two notes from the two minutes I was able to stomach

• I love Joe and will vote for him again, but this was an unmitigated disaster and will, unfortunately, forever leave a shitstain on 3.5 years of more or less great work as president. He either needs to overhaul his entire campaign apparatus, from the top down, or bow out. Status quo is a no-go.

• The Tumor just spent weeks in a criminal courtroom forced to not gesticulate or make a face listening to people rip him apart for eight hours a day. How anyone in Bidenworld missed that that would make a splitscreen debate easier for him is political malpractice of the highest degree.

i tried, SUICIDE SQUAD: KTJL, really, but jesusfuckingchrist

First game I've abandoned in a long time: had its moments of fun, but was too bombastic, too crazed, too everything I never wanted in a game from the ARKHAM world. Didn't kill any of the Justice League nevermind make it to the controversy around Batman's death and Conroy's "final "performance (which I guess it isn't but is or something, IDK) but didn't care: not a single one of the TFX, save Harley – as whom I played only to seek some semblance of gameplay continuity between SQUAD and the ARKHAM games – spoke to me. The rest of the characters (King Shark as a Drax rip-off?) and the tone felt like a bad GTA rip-off version of something far better, as though the writers tried to create the HARLEY QUINN animated series version of the ARKHAM world but weren't up to the task (was nice to see ARKHAM’s Penguin, though). Maybe I'll revisit if they add more DLC that has something resembling a story, but hell, GOTHAM KNIGHTS was a better game. Massive disappointment from one of the era-defining studios of the last decade.

links/2023w13

• Davidson Prize longlist features 16 designs to mitigate homelessness | Dezeen

• Stunning: Ai Weiwei Unveils Recreation of Monet's 'Water Lilies' Made Entirely of Legos | Smithsonian Magazine

• jesusfuckingchrist: The Mass Shooting Database | Maps Mania

• If it doesn’t contain a cheeky double entendre about King Charles’s leaky pen or use it as a weapon, it’s a missed opportunity: James Bond Story Commissioned to Celebrate King Charles' Coronation | Variety

• When the Shadow Detonated an Atom Bomb in Brazil in 1947, at Auction | Bleeding Cool

• Korean publisher investigated following suicide of Black Rubber Shoes creator | The Beat

• Mathematicians Have Found a Shape With a Pattern That Never Repeats | Smithsonian Magazine

• "Our basic premise is that Impressionism… contains elements of polluted realism...": Did Monet Owe His Hazy, Impressionistic Style to the Early Effects of Climate Change? A New Scientific Study Suggests So | Artnet News

funeral interminable

Today’s lesson: the only thing more interminable than a funeral is a funeral with a pastor who doesn't know the person going into the ground but can still prattle on for half an hour about nothing; I was simultaneously horrified by his inability to edit and impressed by his total belief that he didn't waste everyone's time. Pretty sure I heard my great aunt pleading with him from inside her coffin to just get on with it but I might have been projecting; jesusfuckingchrist indeed.