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Moments After Which There Is No Going Back

From The Atheist Revolution:

What is it about the 2024 U.S. presidential election that I’m still having a hard time coming to terms with? It isn’t the outcome itself, as that did not surprise me. I figured that Trump would win. It was clear that the news media missed him and wanted him back in office. The surprise had more to do with how he won. This wasn’t another case of wining the electoral college and losing the popular vote. He won both.

What does it mean to win the popular vote even when it does not determine the outcome of an election? It means that more of the Americans who bothered to vote preferred the winner of the popular vote. It is, in essence, a popularity contest. And Trump won it. This is the part I’m struggling with the most. Knowing everything we now know about him, more American voters wanted Trump back in power. It is tough to look at the country in the same way I once did.

Same, Sir. Same.

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Quote of the Day

He doesn’t have to be compromised by Putin. He’s on Putin’s side. He’s his friend. Hes his fan. He loves Putin. He loves the things that Putin represents — authoritarianism, the entire ugly corrupt Russian power structure. Donald Trump looks at it and says give me some of that. They could have taped Donald Trump fucking a goat – it wouldn’t matter. He’d be Vladimir Putin’s best buddy no matter what. So as the idea of a conspiracy to explain Trump’s behavior it fails the Occam’s razor test. Trump is an authoritarian asshole. He’s going to love other authoritarians. It’s almost definitional.” ~ Rick Wilson

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Off to a Rough Start

I recorded my first minidisc in over a decade last night.

And after I finished, ejected the disc so it could finish writing the table of contents, and when I reinserted the disc to listen, the machine took a crap. C13 Read Error. Ugh. And it wasn’t just that disc—it was even brand new, unused ones. And of course the seller I bought it from said it was fully functional and doesn’t accept returns.

Being a nerd that’s still relatively good at fixing shit, I did a hasty search online and ended up getting very depressed. Firstly, because there wasn’t a whole lot of info out there and a lot of it was, “Take it to a Sony Service Center.” Yeah, like that’s an option any more…

I did all the suggested troubleshooting: cleaning the laser’s lens, blowing out the mechanism with compressed air, reseating the ribbon cables that run between the mechanism and the main circuit board, etc. But none of it worked.

Anyhow, after mulling it over while wide awake at 4 am this morning, I thought about one other possible culprit: dried lubricant on the sled rail.

After getting ready this morning, did a search on YouTube and found one video that described the error and what needed to be done. It was basically everything I’d already done, but I felt that if the guy in the video could resuscitate a machine that was in much worse condition than mine, I certainly could get this one working.

I pulled the top off again and did everything I’d done last night and in addition, ran a Q-tip drenched in isopropyl alcohol along the rail and under the gears that drive the mechanism. I cautiously inserted the disc from last night and viola! it worked!

So fingers are crossed. As I type this I’m adding a few more tracks to the disc from last night and so far everything is working as it should. The true test will be when I’m finished and it has to write to the TOC (Table of Contents) before ejecting…

UPDATE: It worked!

UPDATE #2: It’s hosed. After recording two discs, the error returned. After popping the cover was obvious the disc was refusing to spin up, triggering the C13 error. I spoke to the seller this afternoon and she’s agreed to refund what I paid for it upon return of the unit. On the positive side, the MZ-S1 arrived today and it works like a champ.

Nugget acquired

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World AIDS Day

As is my tradition every December 1st, I remember…


Kent Kelly


Ken Cohen


Steve Golden


Dennis Shelpman


Jim Hagen


Chuck Krahe


Michael Nelson
Jim Nye


Kevin Ohm


Rick King


Ron Aiazzi


Grant Neilsen


Ric Hathaway


David Koston


Kim Holstein


Jerry Straughn


Fred Sibinic


Russ Alvarez


Ken Borg


Marty Kamner

John Trapp


Harold Gates


Peter Whitman


Scott Woods

Bobby Farina
Brian Lea
Chuck Mayer
Richard Gulliver
Jim Girard
Keith Roseberry
Tom Farrel
Ben Walzer
Steve McCollom
Philip Ruckdeschel

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Alien: Romulus – Is It Worth It?

No.

It finally appeared on streaming for free, and all I can say is I’m glad I didn’t pay for a ticket to see it in a theater. I was already fast-forwarding about 2/3 of the way into it.

So many worn-out tropes. So many blindingly-stupid characters.  The Xenomorph is so well known by now, my reaction has become, “Oh, it’s you.”

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