Milano Cortina Olympics, Part IX

By sighinide February 17th, 2026, under Uncategorized

A few more random thoughts:

I may have, in the course of flipping through events, composed an original song titled Eileen Gu, Where Are You? set to the music of Scooby Doo, Where Are You?. I’m not saying I necessarily DID, mind you, but….. I’m not saying I DIDN’T, either.

*Ahem*.

There has been some hullaballoo on the internet, and, presumably, in other places, about stuff like certain people not performing up to expectations, etc. There’s been a lot of talk. Personally, I monitor sites like Reddit for stuff like this. There, analyses abound. Pressures of this, circumstances of that. Honestly- speaking as someone that has played a lot of sports in my day- sometimes you just lose. That’s the nature of athletics. Nobody wins 100% of their matches. Nobody. EVER. No matter how great, no matter how dominant, wins 100% of the time. That’s reality.

TBH- consistently winning over 50% of your matches / games in a professional setting must put you somewhere near superhuman territory. I mean even that is virtually impossible.

I think that a lot of the internet chatter is coming from people that don’t have much personal experience playing sports or competing themselves. I could be wrong, but that is what I would bet.

In my own life, I’ve played quite a few sports. Obviously, none were professional level, but I’ve played on organized baseball, basketball, soccer, football, TaeKwonDo, Karate, wrestling and other teams. Mostly high school-ish level but a couple above that.

Sometimes you can come in the favorite, prepare perfectly and do everything to the best of your ability and still lose. It happens. It happens a lot in sports, all the way from kids playing T-Ball to the Olympics. It’s life.

So I choose not to involve myself in Reddit discussions and the like.

Other stuff- there’s a lot I’ve missed, obvii. Will need to watch, and will do so, in the coming weeks and such. And I believe I will catch the Paralympics as well. So there will be more of these coming.

One more random thought- Huh, wow. Been watching Snowboard Parallel Slalom- Woah, a handful of athletes there in their mid 40’s, and at least one in her 50’s! Wow! Hmmn, interesting.

Been watching YT videos about certain people not aging as fast as they should, or at least as they used to (mostly celebrities, natch). Not going to cue up the lecture here about myself and my creepily youthful appearance, but… hmmn.

Food for thought.

Back in the 80’s, an Olympian in her 50’s in any capacity would have been an impossibility. I mean I’m saying this without googling, but… wow. And, really, snowboarding isn’t curling! I know there are curlers that are older, but snowboarders? Wow.

And she made the finals! I mean she qualified, knocking off a bunch of twenty five year olds! I haven’t seen it all the way through yet, I just started but man, that is… kind of unreal.

The number one qualifier in the finals was a 45 year old on the Men’s side. Hmmn.

Weird stuff, but very very cool and so interesting.

Milano Cortina Olympics, Part VIII: Birthday Edition

By sighinide February 13th, 2026, under Uncategorized

Not too much to say with this one, but I suppose I’ll title it “Birthday Edition” for dramatic effect. I mean, I’ll probably hit “post” very slightly in the a.m., so technically… lol.

I guess wanted to say in a general way that the modern Olympics experience is nice because it seems to be a vacation in a self-contained living room, or even bedroom, experience. Or even better- a vacation without the hassles or expense of travel.

This thought struck me even before everything. It hit me during the Pre-Show Show, The Opening Ceremony Ceremony, that odd little Red Carpet thing in the museum with Shaun White, Marisa Tomei and Jeff Goldblum, as well as my always-slightly-out-of-place Gracie Gold. It seemed awfully… packaged. During the festivities indoors I noticed out of the corner of my eye a doorman move out of place of the cameras who had to be hurriedly shooed into the correct position, amusingly. He walked outside to greet someone too early. He had to be walked back in so then he could walk back out all natural like for a different camera angle from the outside of the museum.

The guards standing outside the museum seemed almost painfully photogenic, too. They looked almost catwalk model-like, and decidedly not like typical rent-a-cops. The guests arrived one at a time, interestingly. It was all very… paced. Not of it was impromptu, even the “casual” conversation picked up by the cameras.

Well, I guess that’s to be expected ofc.

I did get a laugh out of the Gargoyles-esque street toughs that were let in as a group.

When I noticed Stanley Tucci I perked up a bit at the confirmed Italian theme and kept my eyes peeled for any wandering Maranos in the vicinity. Alas, ’twas not to be, although they did have two impersonators. The real Princess Laura was however playacting Italian café on Insta around the time, tho, if that means anything.

Well… I’m really off track here.

Ok, back to the thing… it’s a vacation, right? Best seat in the house, always, every event, all the time. You get to see EVERYTHING, every piece of whatever you want, I mean you get to see even the training rooms for fuck’s sake! You can see the skaters for example do their warm up routines, see them do their stretches, jog around, see them ride exercise bikes- a month’s subscription to Peacock Prime or whatever they call it will give you a better viewing experience than any all access pass that the Olympics itself can give you, I mean if that is even offered. You get up close during the medal ceremonies, you can interact with the crowd, I mean I literally am having telepathic fun with the athletes during their practice sessions on the ice! Starbucks even made a commercial out of it! So fucking cool.

This is a far far better experience than ANY conventional two week vacation than I can possibly imagine.

There is no way, no chance anything on God’s Earth could possibly compare to this.

Besides, this is something that I can do with my family that does NOT involve politics, which is immensely refreshing. I really despised NBC cutting into the Olympics coverage with that 10 minutes of stupidity involving some “Breaking News” of some “Lead” in some such nonsense or other. How ludicrous.

I’m not going to comment too much on the Ice Dancing result; I am not a good judge of that sport for a myriad of reasons, the most important of which is that I have never done it myself. I thought all three teams who medaled were good. I loved the Canadian duo very much. Something there really moved me. I loved the Americans. In both cases you could feel the experience they shared together as a team. I thought the French were very good technically but lacking in some kind of emotional chemistry.

But I am not a judge, take that as it is.

I’m not going to comment further. It’s after midnight and I need to sleep.

Ah yes- one more thing- it is very nice indeed seeing Italy do so well in these games! Well done guys!

Milano Cortina Olympics, Part VII: Rhythm Dance Edition

By sighinide February 9th, 2026, under Uncategorized

Well, I saw Rhythm Dance today, ofc. And I saw it without commentary, which was clearly the correct choice. Later on I caught the tail end of the NBC commentary coverage of the competition and wow, what a different experience. The music was muted, substantially, the “skating” sounds were muted, the crowd sounds were louder somehow, and loudest of all were the voices of the commentators.

No shade here for anyone hired to comment on the games; I’m just saying. As far as Rhythm Dance goes, the music needs to do the talking.

Personally, I loved it, which I’m sure you could see coming ofc, but seriously, the experience was SO MUCH better with all of the extraneous sounds removed from the equation. Skating has really come into it’s own as a sport. Visually and sonically it’s so exciting I’m not even sure it needs commentary anymore.

The music was fantastic. I thought three Ricky Martin medleys was one too many but otherwise, it was spot on. I never thought I’d see the day when I’d hear The Offspring featured in an Olympic Games but here we are lol. I mean it was good, really good. The theme seemed to be “Best Possible Club Hits of the 90’s, Order Now!”, lol. Honestly, it was like… amazingly good. I pumped up the volume on my TV and just… watched, it was very fucking cool.

I was talking with the parentals tonight and it they said it seems like an entirely different sport than it did a few decades ago and I agree. It’s like… all sports are different than they were 30 years ago, but skating, and skate-dancing especially, is radically different. Somehow, a revolutionary mindset took over that overhauled things there for the better, somehow.

That can be said for many many sports in the Winter Games I believe. Especially, I guess, for the ones that didn’t use to be there, lol.

*Shrug*

It does seem to me, still, as an outsider looking in, that many of the ‘Murican sports are too mired in the past, and, for all of their bluster, are too afraid to seriously innovate.

But then, I don’t give them much of a chance, anymore. Frankly, I find the games too long, and the culture too… all encompassing. It’s too much to learn, and you only live so long on this spinning rock we call “Earth”.

Plus- and this is a big negative- which, ah, makes it a big plus, lol- I don’t believe you can see that stuff sans commercials, and, crucially, without… commentary.

Or beautiful scenic backdrops, as you can when it comes to Olympic competitions.

Plus- that John Williams theme? Unbeatable.

Yup.

Rhythm really is a dancer, as it turns out.

Milano Cortina Olympics, Part VI

By sighinide February 8th, 2026, under Uncategorized

A few random thoughts:

  1. I was pleasantly surprised to see Italy medal in three of the events I saw today. Granted, all three were bronzes, but bronze is far better than I have ever done lol. Italy is really kicking ass and it is always nice to see the host nation rock their own games.
  2. Watching the events I was wondering… aren’t there, like, Russians? I was noticing a distinct lack of… Russian-ness. And not just in the athletes, I mean even in the conversations. Nobody was even talking about Russians. It was vaguely eerie. The scenario I’m envisioning here, which may be somewhat over-imaginative, is something along the line of a black hole developing in the middle of the Russian Olympic training camp, which sucks in all the athletes, staff and coaches, and which creates a some kind of quantum anomaly which wipes all memories of Russian athletics from global consciousness… or something. Ah, I see. Well, it’s nothing quite that dramatic, lol. Google tells me it’s because of the Ukraine yadda yadda yadda, which as you already know I think is absolute nonsense. Whatever you think of the war, it is the height of stupidity and arrogance to punish athletes for the actions of politicians. Think about it: the war has been ongoing since 2014, so an 18 year old Russian athlete would have been only 6 years old when it started. Why should he / she be punished for it’s existence? Utterly dumb, truly. I like the “black hole” thing better. I mean at least it makes a certain kind of sense.
  3. Ski Slopesyle is fun as hell. It’s been a blast watching this sport grow from it’s humble beginnings in Microsoft Entertainment Pack 3 to what it is today. I have yet to see an adorable carnivorous yeti on an Olympics obstacle course but that might be a fun addition in future games, and maybe even in the upcoming finals!
  4. Speaking of skiing, I hope Vonn and the other racers in the final I saw today that crashed recover well. Congrats to the winners, esp. to Breezy ofc.
  5. Team Skating was epic, truly. More than anyone else on the ice I have ever seen, Ilia Malinin truly embodies the Olympic motto of “Faster, Higher, Stronger”. He IS the Olympic spirit, incarnated. A truly awesome individual. Absolutely inspiring. The other skaters- all of them- are great, but Malinin comes across like something else entirely, some alien yet beautiful far off new plateau, like Mount Olympus / Olympics itself. But I mean… it would take an entire essay in an of itself to dissect this topic, all of different parts, breaking down all of the skaters, the different routines, the different ways to watch this stuff (I saw some feeds with commentary and some without, etc.) I mean I would be up all night, literally, until fucking 6 a.m. or something equally absurd. Yeah I’m not doing that.
  6. I’m staying off of social media this Olympics, I think. I’ll return afterwards, perhaps, with a fresh perspective.

Milano Cortina Olympics, Part V

By sighinide February 6th, 2026, under Uncategorized

Ok, question time… why does NBC keep calling this the “Milan Cortina” Olympics? I mean, even in their logos? It’s like… not that, right? Because I’ve been hearing that so much I’ve actually been double checking. It’s “Milano Cortina”, right? I mean during the Opening Ceremony “Milano Cortina” was actually printed on the stadium itself, on the bleachers, in multiple places. So… it’s that, right?

I’m getting this image now of a dude in NBC headquarters with a bad keyboard who needed to come up with a logo and was like… “Damn, that fucking ‘O’ key! Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t! Fuck it, it’s good enough! Nobody will notice anyways.”

It’s really weird and jarring, in an uncanny valley sort of way. During the Opening Ceremony speeches, Milano Cortina was obviously the place everyone thought they were. Everyone, of course, except for the NBC announcers.

Huh.

Well… the quirks of language, I guess.

Other things- Damn, the USA contingent is fucking HUGE. Christ, it is so big I’ll bet it dwarfs actual countries, somewhere.

A random factoid that literally and amusingly popped into my head during the ceremony- a few years back I was browsing the local megamall for Christmas presents and popped into a clearance store tucked away into a corner. This was post- COVID, I remember. So it was a ways back, but not too far back in years. There, in a corner, I found one of the strangest merchandise finds I’ve ever seen in any store- a gigantic box of mint condition copies of Picabo Street: Downhill Dynamo. Seriously; I kid you not. How on Earth an enormous pile of this product came to exist in this location, in this time, in this place, in this condition, is beyond me, and is probably beyond rational thought. Seriously; it was unreal. I remind you- this was POST- COVID. I think they were being sold for something like a quarter each.

The internet tells me that based on what I remember of the cover, I was seeing the revised edition.

Absolutely unreal.

I was sorely tempted to buy one, and probably should have, just for the conversation piece.

The scenario I’m imagining in my head for THIS situation: Some guy starts a new job at a book depository / factory. There’s no room on the floor for this enormous box of Picabo Street books, but his office is empty, seeing as how he’s new and his stuff hasn’t been moved in yet, so, he lets the crew use his office for temporary storage. Fast forward twenty five years. He retires, and finishes moving the last of his stuff out to his car, and then… wait, what’s this? What’s this gigantic box sitting here in the middle of my office? Oh yeah, THAT. NOW I remember!

Literally, I can think of nothing else that would make sense for this.

Well back to reality- Bocelli can sure sing, can’t he? Darn tootin’. His collab with Sofia Carson was aces.

Speaking of Disney / Descendants chicks- Yes yes, I noticed it as well, and I REALLY wasn’t going to mention it, I mean I specifically didn’t mention her name on purpose in the other post by literally calling her “you-know-who-else” but since EVERYONE ELSE is practically begging me to, YES FINE, I did notice the rather obvious and vaguely blatant reference to Dove Cameron during the Opening Ceremony which I thought might be coming but frankly, even I was shocked as to how in my face it was. Which, I know, was the point of it.

And yes, I am well aware of the purpose of choosing Charlize Theron to deliver said message. This was done because of her previous behind-the-scenes mentorship with Disney Princess AnnaSophia Robb, am I correct? I mean, I get it. I just… you know, it IS the Olympics, you know? And this is about athletics, not…

But… I know. It’s not, really, although it probably SHOULD be. They’ve (The Olympics) really crafted a web, this time. It’s rather insidious. And Disney obviously has one as well.

And, unfortunately, I’ve crafted one, myself, and now everyone has been left dangling all awkward-like.

Enough of this, it’s ludicrous.

Let the games begin!

Milano Cortina Olympics, Part IV

By sighinide February 6th, 2026, under Uncategorized

Opening Ceremony Tidbits:

  1. I liked the first part of the opening ceremony a lot. It was fun, and not overly long, or too ambitious. The Eurobeat flavor was cool. The colors were nice. It was nicer than the French one I thought. In retrospect, perhaps the Paris opening was too ambitious for it’s own good. But, meh, that’s neither here nor there at this point.
  2. The parade of nations even seems more fun, oddly, than usual. Not even sure why. Maybe it’s the “fun” setting, with the fake snow and the cool glowy entrance ring and such.
  3. The NBC captions occasionally provide a source of amusement of their own. On the Olympic pre-shows I watched yesterday, skating pairs was captioned as “skating pears”. I intentionally avoided mentioning this yesterday because I wanted this error to go uncorrected during the livestream during the games; I so so desperately wanted to see see “Skating Pears” in the Olympic Games, lol. Unfortunately, during the team event they showed this morning that error had since been corrected. I did note, that, however, that the Japanese greats of Miura Riku and Kihara Ryuichi did not skate to “Paint it Black”, they in fact skated to “Peanut Black”, apparently. I mean, who knew, lol.
  4. And on that note, fittingly, the country of Chile becomes the country of “Chilly” during the Winter Olympics. Because of course it does.
  5. I missed Gracie Gold, apparently. She was in the Opening Ceremony pre-show, which I WAS watching, but the stream stopped like 5 minutes before she showed up or something. It is / was upsetting. The only reason I know she was there was because I saw a second of her on a promo. ‘Tis unfortunate. Le sigh.

Milano Cortina Olympics, Part III

By sighinide February 6th, 2026, under Uncategorized

One last little thingy- I’m going to be streaming these games over the app, not watching over broadcast, so hopefully I’ll be avoiding a lot of the annoying jingoistic stuff that we see on NBC, etc. I mean stuff like daily / hourly medal counts.

I didn’t mention Vonn; I probably should have. It’s nice to see her again, it’s impressive that she’s out there even after her injury. I thought she handled herself well in her press conference. Wild that her coach is Aksel Lund Svindal! One of the few non-American names I easily place from past Winter Olympics. I mean, non-skating athletes. Like… Bjørndalen, and… yeah, I’m not going to start a list.

Yeah, I’m not watching broadcast; fuck that.

Milano Cortina Olympics, Part II

By sighinide February 6th, 2026, under Uncategorized

So I didn’t watch the minimovies today. If they’re still around, maybe I’ll watch them later. Like, maybe much later. I saw the Men’s Big Air Qualifying Rounds instead (did I capitalize that right? IDK). Then I watched the 7 “Road to Milan Cortina 2026” specials. I think I made the right choice. The minimovies can be watched at any time, the specials beg to be watched before the opening ceremony tomorrow.

Stuff I gleaned: It seems that Mikaela Shiffrin has won over 100 (!!!) World Cup titles in her career, an unbelievably staggering number. I had no idea. You would think this would be common knowledge, especially in her home country, but no. Ugh. Jeebus. I believe this would be the perfect time and place for a rant about the tyranny of the typical ‘Murican professional sports.

Look, I’ve done that stuff before, I’m not going to do it again, and everyone who reads this has surely thought along similar lines at points.

A few months ago I was pleasantly surprised to see Katie Ledecky in a TV commercial. It was then that I knew that Olympics season was around the corner, because… why else would a swimmer- even the unquestioned world’s best, be in a commercial? It’s kind of sad, honestly.

Over the winter I joined the local health club and I would spend hours in the pool, just… swimming. Not vigorously, lol. But for fun. It was glorious. What a fantastic way to spend a Sunday afternoon! Sometimes I would take aquatherapy classes. Also fun, lol. When I would leave the pool and go to my locker to change, I would pass by the locker room TV, which was there, I guess, to blare the requisite distraction to hurry everyone along. ALWAYS, without fail, it was showing a football game. I always wondered what football had to do with swimming pools. It just seemed… so odd. So out of place.

I mean this is… off of the subject at hand, I guess, but… is it?

I mean she was featured a bit in these segments, so…

Seriously tho, it’s all very strange, isn’t it? Why is it that the world’s greatest athletes are all virtually unknown in the public in our supposedly sports- crazed culture?

Maybe it’s just an American thing. Perhaps the culture is different in other nations; I wouldn’t know. I suspect / hope that it is.

I found the segment about the Team USA Gymnastics training camp really interesting. Obviously curated but it needed to be so I suppose.

Back to the sport culture- the skating lineup for the USA is stacked for sure. Ilia Malinin the “Quad God” is obviously on another level with his actual Vampire-on-ice routine. He almost / actually flies. One might say that he’s been learning from me, somehow, on some magnetic or quantum level. Honestly, he might or even could probably be; I wouldn’t put it past some of these people, especially the top level guys.

For real tho: his routines are literally, weirdly, the routines that I would come up with if I were to combine all of the best ideas and energies I’ve harvested from previous Olympics and skating athletes, going ALLLLLL the way back to Elvis Stojko (!!!!). I mean we are talking A LOT of stuff, tossed into an all-encompassing melting pot here!

But that would obviously be preposterous of course, so…

But again- why is the man who is by far the world’s greatest athlete in his sport- if not perhaps the greatest overall athlete in the entire world– a virtual unknown in his own country, a country that is supposedly “sports crazed”?

I mean, the mind boggles at this. It is utterly absurd. Someone like this should need no introduction to the general public before the Olympics, let alone during them.

I maintain that sports leagues like the NFL have a place in society, and that they absolutely belong, but they have been put on too high a pedestal.

Well… there you go.

I suppose the blogging cobwebs are falling off lol.

Milano Cortina Olympics, Part I

By sighinide February 5th, 2026, under Uncategorized

Ok, I’m taking the bait.

I mean… whether I’ll swallow all of it remains to be seen, but… OK, here goes.

Well… I *MIGHT* augment my posts here with my powers. Might. I mean, we’ll see. I kind of think I won’t, but… these things do tend to get out of hand, even if it looks like it won’t, this time.

And it doesn’t. Honestly.

Some initial thoughts- things look much more “fun” this time around, which is very very much appreciated. I mean it’s not like things have started yet but that’s certainly the kind of vibrations I’m getting from the place. I mean- I’m contrasting this Olympics with, say, Sochi and the war nonsense etc. This one seems “normal”. Good.

Well… I see that NBC / Peacock did it’s prep work to prepare for me this time around, and I of course prepared for them ahead of time as well. I intend to make full vampiric use of the athletes’ energies. A couple of weeks ago I purchased a set of very expensive high end urethane dumbbells that I will eagerly break in during the coming festivities. I’ll probably also hone all of the new barre/pilates exercises I’ve learned in my classes lately.

On that note I’m still using two small ankle weights per leg. Maybe by next Olympics I’ll be using one large 10 lb ankle weight per leg, or maybe one 10 lb plus a smaller one. Or maybe that’s for a distant future, IDK.

It’s fun, this stuff, lol. Really, it is. It is A LOT of fun getting stronger. Especially when it is done in ways that are so complete and safe.

At any rate, I will suck as much life energy as I can out of everything that I can, like… IDK, some kind of creepy old vampire, lol.

It appears as though I may be living for a very very very long time, if things are what they appear to be.

Hooray? Who knows, lol. We’ll see I guess.

Anyhoo- back to the games- today I watched a bunch of stuff on peacock… Prime? Premium? Extra? It’s the package you get with Xfinity. Athlete highlight reels, promos and such. Tomorrow I’ll be watching the little movies and whatevers. You know, the little mini docs about past controversies and the requisite minimovie about the Miracle-On-Ice, etc. I guess I’ll do this to get in the swing of things, to taste the Olympic flavor, to… ahhhh touch the cauldron, to, well… absorb the experience. Then, the opening ceremony. Then the stuff.

You know- I’ve not mentioned you-know-who, or… you-know-who-else. And I likely won’t, except right now… yes, I WILL mention… nah. Nope, won’t do it, not going to. You were allllll waiting for it, weren’t you? Well, MAYBE I’m writing this because my Italian wife who must not be named put that on her insta, MAYBE not, but you’ll just have to guess, because quite honestly, I care not what you think, and that my friend is God’s honest truth.

To the games!

Various Things, Jan 5th of 2025

By sighinide January 6th, 2026, under Uncategorized

Should I… update this site’s layout or theme? I mean, I chose this theme specifically because it… seemed to force a certain privacy to the proceedings. I mean this IS a diary ofc, and I don’t want just anyone reading it, you know? Well… it’s something to think about. I’ll schedule a visual review of this place for this year I think.

Well, I’ve been watching Netflix. Saw the first half of season 1 of Wednesday. Good show. It’s… interesting. My first impressions of the titular character was that she was very Daria-esque. That’s not a bad thing. I surmised watching Jenna that perhaps Burton’s version of the character in his Addams movies inspired parts of Daria, later on. That would make sense. IDK, it’s an interesting line of thought, no? Maybe that’s where we got Ghost World, too. The graphic novel, I mean.

Speaking of graphic novels… I disappointed myself again last year when I didn’t crack open my Slave Labor Comics archive. Every year around October 1st, I think to myself… I’ll just read them all, in time for Halloween. And then I don’t. This year I started going to the gym around that time and I became obsessed, again, with fitness stuff. Which is good, and healthy, but… still.

I have everything they’ve ever published in PDF form, and I’ve read a decent chunk of it, but not everything I want to, and certainly not everything I felt I would need to, when I procured all of it twenty years ago. I guess I just moved on culturally.

IDK why I’m thinking of this, now. Maybe Wednesday resuscitated a part of me that I thought was buried. Maybe I’m just carnally reacting to Jenna and Emma’s outfits. Or something else.

Well… I guess I can see in the character a reflection of me, so long ago. I remember poring over Poe’s work back in high school. I tried so hard to understand it, and failed so miserably in doing so lol.

Reading his works again, now, I can see what I missed back then. I can hardly believe it. Now it seems so obvious; the meanings, themes and ideas are so plainly presented in his works that his words are like a window into his mind, now. I can see it, what he meant in his stories. Or at least, I think I can. I’m pretty sure I can.

I guess it just takes time. And life experience.

Ah, well. You know, speaking of Halloween, I suppose that I might just go ahead and make a somewhat embarrassing confession about the dramas of last October. I think I may have possibly been played by- yes, my erstwhile wife Laura Marano, and maybe Taylor S as well. You remember all of that ridiculousness of Laura’s IG Live and the fallout from that? Where I ranted and raved, and then stormed off flustered and dejected? Well, during the climax of my little tantrum, I noticed something that I didn’t blog about, earlier: the day after all of this drama with her IG went down, and when I was fuming and at my most confused- somehow, I wound up paying for another year of Disney+.

Like every year, I consider stopping the Disney stuff just to take some time off from it, I guess. And last year I was again sorely tempted to do so, and I may have, had I not forgotten about the autopay on my account and the distraction so… helpfully provided by Laura.

How many series on Disney+ feature the Maranos? There’s like four or something right? Austin and Ally, Switched at Birth, Gargoyles, and I think there’s like another one but I can’t remember it right now. But yeah, IDK.

Weirdly, I remember the other fans on her IG Live marveled at the fact that’s Laura’s EP and Taylor’s album dropped on the same day, like what are the odds right? I seriously don’t get the rest of them sometimes. Do they not understand that the two of them were former labelmates and are likely friends? They probably still don’t realize that Taylor guested “off the books” on at least one of Laura’s songs since then. Like… how do they not know this?

It’s bizarre, honestly.

And yeah, all of this, the IG Live, the songs/albums being released, etc. happened the day before the Disney+ renewal thing, which of course I forgot about in all the relationship nonsense.

And note that I didn’t bring up the Sofia Carson thing, with her surprise guesting on Electric Bloom and all of the drama there, and how that interconnects with all of this. Because honestly, that wouldn’t even be right of me.

So now, here I am, stuck with another year of Disney+. Wonderful.

It’s been really weird, delving into all of this… incomprehensible, bewildering stuff.

To better understand Laura’s career and my relationship with her I’ve taken to downloading weird old texts from internet libraries. On the Internet Archive I noticed a couple of very very old books featuring an Italian writer named “Andrea Marano”. And so help me God these fucking things actually did assist me in understanding some of the weirder parts in Laura’s strange Disney Channel movie Bad Hair Day.

I mean I’ve gone as far as to download ancient books about the Orsinis, the Aldobrandinis, the Medicis and other Papal families to try to “Crack the Code” here and Holy Hell on a stick, I hate to say this, but… these books are in fact helping, or driving me nuts, or maybe both, IDK.

Some thoughts, now… read this or not, IDK honestly. To my eyes Laura looks dead-on as a member of the Italian Medicis, almost like she was cloned directly from Cosimo, but Vanessa doesn’t, she looks more like an Aldobrandini, honestly. I downloaded from Getty some pictures of Princess Olimpia Aldobrandini and I see a striking resemblance between Vanessa in many of her pictures and Olimpia. I have considered before that these two might not be… sister sisters, but perhaps just related-ish. And… there you go, for what this is worth.

Again, this stuff is fucking baffling as hell. Seeing the gears behind his machinery churning, if that is indeed that is what I am seeing, is an ultra impressive sight indeed.

Another fact that has not escaped me- I have seen videos from many years ago and have read “Illuminati Conspiracy” type books made in the 90’s that reference specifically a “Doge”, i.e., supposedly the King of the Black Nobility of the Vatican. John Coleman amongst others talked about this.

Is this “Doge” the same as Elon Musk’s “Doge”? Is that me, or my double? Thoughts to consider.

Wikipedia in places states that both the Medicis and the Aldobrandinis can be thought of as “black nobility” families, along with others of course.

I don’t know, but it does look as though this would explain why people like Laura are just… stuck with me, like this is just what they do, and that they can’t really do anything else. It’s very clear that she was trained and had her life experience tailored specifically to date me.

And it wasn’t just her ofc. But she’s such a pristine example that I can’t help but explain her further.

It’s very clear that her early roles, like her role in Telepathetic, were programs not made for TV ratings, but were created to acclimate her to her future IRL role as my telepathic significant other. Literal On-The-Job training to be the “Doge’s” future wife.

Another example here- Laura’s costar in Gary Unmarried, Kathryn Newton.

It’s all quite astonishing, actually, seeing things from this perspective. Perhaps these shows were not made for ratings, like at all. Maybe money never even entered the equation here, ever.

I wonder if I am correct in assuming that The Little Mermaid II: Return to the Sea was the chief programming tool that Disney or whomever used on Laura. A few times in AAA she refers to herself as a “mermaid”, and there are references to this in her other roles as well.

You know- I could take this in a whole bunch of other directions, if I wanted. Wikipedia tells me that the original Princess Olimpia Aldobrandini (so not the modern one, I mean the first medieval one) had an official title of Princess of Rossano. I wonder if “Ross” in AAA is a reference to this or something similar, kind of like how “Jack” in Olivia Holt’s Kickin’ It is a likely reference to Jack Holt. And Instagram fan accounts of Laura mention that she used to fake-date in IRL some guy similarly named “Ross”, eye-rollingly (I mean jfc, at least pick a different name lol).

IDK about the “Ross” thing, tho, lol. IMDB tells me that in a new movie Vanessa is going to be playing a chick named, hilariously, “Lily Hale”, which is a wonderfully obtuse Frankenstein’s monster amalgamation of the names “Lily Collins” and “Lucy Hale”. They’re getting VERY on the nose with this stuff.

Other random things… been listening to techno lately. Hardstyle, real hands-up stuff. Does anyone else wish this kind of music would make a comeback? Are there even candy ravers anymore? Honestly, probably not, and that’s a shame TBH.

Other stuff… Honestly I don’t even want to think about how this Laura stuff might fit in with the upcoming Olympics in, of all places, Milano Cortina. I mean I literally just don’t, so I won’t.

Other stuff… Well not much honestly, though looking at this, it’s actually not the date in the title anymore lol, so maybe I should hit publish lol. I’m not really going to proof this, it’s literally past midnight, so…

k