The Year in Stupid From Tiedrich (Part 1)

As if we needed any reminder of how horrible this year has been…


as another stupid year comes to a close in America, let’s remember some of the dumbest fucking shit that happened.

note: this is a long post. some email apps — gmail in particular — may truncate it. if this happens to you, click “view entire message” or “view in browser” or go here to see the entire post.


January 8: y-m-c-aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay

here’s a MAGA moron who could teach a master class in how not to drive. in fact, schools should show this clip in driver’s ed classes — as a cautionary tale. just check out this extensive list of don’ts.

— don’t drive recklessly on snow-covered roads.
— don’t hold your phone in one hand while driving recklessly on snow-covered roads.
— don’t sing M-A-G-A to the tune of Y-M-C-A while holding your phone in one hand while driving recklessly on snow-covered roads.
— and, for fuck’s sake, don’t announce that “God has cleared a path for us today” JUST BEFORE YOU CRASH YOUR CAR because you were singing M-A-G-A to the tune of Y-M-C-A while holding your phone in one hand while driving recklessly on snow-covered roads.

— lastly, don’t post your dumb-assery to social media, unless you get off on being mercilessly mocked by the entire world.

know what? I think Mr. Retribution himself, God, zapped this fucker for being a dipshit.


January 20: the what now?

banning TikTok was bad enough, but now these puritanical fucksnoots have gone way too far.


January 27: we don’t need no edumacation

America, meet your new dumbed-down-as-fuckWhite House Press Corps. Donny’s press office has been doling out credentials to various wingnut noise machine randos — people like Natalie Winters, the co-host of one-man leper colony Steve Bannon’s War Room podcast. that’s right, Rotting Stevie Three-Shirts now has eyes and ears in the White House press room.

look how proud Natalie is to show up for her first day of work.

notice anything weird about that tweet? maybe Natalie’s creative spelling of the word correspondent?

typos are not necessarily stupid. we all make them, all the time. what’s totally fucking stupid is not deleting that tweet and posting a correction. five days later, it’s still in her feed. journamolism at its finest.


February 20: punctuation, how does it work?

a picture is worth a thousand words, so feast your eyes on a bunch of grown-ass men wearing jackets bearing the words “Born to Ride Donald J. Trump.”

who wants to tell them?


February 21: instant karma’s gonna get you

it’s been a shitty week, so let’s just sit back and enjoy pardoned Proud Boy Enrique Tarrio smacking the phone out of some woman’s hand and then immediately getting arrested for assault, handcuffed and carted away.

as the assaulted woman puts it,

“you don’t get to just put your hands on people. you don’t get to come here and do whatever the fuck you want. you just assaulted me, and now you’re getting arrested. good fucking job, you idiot. you pathetic piece of shit.”

she’s right, isn’t she, John Lennon?


February 27: nice try

Alexa, can grinding your jaw be a sign that you’ve hoovered way too much coke?

Cocaine jaw, also known as “coke jaw,” is a common side effect of cocaine use. It refers to the uncontrollable grinding of teeth and repetitive clenching of the jaw often observed in individuals who misuse cocaine.

oh gee.

Alexa, can putting your hand not quite to your mouth and then pretending you’re chewing on something be an effective way of masking that you’re coked to the fucking gills?

I’m going to go with no.


March 6: the flight of the Enola Homosexual

gather ’round, children, Uncle Jeff is going to read you the story of Enola, the Very Gay Airplane. it goes like this:

once upon a time, there was this ahem alleged sexual-assaulting christofascist named Piss-Drunk Pete Kegstand.

Pete was the Big Boss of the United States military. now, Pete loved the military and he loved men — but not all men. Pete only loved the manliest of men. he hated any man who wasn’t among the manliest of manly men.

now, Pete was very afraid that if his manly army of the very manliest manly men accidentally caught a glimpse of the wrong sort of word — for instance, a word like ‘gay’ — they might go a little funny in the head, and get bad ideas. and so Pete directed his military to remove all the wrong sorts of words from their files.

and that’s how the US military ended up removing photos of the Enola Gay — the plane that dropped the first atomic bomb on Japan — from its archives.

look, you imbeciles: the Enola Gay wasn’t called that because it was a boy plane that was really into other boy planes. the plane was named after Enola Gay Tibbets — the mother of Col. Paul Tibbets, its pilot.

I suppose if dear old Enola wanted a plane named after her, she should have had the decency to be named Enola Incredibly Straight Tibbets.


March 14: who would Jesus date?

christofascist pastor Joel Webbon finds himself in a bit of a sticky wicket. you see, he was hoping to sell tickets to a Christian singles event, and it seems that he’s now having to give them away for free, because … well, let’s let Joel explain.

“…completely free, and also the admission cost to the singles event. we are hoping to fill up our singles event, and finding godly Christian single women has been, well, I’ll just say, much more difficult than finding godly Christian single men.”

now comes the part where we throw back our heads in laughter.

no one could have predicted this. really weird how a bunch of unpleasant misogynistic god-botherers can’t find any women who want to attend their Incelpalooza.

hey, Pastor Joel — I’m playing gospel hits for you, on the world’s tiniest violin.


April 3: how obsequious is this?

here’s what happens when you take Graham Allen, a rando MAGA podcaster, and give him a job as the Department of Defense’s ‘digital media director’:

“How AMAZING is this?!? President Trump just stepped off Marine One and got into a golf cart at the LIV Golf League tournament.”

Graham, I’ve got North Korean State TV on the phone. they’re saying to tone it down, your praise of Dear Leader is waaaaaaay too over the top.

but please, riddle me this: what the fuck is so amazing? is it that Donny didn’t waddle about with toilet paper stuck to his shoe? (October 4, 2018)

is it that a furious Slovenian rent-a-wife didn’t jump into the cart in before Donny could, and make him take the next one? (January 20, 2024)

is it that Sundowning Grandpa Befuddlepants didn’t get lost on his way to the cart, and have to be guided back to it by a secret service agent? (July 6, 2017)

or is it just amazing that this dilapidated old toad —

— was able to walk twenty feet without his heart exploding?

opinion among the commenters under that not-tweet, by the way, was split between ‘yes, this is amazing’and ‘Dear Leader isn’t being fascist enough.’


April 15: oopsies!

Donny Convict’s presidential activities can be sorted into two categories: the Fucking Up Of Shit and the Standing Next To Of Athletes. Donny loves to stand next to sports dudes. anyone who wins anything, they get invited to the White House so that weak and insecure Donny can preen with them and pretend that he’s a winner, too.

on April 15, Donny must have been too busy with the Fucking Up Of Shit part of his job, because he outsourced the Standing Next To Of Athletes business to his veep.

did hilarity ensue? it sure as fuck did — because Couchfuck McGee fumbled that shit on live TV.

oh my god, JD — you had ONE JOB: picking up a championship trophy and handing it off to members of the Ohio State Buckeyes. but you couldn’t manage it without breaking the trophy in two and letting it fall from your stubby mitts.

why do they keep letting this doughy pantload out in public? is there one time when he hasn’t screwed the pooch?

hey, let’s gif that shit, for posterity’s sake — and let’s slow it way the fuck down, and wring every drop of stupid from it.

if that’s not a metaphor for Donny’s entire presidency, I don’t know what is.


April 24: go forth and multipl— never mind

America’s christofascist dipshits have been working overtime to convince the nation’s ahem white women to boom out as many ahem white babies as possible. they’re throwing everything at the wall, just to see what sticks. let’s pay them five large to get themselves knocked up. no, wait — let’s give them medals for having six or more kids. (I’m not making this up!)

but of course, no national program to get ahem whitewomen to start fuckin’ with gusto would be complete without the distribution of ludicrous AI-generated slop.

you’ve got your godly marching orders, America’s ahem white women: get to work making sons — because apparently daughters are anathema to His Eye.

speaking of eyes, do yourself a huge favor — don’t zoom in on any of the faces.

also: what the fuck is going on behind the preggobabes? a bald eagle standing guard over a garden-gnome-sized Jesus wearing running shoes?

a brief note to whoever is responsible for this image: eagles are carrion birds. they eat dead things. is Mister Baldie here waiting for Microscopic Jesus to die, so he can chow down? is that really the message you’re intending to send to America’s fertile payload?

while we’re on the subject of horribly-rendered christofascist AI art, what prompt was input in order to come up with this abomination?

“AI, generate for me the dorkiest couple possible, and make sure the woman looks no older than twelve”?

and remember, guys: when Jesus comes to hook you up with your child bride, have your red baseball cap at the ready.

eww. these people are seriously sick.


this is going to be my closing message for the foreseeable future:

practice self-care. do what you need to do to keep sane. if that means you need to disengage with my daily posts for a while, I get it. this community of ours will still be here when you return.

to all the people who have signed on in the days since the election, welcome aboard. settle in as we all try to deal with the shitfuckery that’s ahead of us.

we are all in this together, and we are all here for each other.

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No Tiedrich Today

Not because Jeff didn’t post; it’s because I read through it and I just can’t.

I’m sure I’ll continue next week.

Meanwhile, enjoy knowing that Elonia fucked up big time:

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Torturing Myself, Holiday Style

 

When I was at lymphedema therapy last week, I told my therapist I was feeling pretty discouraged and quipped, “Maybe I’ll be able to eat by next Christmas!”

“Pfft,” she responded. “You’ll be eating long before then.”

I can’t say I totally believe her, but she’s been doing this work with folks in my situation far longer than I’ve been in this situation, and if nothing else, I appreciate her positivity.

On a totally different note, also last week morbid curiosity drove me to look for photos of the type of surgery I went through in September. (Google “split-lip mandibulotomy” if you like seeing raw hamburger.) Sure, I’d been shown drawings and diagrams prior to the surgery but I wasn’t prepared for the actual photos. After seeing them, I have two thoughts:

    1. It’s amazing they got me put back together at all, and it’s fucking incredible that four months out, I actually look as good as I do.
    2. I can’t stress how lucky I am that a numb left jaw and lower lip—and apparently transient swallowing problems are all I walked away with from this.

So for all my bitching, I am thankful that it’s gone as well as it has. Things could’ve been worse. Much worse.

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Hello, Old Friend

Yamaha CDX-730

My holiday present to myself.

Okay, to most of you, this is just another piece of BPC [black plastic crap] from the early 90s, but to me, it’s an old friend. (And it’s not plastic; that’s an anodized aluminum faceplate and solid metal case.)

I bought this identical model back in July 1990 to replace my very first CD player that I got sometime in the mid 80s. How do I know the date? I was living in San Francisco at the time, I’d just gotten a mid-year bonus, and my mom was visiting. One day we went shopping and I came home with a new futon mattress (it was the 90s, after all), and this little gem.

It was my player for ten years or so and then it just disappeared. I don’t remember getting rid of it, but all of a sudden it was gone from the photographic record—along with my memory of what happened to it. At some point I think I must’ve pivoted to playing all my CDs through my DVD player and probably just felt that it was redundant and didn’t need it any more.

All I’m sure of is that it was gone by the time I moved back to Phoenix in 2002. At some point in 2003—after surviving seven weeks of radiation for my first cancer—I rewarded myself by returning to a dedicated CD player and then flipping units in and out of my system on almost a monthly basis trying to find digital nirvana (buying this shit used was still dirt cheap back then).

At some point between then and 2022 I got rid of my last CD player, only replacing it with a CDX-530 when I decided to get over myself and stop mourning the loss of my remaining discs. (I couldn’t find a CDX-730 at the time.)

When the 530 got too picky about reading discs, and my attempts to resuscitate it failed, I bit the bullet and bought a brand new player. It’s served me well over the past few years, and it sounded fine, but it never truly wowed me, y’know? It lacked the “personality” of those awesome 90s era machines, and since I really wanted a 730, I set a trigger on eBay to notify me whenever one was posted.

To be honest, the pickings have been slim since I first set that trigger. They don’t show up that often (I don’t know it’s because they’ve all died and been consigned to landfills, or if  they’re tanks and people hold onto them forever) but when they do show up they’re either listed as not working at all (after watching literally dozens of repair videos on these things, it might be a simple fix but I didn’t want to deal with it) or working but so beat up cosmetically they were an automatic pass.

Then a couple weeks ago I woke to an email that another had been posted and—though it was missing the remote control (a common issue)—it was pristine and working.

It arrived today. And yes, it works—and looks as good as it did in the seller’s photos.

And I have a secret to share: Yamaha hasn’t changed their CD remote codes in the last 40 years. While it would be nice to have the original remote that was paired with this player, they seem to be impossible to find, and pretty much any Yamaha CD remote will cover all the basic functions on any player. (As of this writing, I’m using the one from the new player I bought two years ago and it’s working fine, although I have ordered an era-appropriate remote so this one can go back with my 2 year old player should I decide to sell it.)

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OMG!

From Mock Paper Scissors:

OK, guys, this is gross and I’m sorry/not sorry to be writing about it, but it is important.

Yikes – no wonder the DOJ is scrambling to tell us not to believe what’s in the files about Trump.

www.mediaite.com/media/news/o…

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— The Tennessee Holler (@thetnholler.bsky.social) December 23, 2025 at 6:50 AM

CNN has more on the Epstein-Nassar letter here, but here’s the important part:

“Dear L.N.,” the letters reads, “As you know by now, I have taken the ‘short route’ home. Good luck! We shared one thing … our love and caring for young ladies and the hope they’d reach their full potential. Our President also shares our love of young, nubile girls.” The letter makes another lewd reference to Trump’s treatment of women.

“Life is unfair,” the letter reads.

Q: is “I have taken the ‘short route’ home” some sort of euphemism saying he was killing himself?

Merde-a-Lardo itself was subpoena’ed:

Prosecutors subpoenaed Mar-a-Lago for employment records in Maxwell case

The Mar-a-Lago club was subpoenaed to produce documents in the case of United States v. Ghislaine Maxwell on Nov. 29, 2021, according to a copy of the subpoena included in the new files.

The subpoena demanded “Any and all employment records relating to [redacted].”

It is not clear who appeared on the club’s behalf.

Maxwell, a longtime associate of Epstein, was convicted of sex trafficking in 2021 and is serving a 20-year prison sentence.

…could it be because:

“The FBI received a tip in October 2020 that appears to be from an unidentified female who said she had information about a ‘Jeffrey Epstein party’ in 2000. The person’s information is redacted in the FBI’s summary of the tip, which is included in the new files.”

“The woman alleged that someone named Ghislaine Lisa Villeneuve brought her to the party. Later, someone said that Donald Trump had invited everyone to Mar-A-Lago, according to the tipster.”

And here’s the document itself embedded as an image in this tweet.

 

We’re trying to imagine the Republican freakout if literally any of this was about Obama or Biden

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— The Tennessee Holler (@thetnholler.bsky.social) December 23, 2025 at 7:29 AM

Meanwhile, Morning Joe is carrying water for his old pal:

Scarborough: “Trump is not on Epstein’s list. There’s nothing in there really damning about Trump or Bill Clinton. So one of the great mysteries is not what Trump’s hiding, it’s why if he’s not in the files – which all the reporting says he’s not – why is he so obsessed on blocking access to them?”

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— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar.com) December 22, 2025 at 7:21 AM

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What The Fuck?

Sean Duffy on blue states: “What I can do is I can pull their money. That’s the leverage I do have … I guarantee you that the federal taxpayer is not going to fund their roads and bridges and their systems when they are putting illegals on the roads.”

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— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar.com) December 23, 2025 at 6:27 AM

It’s almost like they know it’s all about to crash down upon and they want to get as much evil out there as possible before it happens.

And Sean, you do realize that blue states pay in the majority of Federal taxes, right?

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2025: Among Other Things, The Year Of The MiniDisc

One year ago today this little nugget—the same model as the last new Minidisc player I purchased in 2002—arrived in my life, reigniting what I feared it would: an obsession with the MiniDisc format.

During the year and a half prior to its arrival, my love of compact discs had been rekindled, rebuilding and augmenting my original collection that had been sold/lost over the years.  The used Yamaha CD player I’d picked up when I started this journey was refusing to play some discs, so I replaced it with a new Yamaha—and several portable players over the next year just because. As as I was pursuing these various player offerings on eBay I kept stumbling across auctions for Sony MZ-S1 MD recorder/players and I’d be overcome with a pang of nostalgia. As tempting as it was to get one, I kept thinking, “Why? I have no discs, and do I really want to get into yet another format? I’d have to buy a full-size deck to go with it, and then there’s the matter of getting discs and transferring all my music, and yada, yada, yada.” But the nugget kept popping up in my searches.

I put up a good fight for the longest time.

But then, one day—logic and reasoning be damned—I gave into temptation. I loved the format back in the day and I justified the purchase by saying I wasn’t getting any younger—and neither was this hardware. I checked, and saw that (at least at that time) Sony was still manufacturing new discs, so I said fuck it. Even with retirement looming and the reduced income that went along with it, I knew the Pandora’s box I would be opening, but I went ahead and pulled the trigger anyway and bought a MZ-S1. That act—as expected—opened a floodgate. I now have more hardware and discs than I ever owned originally. In fact, I immediately followed up the MZ-S1 with the purchase of a MZ-N707 (below) a few days later, simply because it was gorgeous…

And, truth be told, numerous decks and a dozen portable players later, this obsession has also kept me sane over the past four months.

Have expensive mistakes been made? Oh yeah. (I have four shadow box displays of disassembled players to prove it.) Have I learned from those mistakes? Yes—that beyond basic maintenance I do not have the necessary skills to repair this gear. Do I regret any of it? I do not.

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A Year of ChatGPT

ChatGPT Now Has a 2025 Year-End Summary Feature Like Spotify Wrapped

OpenAI added a year-end summary feature to ChatGPT, allowing users to get a personalized overview of their 2025 ChatGPT usage. The summary is similar to year-end wrap-ups from companies like Spotify, Apple Music, YouTube, and other services.

ChatGPT offers up an overview of themes discussed and chat stats, such as busiest chatting day, number of overall chats, messages sent, and more. ChatGPT provides each user with a chat style based on writing or speaking habits, along with an “archetype” based on what ChatGPT is used for.

The year-end update also provides a poem, a personalized pixel painting, a 2025 “award,” and predictions for 2026.

ChatGPT users can get their year-end summary by asking ChatGPT to “Show me my year with ChatGPT” in the ChatGPT app or on the web. Summaries are available for Free, Pro, and Plus users who have chat history and memory enabled for ChatGPT.

[Source]

My summary:

By the way, I still think AI is evil incarnate. Go ahead and roast me for my own hypocrisy…

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