Joe Streckert
@joestreckert.bsky.social
Portland writer. Erstwhile podcaster. Occasional author. Horror fan and pinball enthusiast. https://linktr.ee/joestreckert
"Where are you from?" "Delaware." "What part?" "Kraken." "Oh, hey! My aunt lives in Kraken!"
It's cool that the US has a city named Phoenix, but why did we stop there? Why not cities named after other mythological creatures. Imagine Chimera, California, Manticore, Pennsylvania or Sphinx, South Dakota.
If a mountain was going to explode I would simply move away from it.
I was born in Portland in 1980, so I’m old enough to remember Truman being lionized as a folk hero for sticking to his beliefs. Even as a kid though, I thought he was an idiot. His beliefs were wrong. He died for no reason.
Now, as a 43-year-old man… well, I still think he was an idiot.
You can sum up the entirety of the good and bad things about the American character in the stories of two Mt. St. Helens victims: David A. Johnston, the pioneering volcanologist who was killed making scientific observations, and Harry R. Truman who was a dumb old dipshit who refused to evacuate.
I recently read Guards! Guards! For the first time. It really impressed me how much Prachett understood normal, everyday, vulgar evil, both in his exposition and in how he portrayed the dragon summoners.
I can't be the only one who thinks this looks like Ghostbusters II.
I can give you my loneliness, my darkness, the hunger of my heart, I am trying to bribe you with uncertainty, with danger, with defeat, Charlie Brown.
Mirrors and Fatherhood are Abominable, for they Multiply the Numbers of Man, Charlie Brown
The same dudes who say that Die Hard is a Christmas movie will also tell you that Aliens is a Mother's Day movie.
(It's me. I'm dudes.)
I’ve got a joke about Cerberus but it’s a shaggy dog story.
I've got a joke about Osiris but every time I try to tell it I fall all to pieces
Plan a horror fest using only the letters of your first name.
Jacob’s Ladder
Onibaba
Saint Maud
Eyes Without a Face
Parents
Haxan
Plan a horror fest using only the letters of your first name.
Ju-On: The Grudge
Under the Skin
Lost Highway
In a Glass Cage
Antichrist
How the hell did this get approved? Didn't someone, somewhere in the chain look at it and say "Hey, maybe an ad about big tech flattening and destroying the tools of human creativity isn't a good look right now?" What an immense failure to read the room. consequence.net/2024/05/appl...
Apple destroys vintage instruments in tone-deaf new commercial for iPad Pro
Apple's new advertisement for the latest version of the iPad Pro ignores any relevant metaphor and destroys symbols of creativity.
consequence.net"Oh, that's funny. Someone photoshopped a New York Times article."
I thought the brain worms thing was a joke at first. Just a cute little bit everyone was doing.
I haven't seen "I Saw the TV Glow" yet, but "We're All Going to the World's Fair" was excellent. Very much looking forward to more from Jane Schoenbrun.
"World's Fair" is sad and effective horror that's stayed with me since I watched it. It's on HBO Max. Watch it alone with all the lights off.
There are so many times when I thought I was buying a t-shirt, but it turned into an Eternal Blood Pact of Infinite Emails.
It would be fun to see someone who’s never played Rive suffer through the fire marble puzzle while a clock is ticking and money is on the line.
12-year-old me would be very confused about how there’s a movie where Michael Keaton comes back as Batman I had no desire to see it.
I love Star Wars, but it’s such a dorky Boomer movie. How do you fight fascism? According to George Lucas, you get high and read Carlos Castaneda.
Google reader. Blogs. Feeling like sites were written for humans rather than search engines.
I really miss is community. I spent a lot of time on an old forum site. I felt like I knew people there. Forums still exist, but social media took a lot of their oxygen.
Microsoft Teams opens too many damn windows. It's like my toddler grabbing a tissue to wipe his nose and then pulling out half the box onto the floor.
What are you wearing to Bluesky cocktail hour?
what am I wearing to the Bluesky cocktail hour? you mean, this old thing?
Six. I can see the horse, feel the wind in the prairie, smell the grass, and the horse’s name is Nutmeg.
I can’t imagine it being any other way.
Portland:
1. Yes
2. Yes
3. Yes but please don’t make it weird
One day I’ll finally make the spreadsheet of what I consider the most important factors in visiting a new city:
1. Is it safe to drink the water?
2. Is it safe to jaywalk?
3. Is it safe, or even encouraged, to smile at strangers?
"Still punk as fuck," I murmur as I sit down to do my tech company marketing job.
Google Reader. The Internet got worse after they killed it.
if you could take one piece of technology that fell out of favor and bring it back, what would it be?
Seeing Hereditary in IMAX tonight. Should be a heady experience.
Just to be clear: I like all those episodes. I miss stuff like Sisko and his kid building an old-timey solar sail spaceship just for fun, or Captain Picard Day, or anything involving a holodeck and whatever costumes they happened to have on hand at the Paramount lot.
Move Along Home. Threshold. The one where Dr. Crusher reads her grandma’s horny diary and fucks a ghost. This is what they took from you.
Tom Cotton is too cowardly to speak on the true issue: Sending The National Guard to Paramount Studios to make them make Star Trek seasons 23 episodes long again
Planescape: Torment
Gonna steal this for here. I'm going with Earthbound. But they're not allowed to screw it up.
I think I'm done with any kind of Liefeld joke at this point.
Deadpool becoming part of the MCU is to superhero movies what Abbot and Costello Meet Frankenstein was for Universal monsters.
Why? Who wants this? This is just "What if Clippy, but more?"
Breaking News: Meta will begin to incorporate its newest AI-powered assistant more comprehensively into Facebook, Instagram and other apps. The software will become practically omnipresent — inside the news feed, in search bars and in chats with friends.
Meta, in Its Biggest A.I. Push, Places Smart Assistants Across Its Apps
Users of Instagram, Facebook, WhatsApp and Messenger will be able to turn to the new technology, powered by Meta’s latest artificial intelligence model, to obtain information and complete tasks.
www.nytimes.com
Considering self publishing because that means I won’t have to write queries or novel synopses.
I’m not going to. But damn these things are excruciating.
Matcha Latte Kit-Kats are the greatest version of that particular crunchy candy snack.
Do you think anyone has ever really believed in originalism, balanced budgets, or states’ rights as a foundational idea, and then their policy ideas flowed from that?
Absolutely not. They believe in outcomes first and then invent purported principles.
The idea of conservative ideas meaningfully existing at all is a bad faith argument. The right-wing sensibility mainly about aesthetics, emotions, and preserving the status quo. The “ideas” are mostly post-doc justifications for those.
The frequently asserted conservative belief that liberals grow up in bubbles and aren't exposed to conservative ideas and so need to be forced to be exposed to conservative ideas is so far removed from reality it's insulting.
Black Sails is on Netflix. It absolutely rules. Easily the best pirate media I’ve ever seen, and the last season totally sticks the landing.
Stupid cartoon dog show making me cry and think about how much I love my family.
This is obviously a critique of Sherlock Holmes, but it can also apply to lots of real-life pseudoscience popular with law enforcement. www.businessinsider.com/police-train...
Watched The Prowler from 1981 this evening. I enjoyed it! Was particularly impressed by the early 80s practical gore effects. If you like slashers of that era give it a watch.
Thanking Andy Ngo is the biggest of red flags. Won’t be seeing this.
I majored in political science and minored in philosophy because I planned to be a lawyer. Didn’t go to law school. Taught English in Japan. Taught EFL in the US. Was a tour guide. Wrote for an alt weekly. Wrote a book. Became a copywriter at marketing agency. Currently writing for a tech company.
Your college major is unlikely to determine your career, your first job is unlikely to be your last job, and the major that you think that’s going to get you a great first job probably isn’t.