-800 introduced in the first film is vat-grown organic flesh over a robotic skeleton. It's presented as the most advanced of Skynet's weapons. The T-1000 from T2 is something else altogether - liquid metal, capable of shaping itself into anyone or anything it has to to get the job done. Assuming such technology is even theoretically possible, it's way the hell more sophisticated than anything we see in the first film. On top of that, in order to send it back in time, Skynet would have to have solved the problem of transporting inorganic material without first covering it with living tissue. Those kinds of innovations take time, and I just don't see how Skynet could have had that time. For the sake of the initial premise I'm willing to accept that time travel is possible and that robots can be made to pass for human. But I'm not buying that this busted machine gets to roll the dice again after it's hail Mary attempt to save itself failed.

The subject of my third gripe isn't a plot hole; it's purely personal. Here's what we know at the end of the first film: a terrible war is coming. Most of humanity will not survive it, and the few who remain will endure a reign of terror unprecedented in human history. However...

Humanity will fight back and, ultimately, defeat their oppressor and take back their freedom. And it happens not merely because Skynet's last ditch attempt on Sarah Connor's life failed, but because her experience fighting for her life against the Terminator forged her into the sort of person who could literally become the mother of a revolution.

Now, that is the smartest blend of seventies downer and eighties fist-pump that I have ever seen committed to celluloid, and I really don't appreciate how the sequel just flat out replaced it with a run-of-the-mill happy (if bittersweet) ending straight out of a Spielberg movie.

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Saw it again today. Gave me a start

I was at a stop light right next to a Tesla Cybertruck yesterday and I got a closer look at it than I have on any previous occasion. Honestly, I get a little annoyed at people singling this vehicle out for its ungainly appearance when there are so many other questionable aesthetic choices out in the wild already. But this thing isn't JUST ugly. If I had to come up with a term for the Cybertruck's design aesthetic, it would be something like "ultramodern minimalist neo-brutalism" or the like. And it clashes with everything else on the road.

Check this out: a number of years ago I went to the Winston-Salem Air Show and one of the featured attractions was a flyby of a Lockheed F-117 Nighthawk Stealth Fighter. Not gonna lie, it gave me the creeps. The straight lines and hard corners on this thing gave it a completely unaerodynamic appearance, such that it would seem to take some sort of extremely powerful black magic to keep it up in the air. It was the most evil looking thing I've ever seen in the sky.

The Cybertruck gave off the same vibe. And it didn't help at all when I suddenly realized that the thing might explode right next to me. What a shitty way to die.

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I'm watching Metropolis (1927) this evening because the theme of a wealthy, parasitic ruling class living large off the backbreaking labor of the masses is more relevant now than it's ever been in light of what's happening in the USA right now.

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I'm completely willing to believe that he's too rock stupid to understand what his policies will do to the U.S. economy. I'm also completely willing to believe that he knows exactly what he's doing and that tanking the U.S. economy is precisely his intention.

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Me as a child: Why are all the songs about love?

Nearest adult: you'll understand when you're older.

Me as an adult: Seriously, why are all the songs about love and sex?

My favorite songs that have absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with romantic love:

Ain't It Fun by Paramore

Big Shot by Billy Joel

Breakout by Swing Out Sister

Don't Pay the Ferryman by Chris DeBurgh

Dreams by Van Halen

Fight Fire With Fire by Kansas

Hold On by Ian Gomm

No Easy Way Out by Robert Tepper

Play the Game Tonight by Kansas

Sleeping Satellite by Tasmin Archer

Sowing the Seeds of Love by Tears For Fears

Time Passages by Al Stewart

When the Heart Rules the Mind by GTR

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I'm ashamed of my fellow Americans for putting this toxic spill into the White House not once but twice

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Can anybody give these old-ass Democrats protest lessons? They're acting like they're still living in pre-2015 politics when the GOP gave a shit and wasn't deranged.

A member gets up and starts shouting: All get up and shout with him.

Don't walk out: MAKE them carry you all out, not shutting up the entire time. I'm serious, go limp, be dead weight.

Putin's Puppet says a provable lie: Everyone chant "LIE" in unison for a solid minute instead of holding pitiful little signs in front of a man who can't read above a 3rd grade level.

Have someone who knows ASL sitting with you, interpreting everything in full view.

If you're gonna hold signs, make them BIG like you're actually trying to do something. Have them in multiple languages.

Make other signs that say clever or cutting things that will make him rage for days. "DOESN'T OLD TRUMP LOOK TIRED?" or "PUPPET PRESIDENT" or "EVERYONE IS FACT-CHECKING THIS SPEECH TRUMP DIDN'T WRITE" or "THE EMPEROR HAS NO CLOTHES" or his current tanking approval rating next to a laughing emoji.

Make a stink every day in congress, throw as many bills as you can on the floor even if they go nowhere, look like you're trying.

Have someone, idk maybe someone you actually want to boost for President in 3 gd years, be your voice of opposition in the media, loudly complaining and telling the facts, every single day. Let the people know you're there!

How hard is this? There's probably better suggestions than mine if they actually hired seasoned protestors or behaviorists/psychologists or even the biggest teenage troll they can find on a messageboard.

The Emperor Has No Clothes. So fucking act like it.

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I believe I mentioned years ago that since we no longer believe in the words inscribed at the base of the statue that we should just ship the old girl back to France