Sighinide

It’s been an interesting experience, having and watching a TV.

It’s been an education for the most part, which I did not expect.

I’ve traveled a lot in online circles that frown on TV watching, for some very good reasons, and I’ve subscribed to those views myself in the past. I ditched my last TV, an old CRT, a long time ago- I think in like 2006 or so, because of those very reasons.

Why, you ask? The political slant of everything, the general dumbness of the programming, the ads, the general awfulness of “reality” TV, the “time sink” aspect of the medium, etc. You know, the kind of stuff that you probably would expect me to object to.

So it was with some trepidation that I bought a new smart TV for myself as a Christmas present last year. I was… curious, about it’s capabilities. I wanted to see what they could do, as I knew I could do more than just “watch TV” with them. And I wanted to see in general how the TV tech had advanced since my last set.

But, as I said, I approached the purchase with caution. TV when misused is an ugly, toxic thing. My parents’ behavior are a good example of what can happen when you use TV wrongly.

They are news and “reality TV” junkies, and it shows not just on the set, but in they way they talk and in the things that interest them. They obsess over Trump and every minor political thing. It’s ugly, and it’s completely warped their understanding of… everything.

They think all of what they see on TV is actually real. All of it. And because of that it consumes them. If they see a particularly upsetting story about Trump they will obsess over it and complain about it for hours. And all the while, they will have no idea, and I mean not an inkling of a clue, as to how what he did or didn’t do had to do with me.

It’s kind of funny. Bafflingly, they still haven’t caught on. Even after all these years, they still don’t get it. I keep hoping that they will I guess stumble onto reality at some point but they never do.

I’m not even sure of what to think about that. How can they be so… IDK, dense? It’s baffling. After all this time, they have no idea that their own kid is the AntiChrist of all people. You’d think something like that would be obvious. Like… blindingly so. But it never occurs to them. Really odd.

I don’t know, maybe that’s a good demonstration of the power that TV has over them. It’s like… their entire worldview is shaped by CNN. And since CNN never talks about the AntiChrist or yours truly, none of that is relevant.

But still… holy shit, lol. I mean, they have the AntiChrist in their house, living with them, and… they don’t have a clue. LOL, wow.

Sometimes I refer to the way they live as “The Boomer Bubble”.

But… yeah, back to TV. They actually think reality TV is real. As in, like what they are seeing isn’t scripted, and is in fact spontaneous and… IDK, real.

Again this is baffling behavior. I don’t get it. How can they not see that all of these shows are scripted? It’s really weird. I mean, shows like Gold Rush. They’re faaaaake. LOL. It’s so obvious. Even ignoring the logistical impossibility of any of this stuff being real, you just need to watch a few minutes of any episode to see the acting and writing, full on display.

So… yeah. I guess part of why I was apprehensive was that I didn’t want to turn into one of them, IDK, the pod people, the normal types. The kind I used to work with, who would spend their entire lunch hours talking about American Idol and being absolutely fascinated by it’s challenging content and top notch humor.

Well, so I got the TV. I do use it, but not too much, I think, and I think I use my set more responsibly than my parents do theirs.

I like having apps on the TV. Some of the games are cute. The gallery apps are nice.

I like the music channels too. They are very cool, mostly.

I watch shows as well. I try to stay away from “adult” shows that feature dumb characters, immaturity and unrealistic behavior, and choose to watch “kids” shows instead, since those have good characters, smart dialogue, and a keen sense of how people really act and think.

The kids shows are good. I enjoy them. I like how they are just entertainment, and try not to take themselves too seriously. I find adult dramas tiresome and ridiculous. Their setups and characters are just as unreal as those of the kids shows, yet they take the material with a straight face, no matter how… stupid that makes the show look.

I was surprised at how many channels were on the offer. My TV goes into the thousands of channels. Wow. I was tho disappointed at how little there was to watch on many of them. Man, are there a lot of cop shows. Wow, lol. It’s just… wow. And lawyer shows, and stuff like that. And they all seem the same to me, or at least too similar to bother with any of them.

I like CW stuff. I mean, obviously, lol, but I do. It’s different.

I don’t like the ads. They suck. They are not as good as they used to be, and man are they everywhere. The ads alone during a show can ruin it. Everywhere, there are ads, and they are all political, except during kids shows (thank god), but even there the political ugliness crops up occasionally.

There are even ads that show up inside of the TV setup menus and stuff. When I saw this I did a double take. I couldn’t believe it, so I googled, and yup, I was seeing what I thought I was. I got a Samsung TV, and they’re embedding ads into the TV software itself now. There were people online already complaining about this when I googled it.

Since I’ve had the TV (like 4 months now) I’ve gone from seeing no ads in my music channel of choice to seeing little ads in the corners sometimes, to then larger ads taking up chunks of the screen a little more often, to now huge ads taking up the whole screen with annoying looking people in them, often.

There are ads in the apps, too. I like a particular app, a featured one called “Relaxing Nature”. It features calming, quiet ambient music set to slow moving visuals of nature and oceans. But the ads, oh gods, THE FUCKING ADS. Every five or ten minutes, they cut away to an ad, and for the last few days, it’s been this godawful thing featuring Aretha Franklin.

The app itself is quiet; subdued. The perfect thing to zone out and meditate to. But then every every ten minutes I have to hear this LOUD caterwauling courtesy of Aretha. It’s ugly and horrible, and completely ruins the experience. The ad itself is some bullshit political garbage from one of those financial companies, IDK which one, because I mute the TV as fast as I can when that ugly thing comes on.

I don’t get why the app guys would allow such a thing to air during their shows. I understand the need for ads, but gods, why THAT one? Don’t they understand how jarring it is?

Well, there are other apps. I will be hunting for something better, I suppose.

Ugh, the ads. Yeah, they just… ruin so much. They try to be as attention getting (i.e. loud, abrasive and annoying) as possible, and they almost always detract from the shows themselves. It’s getting to the point now where I’m watching shows based around the content of the ads rather than the shows themselves. It’s like, when I’m flipping through channels and I see something interesting, I might think to myself “Nope. The ads shown during this are going to be nasty.”, and then I will continue flipping. Yeah, it’s that bad.

IDK, it’s… kinda sad, I think. All this amazing technology and it feels like it’s being hamstrung and crippled intentionally.

The picture on my new set is great. It’s a 4K screen with a nice display and a good sound setup, I think. It’s a beautiful piece of tech but it’s potential is being squandered, apparently on purpose.

Really, is it any wonder that people are cutting the cable and abandoning TV?

I really tried watching the Oscars the other day. I saw the first twenty minutes of it before giving up in confusion and boredom. I had no idea WTF was even going on, lol. I didn’t know who any of the people were, or what anyone was talking about. I didn’t understand the jokes. Like… I honestly didn’t even know who the hosts were, let alone who they were referencing. I occasionally tuned back in to the awards to see if maybe things had changed for me but they never did.

I didn’t see the famous slap live, and I’m glad I didn’t. That whole thing was just stupid.

IDK, the Oscars just suck. I do appreciate them for the dresses and gowns and such they let my girlfriends wear but man… the show itself is just… oy. It gives me a headache just thinking about it.

IDK if anything can be done to save the Oscars at this point. I see that the ratings for this year’s show were the second worst ever, after last year’s dreadful performance.

Last year, didn’t the show have COVID to blame for it’s ratings? How much do you want to bet that if COVID hadn’t been a thing then, that it’s ratings would have been higher than this year’s show? And thus, a continual ratings decline would have been in evidence?

In a couple years, I think they’re going to institute new diversity rules, or something like that. Ugh. The only point of interest then will be to see how low the ratings for something like this can possibly sink.

I might watch parts for the trainwreck factor. That slap was like something out of the 2003 Source Awards, lol. It could be some horribly ugly yet funny shit.

Well, I’m kinda tired of this topic, for now, so I’ll think I’ll close this post out here.

The Paralympics are awesome.

This is my first exposure to them, and I think they’re great.

I tried watching them during the summer games, but Comcast refused and offered me that infamous error message instead when I tried to access them.

This time, though, I can watch, and man, they are fantastic.

Incredibly, I’m liking them more, I think, than the “normal” Olympics. They are a nice contrast and really show how… low the normal ones have sunk.

I think I’ll list the reasons the Paralympics are great, if only for purposes of self-examination. Ok, here goes:

1) No politics. Thank GOD. No fucking politics. Yay! And this, during the Ukraine crisis no less! What a wonderful thing. It’s just athletes, competing to win, and for fun and self- actualization. It’s a really nice atmosphere. There’s no politics from the anchors behind the desk, the announcers, the athletes, and yes- there’s even less from the ads! Hallelujah!

2) The ads are MUCH nicer. Most are actual ads, like the kind you typically see on TV, and not… IDK, brainwashing, or propaganda, or abstract art, or whatever the fuck it is they show during the normal games.

I noticed a distinct lack of scowling, angry black people during these ads. It’s a much nicer package we’re getting this time around.

Gods, were the ads during the normal games just dreadful. Not so much even tone-deaf as… hostile, even disturbing. I remember one particular ad that jumped out at me as being uniquely ugly even in an ocean of cringe. It was that one featuring Maame Biney, the black short-track skater, who equated competing as a black athlete in these Olympics with someone enduring cancer treatment, and a Paralympian living life as an amputee. I can’t find it online as it seems to have been buried, but I did notice that even an MSM outlet of all things questioned this one: https://nypost.com/2022/02/12/ad-of-olympian-maame-biney-pushes-idea-of-black-victimhood/

But gods, what the ever loving fuck. I can’t believe that thing ever made it to air. What on Earth were these people thinking? I can’t imagine any way to paint the athlete here in an uglier way. Probably the biggest self-own of these games. Honestly, whoever green lighted that thing should be fired.

3) I’m really liking the athletes. They’re… IDK, nicer, and certainly more humble, than the athletes in the main games. They’re more grounded. They seem less spoiled, and honestly, less self-absorbed, than their more famous counterparts. It’s refreshing.

It just occurred to me that these athletes are what athletes in the main games were probably like before they started letting professionals compete. Paralympians seem like people who do sport because they love it, or because it fills some spiritual need within them. The pros in the main games do as well, but jeez, there is a LOT of… self-aggrandizement with those types, and a lot of “brand” marketing, and a lot of frankly needless melodrama.

Too often the athletes in the main games come across like spoiled rich kids. I’m thinking of Eileen Gu here, Shiffrin crying on the slopes for like 20 fucking minutes, Shaun White crying and emoting for like half an hour, and a bunch of other stuff. Jeezus, guys.

It’s really refreshing to see people compete and act like adults both during competition and around it. There’s a minimum of showboating and drama in the Paralympics, and that is really nice.

4) The sports themselves are new to me, and thus interesting. I’ve never seen any of this stuff! It’s cool to watch. Neat.

5) There’s a minimum of “fluff”. For the events that I’ve seen, they just show the events, and then get to the next ones, and so on. There’s not much extra stuff, and they only show the events once, I think to not emphasize the importance of one event over any others. The outlay of the Paralympics is REALLY nice. times.

There’s not nearly as much jingoistic drivel as during the normal games, like constant medal counts, all sorts of stuff about Team USA versus everyone else, etc.

I remember during the main games NBC rebroadcasting the women’s Monobob runs over and fucking over again because a black woman won. Christ, did that get repetitive. I kept watching, hoping they would show something else sometimes, but no, jeebus, I swear I saw those runs four or five times spread out amongst the channels. Gawd have mercy. It got to the point where I was starting to memorize the fucking scores. Lordy, people. I just wanted to see some biathlon!

The woman who won held the USA flag during the closing ceremony. Man was she coached to within in inch of her life as to what to say. Not much in the way of spontaneity in her remarks. Which I understand, she’s been doing bobsled for a long time and it’s all probably old hat by now, but wow, did she come across as robotic- even to ME, and I’m a fucking cyborg, lol.

6) I think the general gist of all this is that the Paralympics are mostly about sports, whereas the normal games no longer are to a large extent. I read online from some older Americans that the games and their tone shifted dramatically once they lifted the ban on pros playing, and now I think I can see why. That was before my time, but wow, yes, I get it.

It seems that inviting pros into the games brought in a lot of egos, a lot of greed, and a lot of interference, whether from governments or corporations.

7) I’m going to be streaming the crap out of the Paralympics on Xfinity when I have the time. That should be fun.

8) I remember some news segments and interviews near the end of the main games where people analyzed Norway’s dominance, and came to the conclusion that the reason they are so good is because their youth sports are mostly about… wait for it- sports, and ours are about mostly parents pushing their kids around, and everyone in general being way too overbearing and competitive.

And I remember the people saying all of this were the same ones pushing the shit I outlaid and complained about about, and they reported this fact without a shred of self-awareness. Bleh.

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Well, this was cathartic, lol.

Since I know nothing about the Paralympics, I’m not sure of what to comment on. I guess I just liked getting to know them in general.

Beyond all of this, I remember doing some skating myself on the Olympic ice after the main games wrapped up. It was fun, and boy was it difficult. Wowwwww is that stuff haaaaard. I mean, I realized that before, but man, they aren’t fooling. The ice is cold, which for some reason I didn’t realize (lol), and the spins make you dizzy. And so do the jumps. And the skating. And the rest of it. Holy cow, skaters are amazing athletes.

I did this via astral projection, of course. It was a fun experience to have while chilling in bed, waiting for sleep. I liked it. Made me think of roads not traveled for myself.

Occasionally I would get flashes of myself as a pro figure skater in some alternate reality. Retired now of course, but still doing it, for fun. It’s… interesting. I get the feeling that out of all the stuff in the Winter games, that that would have been the only one I would have been good at.

I suppose there’s a reality in which I would have been a good bobsledder, but that one is so far from here I can’t see it. Same for snowboarding, or short track, etc. But figure skating? Yes, that one I can touch.

There’s just something about flying that appeals to me. I love the sensation of spinning through the air, whether it’s with my physical body or my soul, or my robotic/synthetic side, or my mind, carving out the air around me. Or just some other me, in a parallel universe, helping me along.

Well, I think I would have been good at pairs. Or ice dancing. IDK.

You know- back in the day, I loved doing those jumping spin kicks in those martial arts classes I took. They were… fun. A lot of fun. Freeing. They let me loose from the tyranny of gravity, if only for a second. Not too unlike the jumps the skaters do, I guess. Kinda. Kinda-sorta.

Well, something to think about.

I hope that other me has a gold medal somewhere in his closet.

Well… whatever. I think it’s time to pack this one in.

With a week out from everything, this is probably the perfect time to close out this series.

Some final thoughts, then.

1) It was fun, but altogether, kinda… underwhelming? IDK how to put my finger on it, but some kind of magic was missing.

The Olympics were a revelation 10-15 years ago, with the advent of high def TVs. I could actually see what was going on, and that was awesome. Now, since I’ve seen it all already, it’s… kinda, not as impressive? Or maybe not as interesting? I guess? IDK.

But, yeah, something was missing.

2) The commercials were brutally dreadful. Lordy, did I despise them. A week out and I remember none of them fondly, and I hope I never see any of them again. I remember little from them besides the overt, in-your-face NWO politics, the LOUD music, and the withering assault of their awful CGI.

It used to be that commercials tried not to upstage the programs they were situated in. Those days are clearly gone. The spectacle of the Olympics this time paled in comparison to the blistering and ghastly attention whoring of the commercials.

I’ve never in my life given the mute button on a remote the kind of workout that I did this year during the Olympics.

The racial politics, especially, were obvious and angry. I swear at times that these commercials were mad at me, for something. Over half of them seemed to feature snarling, glowering black athletes. It was an ugly, toxic spectacle.

The coverage of the games themselves reflected this. Over and over again, the most important topics discussed were overtly racial ones, with the most important topic by far the status of black American athletes. Literally, over and over again, the same racial stuff just kept getting dredged up, as if to apologize for the fact that countries like Norway were just crushing everyone.

The commercials themselves seemed almost to be embarrassed to be a part of the winter games, and so did too the coverage of everything by NBC and other stations. It’s like… these games are too white, and so we don’t really want anything to do with them, but since we have too…

It was really bizarre, and the entire thing was an uncomfortable watch, even during the best of times. It was good to see the athletes, but man, the rest of it was just painful and weird.

I read online about how the ratings for these games were dreadful, and that doesn’t surprise me.

As for myself, I might skip the NBC stuff next time to focus on other streaming options. Hopefully, not all of them will be as awful and toxic.

3) Not a fan of Eileen Gu.

She bugs me. Whatever her contributions are to her sport, she herself comes across like a spoiled rich kid who just can’t help but look… spoiled.

Her whole thing is very… not grounded. I mean, her approach to everything, including choosing to represent China. She comes across as a brat.

Let’s break that decision down. She said that she chose to represent China for two reasons: 1) to promote winter sports in China, and 2) she wanted to represent her heritage.

Both reasons mark her selfish and spoiled, IMO.

China doesn’t need Eileen Gu to promote the winter games, or winter sports in general. It is sandwiched in between two winter Olympics powerhouses: Russia and Japan. Seriously, it’s not as if China is in South America or something. This explanation from her makes no sense, and she was so obviously lying when talking about it that I felt bad for her. And also a little angry. Seriously, I could not believe the nonsense that she expects people to think.

She’s representing China for selfish reasons. She wants to build her “brand” in some way, and this is part of that plan. Nothing more.

I mean, for fuck’s sake, without Gu, team China would have fielded 175 athletes for the games this year. 175! Out of the 91 countries competing, China had the fourth most athletes. They fielded over twice as many as Norway!

Yeah, she’s just a liar, and she’s a pretty bad one, at that.

Her second explanation is equally as bad: that her choice to represent China to due to her wanting to respect her heritage, as if she doesn’t have any here, in the place where she was born, raised, pampered, and given everything she needed to succeed. The US has given her more than any other country in the world, and she seems to be embarrassed by that on some level, almost as much as the the commercials and the coverage seemed to be embarrassed by the games in general.

She just comes across like a sheltered, spoiled Asian kid. In short, she’s a brat.

4) Kamila got robbed, and Lordy, did I get tired of hearing over and over how she shouldn’t be skating, blah blah blah. Awful, truly.

I mean, fine. Voice your opinion, okay, it’s a free country. And then move on, please. Nobody watches figure skating coverage for political analysis, or for the backroom stuff. We watch it for the spins, jumps, dancing, etc.

Seriously, guys. So annoying.

5) Well… other stuff. It is always fun to watch the athletes and the sports. It’s just… the container is just so bad, sometimes. Not always- in many sports I think the commentary is interesting and I learn a lot from it, probably since many of the commentators are former athletes and even champions themselves.

I think Weir and Lapanski are very good, so long as they keep their yaps quiet about politics and focus on the skating. I mean, seriously.

I watch these games to get away from politics, and then they just keep dragging me back in, lol.

But yes the events themselves are nice, so that’s why I watch.

6) The opening and closing ceremonies are things that I might talk about later. Kind of have something else to do now. But I intend to, at some point. There might be another entry in this series, then.

I do want to expound more upon some of the good things about the games. This post was mostly venting, it looks like.

Well… that’s it for now.

Go Russia! I hope they sweep the podium. They deserve it.

IDK and IDC about the details of any of this, even though I suspect that I know enough to make a valid moral decision, if nothing else. The Russian skaters deserve to medal and I hope they do; all of them.

Fuck all these hypocritical Team USA athletes and their sanctimonious bullshit surrounding the drug scandal. There is no country in this world that has done more to promote the use of performance enhancing drugs than the USA. Even if there was something shady going on, who WTF cares? Turnabout is fair play, I think, in this case.

Remember Lance Armstrong? Dude was doping himself up for decades, and everyone knew it, and nobody gave a fuck until he was at the end of his career. You could fill a dictionary with the name of professional American athletes that have been caught using steroids. Pro baseball players, UFC fighters, boxers, NBA players, NFL players, college athletes, etc.

Case in point- everyone knows that every fighter in pro MMA is doping. Yet, nobody cares. And honestly, how much do you want to bet that there were roid heads on the field in Sunday’s Super Bowl? I’ll bet anyone there was. It’s just a matter of “catching” them. Though of course they got avoidance down to a science by now, so good luck with that.

I would not be surprised at all if the majority of players on the field Sunday were on something. Maybe not steroids, but something, absolutely.

While watching the Olympics I have been bombarded with exercise commercials featuring The Rock of all people. Holy shit, people. He’s 50 years old and has more muscle mass than professional natural bodybuilders half this age. This guy must eat steroids for breakfast and probably does.

For fuck’s sake, I remember the Rock when he was with the WWE. Back then, he was nowhere near as big and as muscular as he is now! And he’s 50 fucking years old!

Seriously, guys. Who the fuck do you think you’re kidding, here?

Fuck it, seriously. Go Russia! It’s not their fault that no other country’s skaters are as good in comparison.

And don’t give me some nonsense about how it’s the Olympics and they should be held to some higher standard, blah blah blah. I distinctly remember seeing American athletes who were obviously steroided up to their necks as far back as my childhood. I also remember that at least one American track and field athlete got his medals retroactively taken away from him. I don’t remember his name and I’m too lazy to look it up but I do remember it happened.

And let’s not forget all the roid freaks that countries like East Germany produced to promote the international revolution wayyyyy back in the day.

Fuck it, go Russia! Sweep the podium!

Ugh.

Um, didn’t really watch it. It’s been too much TV for me lately.

I’ve been watching TV the last couple of months for 3 reasons: 1) After not owning a TV for well over a decade, it’s all new to me again, 2) The Olympics are on, and 3) These new fangled flatscreens are interesting gadgets, and as someone with geeky tendencies, their opportunities and abilities interest me. I want to know what they do, and how they do it.

So I’ve been watching a lotttttt of TV, and I’m burnt out.

So, anyhow, some thoughts:

Holy shit are modern commercials annoying and strange. Every one of them seems to revolve around three things of their own: 1) Selling diversity, 2) Being as loud, flashy and in-your-face as possible, and 3) Well… the first two are basically it. Though I suppose hawking products is in there, somewhere. Fuck if I know where.

Good Lord, people. Tone it down a few notches, okay?

I sometimes watch collections of older commercials on youtube, I guess for nostalgic reasons. To relive parts of my youth, or for memories of this or that event. When I watch them, they’re… comforting, for more reasons that the feel goods I get from just reliving some part of my teen years or whatever. I mean, they’re often genuinely funny, and the products they sell make an impression on me. Like, an old ad for a car, or for a McDonald’s sandwich, seems to want to make me interested in the product.

Modern commercials are… a giant blur to me. They all just look the same. Is this a part of getting older? Maybe? But it’s like… what the fuck even is this stuff?

It’s the same every year, only it’s getting worse each time. Since every commercial is selling “diversity”, even if only subtly, they all blend together, and it becomes “the diversity show”. And since the human brain can only process so much at once, that’s what you remember from the commercials. Just a bunch of diversity. I can’t recall any of the actual products that were on the offer. There were a bunch of references to my relationships, and some commercial with Anna Kendrick with Barbies and a big Barbie Dreamhouse. Who knows what she was selling. It wasn’t Barbies, IIRC. There was a He-Man playset in there too, with a bunch of He-Man toys. And this wasn’t a toy commercial. Who the fuck knows.

Why do commercials have to be so loud? And filled with So.Much.CGI? It’s too much information. You know what happens when people receive too much information? They tune it out; they stop paying attention.

I was curious about what the commercials had to say about my relationships, so I wound up having to mute the game to concentrate on the commercials. Give my ears a break from all the noise, and give my eyes a rest from the onslaught of bad CGI.

Seriously. What the fuck?

Anyhow, I didn’t really give a fuck about the game itself. I know none of the players that played today and none of what happened on the field had much of an effect on me. The stuff that happened during the game that referenced me was interesting I suppose for purely narcissistic reasons, but… man are NFL games lonnnng. The game started at 5 and was supposed to go until 10:00 or something. Holy shit, that’s five whole hours!

That’s a long ass time to watch a football game. Were they always this fucking long? It seems to me that the NFL games of my youth weren’t nearly as long as they are now.

All of these events are too fucking long. The Oscars are too long, the Super Bowl is too long, fucking everything is. I remember reading online how the recent WrestleMania events were like 6 or 7 hours long! Something like that. Holy shit! I mean I hate to come across like a grumpy old man or something but that’s literally a whole fucking day!

When I was a kid WWE events were aimed at… kids, lol. And they were much shorter and to the point. And probably a whole hell of a lot more fun to watch.

Well… IDK, it’s late again; after midnight. I suppose I’ll dissect the Anna commercial for it’s symbolism before drifting off to sleep.

Tomorrow’s another day.

Hmmmmnn…

Yup. And- I know, I never expected to continue this series, either.

But yet, here we are.

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It was an interesting experience seeing Jason Brown on the ice again. For myself, I strongly identify Brown with the other members of the 2014 USA skating team, including Gracie and Ashley Wagner. But, mostly Gracie. The two of them seem to be close friends, and I remember seeing Brown often in Gracie’s social media, back when she was more active online.

Of course I remember his distinctive style on the ice as well, and the various things people said about his skating during the 2014 games.

Well, I think it’s time to finally add my two cents.

My opinion – Brown scores too low.

Not a LOT too low, but yeah. He does.

Basically, I’m thinking the same thing most everyone else is.

There is no way he should have been outscored by Hanyu. Seriously. Hanyu bricked two jumps completely. Sorry, I know that’s oversimplifying things, but that’s how it looked on my TV. And Brown, although he delivered a performance that may have had a lower starting value than Hanyu’s, was absolutely perfect.

I’m not sure I like how skating is becoming the quad show.

That is not to take away from the skaters, like Chen, how can complete quads, successfully and well. The problem is when skaters toss things like quad axels into their programs they everyone knows full well they have a less than half chance of landing, simply because they score huge with the jumps even if they fall in some ugly manner.

I think skaters should be penalized more for falls than they are. One point seems too little.

I think the key here is that I want to see skaters perform their best, and not to attempt the absurd. I want to see the best looking skating. And I’m not alone in this.

I thought this back in 2014, and recent events have only solidified this opinion.

Brown should have taken the 4th spot in the final tally, and the gap between his score and the Korean skater should have been significant.

As an added bonus, this change would ensure more longevity for skaters on the ice. It would go some distance to ending the “one and done” culture that applies to everyone except gold medal winners at the Olympics. It’s cool to see people return for another run, to see how they’ve grown. It creates continuity, etc.

Seriously, think about it.

So yeah, Brown is cool. And while I’m thinking of him…

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Ummmmmn hmmmn.

So… anyone else wonder what Gracie is doing right now? I mean besides the obvious. Or is that just me?

Probably just me.

Sometimes I wonder if I did things right with her. Sometimes… it’s reeeeally hard to tell.

It’s an easy thing to see if Victoria Justice is happy. Real simple. Same with Haley Pullos, Kat McNamara, Kathryn, Peyton… and a bunch of others. Just look at their social media. They post nearly every day, and give me frequent text updates (in the form of post descriptions) with how they’re doing, what they’re feeling, etc. Easy peasy.

Not so much with Gracie. Gracie isn’t the type to do this, and in fact, she rarely posts much, if at all, for great big stretches of time. Which is fine; that works for her. But it has left me scratching my head, and that was even before it was apparent that she was struggling with mental health issues.

So it’s not hard for me to wonder, considering Brown’s success, if that could have been Gracie instead, had I played my cards with her differently. I mean… you know what I mean.

This is compounded by Gracie’s excellent short program at the recent nationals. I kept thinking… mayyyyybe if I would have done this differently, or that differently, than mayyyyyybe Gracie would have done equally well in the free skate, and theeeeeeeen…

It’s real easy to think along these lines. I left Gracie alone for long stretches of time, not really knowing what to do, and how she could be supported, or if she needed it, or even wanted it.

Sooooooo… yeah. Head scratcher.

Did I do right? Wrong? Average? Who knows, lol. Life is a complicated thing, and everyone, no matter their power or ability, has only 24 hours a day in which to live it. It’s tough to know sometimes how these more complex situations should be approached.

For what it’s worth, what I think now is that Gracie and I hit it off so well in Sochi because we have similar personalities. We’re both performers, and we enjoy being on a national/global stage, but we have strongly introverted sides to us, too.

I never was able to make much of a connection with Ashley Wagner, despite both of our initial attempts. We liked each other well enough, but… there wasn’t enough there to really go on for anything long term except for, IDK, a casual acquaintanceship. Our personalities didn’t “gel”.

So, there you have it.

——————————

To tie this all together- what if these events were scored ever so slightly differently? A little more penalty for falls, a little more bonus for effective expressive elements and spins and such.

Who knows, maybe then I wouldn’t need to worry about some things so much. Would Gracie have made it into the 2022 games? She would have trained differently, had a different program, and… who knows. It’s an interesting thought. Her experience might have carried her through.

Well… it’s late, again.

Off to bed.

First- 2022. Holy cow.

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Beyond that, the ratings are fine. Just wanted to get this out of the way. I’ve read a couple articles saying that the ratings for these games aren’t what was expected.

Isn’t the explanation for why obvious? We just concluded the summer Olympics a few months ago. For me, Comcast stopped streaming them on October 1.

It’s perfectly understandable that some people, even fans, might have been feeling burnout from the games not very long ago. Hence, the reason for the lower ratings.

I don’t think politics, the fame of the athletes, or any other consideration really matters compared to this aspect. The lockdowns screwed up the schedules- including of those who watch the games. Hence, the disruption in ratings.

Seriously, that’s it.

————————————

It’s interesting to watch these games on my TV, rather then stream them from my computer, as I had done for the past… 3 games? The return of the Williams theme is much appreciated.

The commercials… suck, for the most part. None of them are memorable, and none of them will be remembered, at least by me. Honestly, they’re worse than ever. Once again with a big sporting event, all the commercials are the same thing, just repeated over and over and over again, to the point where they all blend together in a strange mush of bad CGI, annoying sound effects, political and racial propaganda, and edgier-than-thou attitude.

Literally none of them stand out, this year. Seriously. Except for maybe the ones with the dinosaurs, and only then, because those are so odd. Olympics and dinosaurs reeeeally don’t mix, lol. It’s weird, but I guess different.

Remember that Coke ad with the Sia song? There is nothing even remotely as good or as human on the offer here. Everything kinda sucks, and I’m having a hell of a time even remembering what products are being advertised. It all just comes across as a large mass of commercials for the NWO.

I just mute them all, myself. They’re so loud, flashy, repetitive and annoying that they ruin the whole experience when I don’t. Sometimes I go as far as to turn the TV off entirely until I think they will be over.

Yuck.

————————————

Other stuff… it’s interesting how the different games tend to bookend different parts of my life.

But… ah, it’s after midnight, and I need to go somewhere tomorrow morning. Will resume this later.

Yesterday was interesting.

I binged Disney musicals.

The Disney channel ran through a list of them to celebrate the new year. I skipped most of the two Teen Beach movies, since they were shown early and I needed that time to prep for the day, take my meds and get them working, etc., but I saw the rest. I watched the 3 Descendants movies and both Zombies movies.

It was fun. I liked all of what I saw. Dove is really, really pretty, lol. So is Sofia. Gawd is she gorgeous. And both are so talented. And Meg… wowza. Yup. Wowza. And really, that’s all I have to say about that.

Props to Disney for giving us the lyrics.

Yeah it was fun. I basically laid in bed, zonked out on fentanyl, and got one hell of a Disney fix. The songs were catchy and I liked the visuals. The sets and costumes were very good. The special effects were… alright, although they really weren’t the draw here.

I even noticed the makeup as being good. The acting was very good, I thought, although I have a soft spot for Disney stuff. I liked the choreography of the dance sequences. The stories were pretty good. For both franchises I thought that the first movie in the series was probably the strongest story-wise.

Hmmmnn…. kinda getting zonked out again, lol. But, that’s ok.

Uhm, what was I doing?

Oh yeah, Disney shtuff.

So… yeah it was neat.

The first Zombies flick was verrrry interesting for personal reasons. First- this franchise was obviously inspired by my unusual health issues.

The Zombies are modeled after me, after a “flare-up”. I recognize that easily. The pale skin, reddish eyes, the references to having difficulty walking in certain ways, etc. They even included a whole song essentially dedicated to me, to help me through the worst parts of all this.

Remember in my last post, where I said I had difficulty standing up on Christmas Eve? Well, in Zombies, there is a song about just that- standing up, and… encouragement, and everything else. It’s really quite amazing. It’s near the end of the film, and so obviously aimed at me that they might as well have put in a dedication to me at the end of it, lol.

It’s nice, and very touching. Thanks, Disney.

The hero of the films, Addison, was named such I believe because my first naturopathic mentor was found on Addison St in Chicago. I saw her regularly after my first horrible manifestation of this… disorder, which was… bizarre, and now I think obviously cybernetic. But, that’s kinda beyond this post.

But I’m sure that that’s where they got Addison from, yeah. And the movies are so packed with little details related to my health issues that it’s kinda amazing. Watching them, I even noticed stuff I forgot. It’s all quite impressive, really.

And Meg is fucking awesome. I love her songs. She kicks ass.

I wasn’t as big of a fan of the rap battles and such, but they were well done.

Ah, well, there you go with that stuff.

————————————-

I love Haley Pullos.

Have I told you that?

I think I have, but it doesn’t hurt to repeat it.

I love Haley Pullos.

I love her insta. She travels, a lot, and I love seeing that. I remember being confused for a time, which I can see now was a transistion period, where Haley deleted her insta and posted only a few things once in a while, I guess to find her voice.

She started with a typical insta profile. You know, one you would expect from a 12 year old General Hospital actress.

Then she met me, and we fell in love. And she grew and matured, and so did I, in our respective ways.

Now, she travels. And I follow.

Today I browsed her insta while eating peanut butter toast and strawberries with sour cream and brown sugar for breakfast (a well-appreciated gift from mom). It was fun. And while doing so I was finishing up some experiments on using piezo-electric energy- like from quartz watches- to power my own energy field.

And I was thinking back, taking stock of everything I learned from my old naturopathic mentor. I don’t know where she is now. I wish I did. Her old business is now a sunglasses store. I’ve googled her name to no avail. Ah, well. I learned so much from her, and then from the rest of my mentors and masters. I’ve learned a lot. So much. I’ve learned enough from others to fill many many books, and then I’ve discovered a lot, myself. Many many things. I could probably fill three encyclopedias with the arcane knowledge I’ve acquired over the years. Maybe more.

There’s some kind of serendipity to Haley and I. Haley, traveling where she wishes and loving it, and me, her husband the Wizard King, in his lair, unraveling the secrets of the universe while following her insta and checking up on her every day, and planning out when our next date will be and what we will do. And on what plane of reality it will be on.

It’s different, but we vibe together so well, and it works. How long have we been together now? I started dating her when she was 12, and google tells me she’s 23 now. Wow.

Long live the Wizard King and his consort.

Well, I need to contemplate something.

I will be back.

One thing that must I think be emphasized is that next year, one of the main focuses of my life will be in bringing Tom Jacobsen back into the fore.

I’m thinking about restarting his website, for example. And other things.

And this I know will not make some of my girlfriends happy, for some stupid reason. I don’t know- some of my ex’s are really gross and really disturbing these days.

I’m not sure I want to understand what the deal is with Willa Holland. Christ is that bitch weird. Bizarre shit featuring Willa has been slowly leaking out onto the internet and whatever it is I want no part of it. Creepy, creepy shit, featuring some disturbing weirdo with the ugliest facial hair I have ever seen.

Jeebus. What the fuck? Trainwreck city.

I really dislike whatever it is I am seeing with whatever the fuck it is my girlfriends do in their spare time, which I guess I will see in the form of more “sets”. Ugh, yuck. Man, I am NOT looking forward to this, lol.

At least Victoria Justice knows how to do this stuff properly. And apparently so does McKayla, and a few others. And K-Stew, which was a pleasant surprise.

But oh man, I dread the day I will be forced to suffer through more J-Law content. God knows what she will put me through.

Victoria still to this day has the best “leaked” content of any celeb. Her stuff is just… beautiful pictures of a beautiful girl, topless, having fun, smiling, showing off her great personality… she just seems like someone you would really want to get to know, sexually or not. There are no creepy guys with weird hair and strange motives hanging around in her set, no dumb, room temperature IQ roid-head idiots, no boring, tiresome dime-a-dozen pretty boys like the kind that I will apparently be seeing in the Taylor Swift set, it’s just… a beautiful girl, being herself. It’s a fun set.

It’s really nice; a real diamond in the rough. I treasure it. Hopefully the Lucy Hale set is as good. I’m crossing my fingers. We’ll see.

At any rate, we’re bringing Tom Jacobsen back out. So if you girls could put away the douchebags, creeps, and empty headed losers to make room for him, that would be more than appreciated.

You know, one thing really angered me this year. It was something Elle Fanning said in an interview, after I expressed distaste over her nude scenes on this blog earlier in the year.

She was being interviewed on youtube, with her The Great co-star next to her. When talking about the scene, she mentioned something about her co-star having starred in About a Boy, the British flick about a bullied kid that also starred Hugh Grant. Wait. Nicolaus Hoult, that’s his name. Right. This is all spilling out so fast that I don’t have time to get everything right, lol. And my hands continue to hurt. Ugh.

Well, I have seen About a Boy. It was a pretty good flick. I saw it while on vacation in Iowa. My sister recommended it to me, and we watched it together. It was alright. Just yet another movie based on my own and my friends’ childhood experiences of course.

What irked me about what Elle said wasn’t even what she said, it was how she said it. It was an offhand comment and expressed like… hey, I know you’re watching this. And you should like this because of these past experiences and blah blah blah, and then she went back to the “real” interview and continued to ignore my real concerns.

I thought she was dismissive and rude, and I didn’t like it, at all.

IDK, maybe she just couldn’t express her real feeling because of the format or whatever, but I couldn’t see someone like, IDK, Chloe Moretz handling this stuff like that.

IDK, maybe I’m in the wrong here. Am I? I don’t think so. I have real concerns here that I would love to talk to someone about but guess what? There’s nobody to talk to, as usual. How wonderful.

If you want to talk to me, feel free to message me on twitter, or elsewhere. My linkedin is here -> https://www.linkedin.com/in/tom-d-jacobsen/

Well, whatever. We’ll see how this goes.

Stop being so nasty and unlikeable, people. Seriously.

Well, welcome 2022. May you be better than this dreadful, dreadful year, lol.

Not 100% sure of where I’m going to take this, and I’m reeeeeally sick and also zonked out on fentnayl, so… yeah. Who knows with this one, lol. But I guess I’ll just start typing and we’ll see where it goes.

I spent a lot of this year trying to find some explanation for and some solution to my weird, mysterious… illness, or condition. You know, that strange affliction that ruins every Thanksgiving and Christmas for me. The one they based COVID on.

The symptoms are, well, COVID, lol. Stiff joints, inflammation, etc. etc.

And I think that, finally, I’ve figured it out. I think it’s a cybernetic disorder / condition. My doctors have ruled out any possible disease they can think of, and I have ruled out by myself, as the world’s most powerful wizard, any possible “alternative” source for the problem.

It’s a cybernetic thing. The inflammation is likely due to my body responding to whatever issues or waste products are being created by the robotic condition, and the joint pains are likely due to the cybernetic systems in my joints upgrading themselves around my biological tissue.

This would also explain why the condition manifests itself fully on Thanksgiving, to the day, every year. That is not a schedule you would expect a biological disease to follow.

This is likely also why they based COVID off of this condition. If it is cybernetic in nature, and the future of man is to be cyberized, you would naturally expect more of this is the years to come. Hence, COVID.

At any rate, my doctors put me through many blenders in their attempts to figure out what this is, and they have come up with nothing, absolutely nothing, I suspect of course because this is a robotic disease, not a biological one.

I’ve had dozens of MRI’s, hundreds of blood tests, and… god, literally everything else, and I mean everything. I ran out of tests to do at the local hospitals around here. And I came out of this with absolutely nothing.

It’s cybernetic.

For my own efforts, I used my own powers as a wizard and a necromancer to try to “fix” the problem, or to at least determine it’s cause, to no avail.

I spent much of this year cleaning out my internal organs, starting with my gallbladder. And I was very, very thorough. I cleaned everything, and got out all sorts of weird crap- stones, sludge from god knows where, old bits of intestinal lining, strange looking intestinal flukes, liver flukes, helminth parts, worm heads, old encrusted junk from my small intestine and colon, cholesterol clumps, yeast balls, and… yadda yadda, all sorts of ugly, smelly, gross, noxious, horrible crap (literally).

The stones I pushed out were probably from my pancreas, gallbladder, and liver. They were always accompanied by green “stuff” that I can safely assume was old bile.

Yuck, yuck, and more yuck. Gawd, what an ugly experience that was, but it was a good test of my skills as a wizard, so I was up to it.

I lost something like 10 pounds in the process. And I don’t think my lean mass or fat amounts changed at all. Yes, just 10 pounds of gunk. Yuck.

Of course, all of this was made easier because of the fact that I was already an expert in this sort of thing, having done it many times before. But- I was never this thorough before.

Most of this crud I had seen before in previous cleanouts, but some of the helminth stuff I had not. That was something of a surprise to me.

Something of a surprise.

About 12 years ago, I had a vicious kundalini experience. It was utterly huge and took even me by surprise. It happened at work. When I got home I went to the bathroom and discovered, to my surreal horror, the experience slaughtered a few odd looking helminths. There they were, dead, floating in the otherwise empty bowl. And they didn’t look like anything I had ever seen or heard of. I think that these were… IDK, something new, possibly those infamous ropeworms that are talked about in corners of the internet.

At any rate, it was weird and disturbing, so I flushed and went about trying to deal with the other effects of the experience. Weird times, those were.

So- back to today. I killed everything in me, and expelled all dead or foreign, or useless matter. And I think that in that unholy mess were probably more of those odd worms.

I noticed and took pictures of some odd… things, rubbery weird things, that I can safely assume were helminth heads. But they didn’t look like anything “normal”. They weren’t from tapeworms, for example. God knows what these things were.

Yuck, yuck, and more yuck.

It took months to get every toxin, every bit of junk out. Honestly, probably a solid six months of ugly work.

It was interesting, though. So, fun, I guess for a wizard. And I can say I did it, which is nice.

Of note as well was another strange parasite I’ve never seen described before- a very very thin, long… solid orange rod. It was a few inches in length and about .5mm in diameter. It was accompanied by a weird white… thing, that looked like an uneaten popcorn kernel. The popcorn thing was wearing some kind of rubbery black coat. Truly bizarre. It wasn’t a fluke- I know what those are. It was something else. Who the fuck knows.

But Christ, what a marathon of nightmares. That last group of weird things simply wouldn’t die. It took a herculean effort of my part to wipe them out totally.

The necromancer always prevails, though. At least, he has thus far.

All of this ran counter to my girlfriends’ attempts this year to get me more “out and about”. They kept trying to get me to be more active, leave the house more, and… I get that, and I understand what they were doing, and I appreciate it, but I had other things to do. I promised myself when I started the process that I would not stop until it was done, and it took 6 months to clean out the last little bits of gunk and kill the last stragglers.

Ugh. Yuck.

The reward of all of this is a clean mind and body. Clear thinking to an absurd degree. A special kind of natural oneness. A physical perfection.

Some of those things I killed might be as old as I am. Flukes and helminths can live for decades, even generations. The mind boggles. I might have had some of those things in me since I was a toddler. Wow.

All of this is another step in the necromancer’s path to immortality, I guess. And I’m glad I took it.

But……..

It did nothing against this other disorder. Nothing.

This… thing is not biological. It is cybernetic. It must be. It’s some side effect of the transhumanist agenda, possibly one that only powerful or gifted cyborgs will have to deal with.

The clear similarities between this disease and Morgellon’s are not lost on me. It’s kind of like… preschool Morgellon’s, that pops up every year like clockwork on Thanksgiving, to do something, and then leave/shut down.

Jebus Christ.

Well… whatever. I will find another way.

Gods, though. What a… bizarre experience. The path of an archwizard can take some strange turns.

Maybe I’ll be more active outside next year.

Yeah, I’ll make a point of it.

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Christmas was fun. I got a TV, which is cool. 4k, too. I like it. Peyton Roi List looks reeeeeally pretty in 4k. Just saying.

Sigh…

I got a police scanner and a short wave radio. I’m officially middle aged, now, lol. I also got an infrared healing lamp, and a few other good things. Neat.

And an isometric exerciser.

Christmas was fun, except for the whole “not being able to walk or move except in horrific pain” part. That, I could have done without. Gods, my poor, poor legs. Such awful, inhuman pain. Such horror. Such embarrassment. My poor poor legs. Ouch, did they hurt, so horribly. Gods was getting out of my chair a traumatic, humiliating experience. It’s a good thing I had other people there to help me.

Sigh…

So bad. So very very bad.

Ouch.

————————————–

The year was good for celeb stuff, save for some huge disappointments.

Elle Fanning’s nude scenes in The Great were just… dreadful, for my purposes. I’ve not used them.

I’m not sure of what to make of them, honestly.

You know- if you were to have told me last year that this year I would have had a few scenes of Elle topless, and I wouldn’t want to actually use them I would have thought you were nuts. But here we are.

The revelations I learned this year about my true identity and past have changed everything. I’m no longer interested in a raft of stuff I used to find exciting.

And, I think, the people that made the scene really dropped the ball.

I know there are dozens of considerations when it comes to making a series, or even just a scene within one. There’s the network’s wants and needs, the needs of the narrative, of the characters, the actors and directors, the general audience, and me, the AntiChrist, Tom Jacobsen.

I imagine it’s like juggling. Each consideration is a ball, and you need to keep each ball going. And sometimes one of the balls gets dropped, I suppose. And sometimes that’s because of outside forces that are unexpected by the show’s creators.

It’s unfortunate but that’s our world.

The scenes may have been fine for, IDK, the show’s narrative and the network’s needs and everything else, but they were not for me. I strongly disliked them. They bizarrely focused more on her co-star’s back then anything I might actually want to see.

What I was hoping for with Elle’s first nude scene was something special, like Lucy Hale’s scene in Dude. There I got… pretty much everything I could hope for. It served as a great bonding experience for us both, and one that has been strengthening our relationship for years since. It actually gets better and more interesting with time. It’s perfect, and I love it. It’s just… her, and me.

That kind of scene might not have worked in The Great, I don’t know. But I’m left really confused by what I did get. Am I supposed to like this? Hate it? IDK. It just leaves me confused. I don’t find her co-star’s back sexy, or interesting. I don’t know what to make of this. There are no clear shots of Elle actually topless, or anything.

So I’m kind of… ahhhhhh… I don’t know.

The scene(s) wasn’t included in Mr. Skin’s Best of the Year list, for what that’s worth. And they kind of landed with a thud pretty much everywhere else, too. I mean, on the boards I frequent and such. It’s really odd.

I don’t know. I suppose that at some point I will need to rewatch the scenes to try to make sense of them.

All of this may have been colored by the disease as well. It manifested just as these scenes were released, so I was in no mood to do anything with them anyways. But… yeah, IDK.

————————————–

Anyhow, I’m going to be re-working my girl roster next year. I’m going to be bringing in some of my college girlfriends that have been loyal to me, even in my absence. IDK what they want from me now, but… it’s so touching to see how some of my girlfriends / wives have such confidence in me that they have just patiently waited for ten, or twenty years or more for me to get my shit together. It’s… kind of amazing, really.

Well… so… there you go. I’m moving girls like Mia Kirshner, Lindy Booth, etc. back onto the main directory. We’ll re-create the necessary energy bridges over time and see what develops.

I will also be bringing back into the fold girls like Brittany Flickinger and Annie Kreighbaum, who I shuffled off to the side for awhile as I figured out what my deal was with all these famous chicks. Now that I know that, I can focus a bit less on just “famous girls”.

Ultimately, I will need to create a “wife roster” composed of all of the girls that should probably be considered permanent partners. But, that is a loooooong term project.

Well, my hands are starting to hurt. I think this is over with.

Let’s bring on 2022!!!

After this nap, lol.