Month: January 2026

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Workhorses

WARNING: GEEK/MINIDISC STUFF AHEAD.

I am a geek. I think that fact has been well established.

Ben tunes out the world by watching Drag Race news and reviews on YouTube, and I watch videos about how to fix broken stereo gear.

Those videos have gotten me into trouble more than once, giving me a false sense of proficiency when in fact I had none. But those are stories for another time.

I’ve been able to find videos describing how to take apart and fix just about every piece of audio gear I own—with two notable exceptions: my Tascam MiniDisc decks.

MD-350
MD-CD1MKIII

There are plenty of videos of people showing them off, describing how they work, or were obviously created for providing “proof of life” to potential buyers in an eBay auction. And so many of those videos are based out of Vietnam. WTF? Did Tascam saturate the Vietnamese market with these things?

In nearly a year of searching, I’ve found only one video that describes the actual repair of a misbehaving Tascam MD mechanism.

But why is that? There are literally dozens of repair videos for Sony units—portables and decks. With the decks, the most common malady is a decomposing rubber belt that prevents the minidisc from loading or ejecting—a simple fix once you obtain a new belt and see how it’s done. With the portables it’s almost always dried-up lubricant or corrosion from leaking batteries that someone failed to remove from the player twenty years ago. But Tascam? Just the one.

(Not that I need repair videos for these two units; they’re both working just fine. I just find the videos fascinating.)

Is this dearth of videos because the Tascams are built like tanks and simply don’t break down? They were sold as “professional” machines, intended to be used in recording studios and radio stations, so they were supposedly built to a higher standard (evidenced by the pictures below) than units manufactured for home use. But they were also marketed (in a silver finish with different model numbers) under their parent company’s Teac name, which was squarely a consumer audio company.

To point out the difference in build quality, this is my Sony…

MDS-JE480

vs. Tascam…

MD-350
MD-CD1MKIII

Or is it that Tascams don’t need repair videos created because the MD mechanisms don’t use any belts for loading and unloading the discs? The only belt I’m aware of is in the CD player portion of the MD-CD1MKIII and that drive is a standard, commercially available (at least at the time these were being built) IDE computer CD/DVD writer.

While it’s kind of disappointing that there’s only one Tascam MiniDisc repair video on YouTube, it’s also rather reassuring if this is indicative of their longevity, knowing that my two decks will likely keep humming along for many, many more years. (And there are more than enough Sony videos—of all their audio gear—that allow me to disconnect from the dystopian hellscape we currently find ourselves in.)

 

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Quote Of The Day

The coward who shot Renee Good in the face represents the very core of what is wrong with everything. He’s not just a 21st century man-baby playing tactical gear dress up. He is the man who did his own research. He is your mom’s new boyfriend who refused to mask up at the height of the pandemic. He is the woman who voted for Trump three times because her pastor told her it was the Christian thing to do.

He is the suburban WASP who is afraid of the city. He is the tradwife and her POS husband chronicling their journey on TikTok. He is the social media troll who doesn’t realize all of his Facebook friends are bots. He is the alpha capitalist whose corporation relies on government subsidies. He is the poor man who opposes taxes on the 1% because he assumes that one day, he too will be a billionaire. He is the man who would rather resent every woman in his life than talk to a therapist. He is the person who tells you that a gun is a tool just like any other tool.

He is Stephen Miller, Kristi Noem, JD Vance, and Derek Chauvin. He is the person trying to convince you at this very moment that she was a domestic terrorist and he did what he had to do. There is video. By defending it, you are essentially saying that this is also how you should react to a car slowly turning away from you. Fuck you.” ~ jake._.luck on Instagram

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Do You Think It’s Possible?

Ordinarily I would say, “And then I woke up,” but I dunno….based on the demonstrations occurring across the fucking country, Renee Good’s murder may—and I stress the word may—be that tipping point.

There has to be a tipping point, right? If not this, then WHAT?1

FUCK ICE, FUCK MAGA, FUCK JD VANCE, FUCK LITTLE STEVIE MILLER, and most importantly…

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Pluribus

Upon recommendation from one of my readers (thanks, David!), I jumped into Pluribus on Apple TV on Tuesday. Screencaps had kept popping up on my Tumblr feed, so between that and this personal recommendation, I decided to give it a shot.

I was not disappointed. In fact, I ended up binging the entire first series in one day.

I’m not going to do a review; I’ll leave you to explore this review which is better than anything I could possibly put together and decide for yourselves if this series is worth your time..

 

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There Are No Words To Describe How Much I Despise Trump

folks, the president’s brain has left the station. I’m not sure it’s ever coming back.

Upgrade to paid
after its long holiday break, Congress was back in session yesterday — and Mad King Donny chose to mark the occasion by giving what might charitably be called a ‘speech’ to Congressional Republicans.

I have no idea what cocktail of drugs his handlers pumped him full of, but holy fucking shit.

Republicans, how the fuck are you not embarrassed by this?

pink hair, orange face, three chins, delicate little white porcelain doll hands, and a brain that’s out there wandering where the buses don’t run. the GOP’s beloved Dear Leader is a clown — but you couldn’t possibly hire him to entertain a child’s birthday party, because he would just terrify the crap out of everyone.

as is his usual wont, Preznit Fuckwit rambled incoherently for an hour and a half, blithering about fever-swamp hallucinations that exist only inside his big, dumb pumpkin head.

“they are mean, and smart. but fortunately for you, they have horrible policies. they can be smart as— can be. but when they want open borders, when they want, as I said, men in women’s sports. when they want [waves his arms] TRANSGENDER FOR EVERYONE! bring your kids in, we’re gonna change the sex of your child. just send them our way. in some cases, LIKE IN MINNESOTA, they don’t even tell the parents, is that right? and nobody believes it when I say it. I think we have six states. nobody— am I correct? it’s true. when the kid comes back— they keep the kid— they operate on this kid, they don’t tell the parents. it’s not— believable.”

fact check:

how were the men in the white coats with the butterfly nets not chasing Donny off the stage after that crazypants soliloquy?

for those of you keeping score at home, they’re eating the dawgs, they’re eating the cats, they fraudstering the daycare centers — and they’re transgendering everything in sight.

but Donny’s speech wasn’t all batshittery. he also threatened us all with a good time.

 

“you gotta win the midterms. because if we don’t win the midterms— it’s just gotta be— I mean, they’ll find a reason to impeach me. I’ll get impeached.”

no fucking shit, Sherlock.

that clip alone should motivate every Democrat to run to the polls this November — because the quickest way to put an end to all this fascist fuckstickery is for the Democrats to retake the House, and gain a supermajority in the Senate.

now tell me — what the fuck is this?

“she hates when I dance. I said, ‘everybody wants me to dance.’ ‘darling, it’s not presidential.’ she actually said, ‘could you imagine FDR dancing?’ she said that to me. and I said, there’s a long history that perhaps— she doesn’t know. because he was an elegant fellow. even as a Democrat, right? he was— the attack by Japan, you know, he was quite elegant. but he wouldn’t be doing this. but— but— [laughs] nor would— too many others. but she says ‘darling, please. the weightlifting is terrible.’”

neither Donny nor Melania have any idea that FDR was confined to a wheelchair, do they? for a second there, I thought Donny was going to point out her error, but then the coked-up squirrel running around in his head chewed through the wrong wire, and what seeped instead out of his rancid anus-mouth was ‘the attack by Japan, you know, he was quite elegant.’

come on, that’s not even a coherent sentence by any stretch of the imagination. where are the men with the butterfly nets?

by the way, this is the Melania version of a ‘sir’ story. you know it never actually happened, because there’s no way Donny’s Slovenian rent-a-wife would ever call him ‘darling.’ she hates his guts.

‘fock off. you take own car.’

Donny sure is convinced of his own dancing prowess. he never shuts the fuck up about it. has Donny ever actually seen himself doing his ‘jacking off two invisible giraffes’ dance?

he should be embarrassed by that shit — but he’s not. he’s super fucking proud of it. in fact, have you heard the latest? apparently, Donny’s hella pissed at Nicolás Maduro for — hold onto your hat — stealing his dance moves.

President Trump accused Nicolás Maduro of attempting to steal his famed dance moves after reports that the White House believed the deposed dictator was mocking the US.

what the fuck is this thin-skinned bastard whining about now? aside from the fact that here we have two authoritarian idiots who have no idea how to dance, how are these the same?

it’s truly stunning how many grudges Donny has running around in his noggin. how does he keep them all straight?

so, is this the true Donroe Doctrine? ‘you steal my dance, I steal your oil’?

because Donny is def stealing Venezuela’s oil.

I am pleased to announce that the Interim Authorities in Venezuela will be turning over between 30 and 50 MILLION Barrels of High Quality, Sanctioned Oil, to the United States of America. This Oil will be sold at its Market Price, and that money will be controlled by me, as President of the United States of America, to ensure it is used to benefit the people of Venezuela and the United States! I have asked Energy Secretary Chris Wright to execute this plan, immediately. It will be taken by storage ships, and brought directly to unloading docks in the United States. Thank you for your attention to this matter!

DONALD J. TRUMP
PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

what the fuck? Donny’s just going ‘mine now,’ and straight up absconding with Venezuela’s oil, giving them jack shit in return?

or course, Donny doesn’t see this as stealing, because he’s conveniently convinced himself that all that oil is actually his, and fuck those wily Venezuelans for very sneakily putting all their land on top of his oil. what the hell, Venezuela?

again, where are the men with the butterfly nets? because his farcical insistence that ‘all that Venezuelan oil has been stolen from America, and we’re just taking it back’ is just as bonkers as believing that doctors in Minnesota are transgendering the shit out of everyone in sight.

of course, none of this fuckery is legal — or constitutional. Donny can’t just extort another country’s natural resources, like some mobster going ‘nice country you got here. be a real shame if something were to happen to it.’ he can’t sell off all that oil and stick it in some mysterious bank account, to spend it as he — and he alone — sees fit. collecting and allocating funds is Congress’ job. it’s right there in the fucking Constitution.

but there I go again, prattling on about what Donny can’t do. Congressional Republicans aren’t going to stop him. they’ve completely abdicated their responsibilities. why did Holy Mike Johnson even bother to gavel Congress back into session, if they’re going to go sit there like useless lumps?

by the way, ‘30 to 50 million barrels of oil’ may sound like a ginormous amount, but it’s not. America burns through about 20 million barrels of the stuff every day. all that shit’s gonna be gone in two or three days — and Donny will be back at Venezuela’s door, like a junkie hankering for a fix.

all this is pretty dreary shit, so let’s take a break, grab some popcorn, and enjoy some Republican-on-Republican violence.

Matt Gaetz: “when did Dan Bongino run for office and how did he perform as a candidate?”

Dan Bingo-Bongo Bongino: “Maybe if I spent more time at shady parties with monied insiders I would’ve won. I heard you’d know a bit about that. You’ve always been a dick by the way. Grifting off your daddy like a suckling little doggie. When I first met you in the panhandle I knew you were a piece of shit. It’s written all over that phony face of yours.”

does Matty Plankhead indeed have a phony face? let’s do a quick fact check.

yes, he does.

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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Not Tiedrich Today

We all saw it.

On January 6th, 2021, many of us watched it in disbelief in real time: the almost incomprehensible sight of thousands of people breaching the very seat of our Government: smashing windows, breaking through doors, setting off tear gas canisters, crushing outnumbered and overmatched Capitol police, and parading unimpeded through the chambers of Congress.

As the chaos unfolded, the questions kept running through the heads of incredulous news anchors and millions of good people:
“How is this happening?”
“Why isn’t anyone stopping them?”
“Where the hell is the National Guard?”
“Why won’t Trump say something?”

With each passing minute, it became increasingly difficult to reconcile in our minds how one of the most secure sites in America could have been so easily and quickly overtaken. The scenes of scores of people in body armor and gas masks, desecrating monuments, rooting through offices, and crushing police officers were shocking and sickening.

Yet, as disturbing as the initial images were, what soon became apparent is that this was not some spontaneous display of misplaced outrage produced in a random moment; this was a thoroughly planned attack on our nation, conceived, coordinated, and aided by right-wing media members, Republicans in Congress, and by a sitting president.

This unthinkable act of violence was not only an inside job, but one whose genesis came from the very highest level of our public servants and brought us to within an an onion-skin of complete collapse. We were literally a handful of courageous officers, a few quick-thinking politicians, and one or two fortuitous seconds from an overturned election, an installed dictator, and an unrecognizable America.

But perhaps even more tragic than the event itself has been the response to that day from people we know and love: an infuriating multiple choice of gaslighting, denial, and complete silence.

The dissonance in them since that day has been profound:

Blue Lives suddenly no longer mattered.
The Law and Order folks now had no use for either.
The God and Country crowd was seemingly able to easily discard both.

And in the days and months and years since, all their flag-waving histrionics, hand-wringing anthem outrage, and border-defending bravado ended up being nothing but fake news; all that America First chest-bumping and God Bless Americashowy piety they’ve peddled for four years proved purely ornamental.

Because when the smoke dissipated, and the arrests began, and the phone records surfaced, and the sheer scope and intent of this day were revealed, they didn’t give a damn.

In fact, if they’re honest, millions of our family members, friends, neighbors, and co-workers are likely only truly upset that the attack was not fully successful. Then, they would not have had to reckon with the evidence or hear the testimony or be accountable for any of this, because their candidate and their party would be controlling the narrative, silencing dissension, and preventing justice. And they would be winning.

It would be a small comfort to dismiss this all as mass ignorance: to tell ourselves the story that Republican voters (especially those we know and love) have been duped by complicit media and corrupt politicians who’ve leveraged their fears, disabled their critical thinking skills, and rendered them unaware of all that unfolded on that day in January—but we would be lying to ourselves.

They know.

Outside of a small percentage of the most deluded and unstable among us, they all know the reality of that day five years ago. They saw it, too. They could read the names on the flags surrounding dying officers, hear the familiar Fox News rhetoric being screamed through the halls of Congress, and they could not avoid the Make America Great Again signaling saturating everything. They know who was responsible for this, what their intentions were, and what the stakes were to our nation. That is precisely why they have spent a year denying, defending, justifying, or ignoring it: they wanted it, and that has struck the most vicious blow to our great national fracture, one that we may not be able to recover from.

The deepest wound is knowing that they know, and that it doesn’t matter.

January 6th was a coordinated attempt to kidnap members of Congress, overturn a free and fair election by the people, and install a president whose criminality is simply unprecedented and whose involvement was complete.
It was a threat to our sovereignty.
It was a rejection of our Constitution.
It was antithetical to the teachings of Jesus.
It was the opposite of patriotism.
It was a historic act of treason.
It was a vicious attack on democracy.
It was a partisan act of domestic terrorism.
It was a violent insurrection.

All Americans know this.

All of them.

Only patriotic, decent ones actually care.