Transition Points

The other shoe finally dropped.

The job situation has been a little complicated for a while now, and the writing has been on the wall. I got the chop just now.

To start something new or finish the degree? I don’t know. I’m close, but graduation is a moving target. The damn contraption still doesn’t work.

TiH is moving, finally. I’m really getting progress on it. It’s going to require an entirely new ending, but that was expected.

I’m going to finish TiH and the PhD. I won’t be happy about it, but I’ll do it. I’m not sure about how I’m going to pay for either.

But Seriously, Pew Pew

I need a heavier font for my puns. When I drop a weighty bit of humor, I want it to hit hard. My puns deserve an impact.

I want Finger-Guns, the Font!

I hate having to say things like pun-intended. Of course it’s intended. Even if that pun was accidental, it’s intended now.

More autojourno thoughts

I like Thomas Hundal. The guy’s a nutbag, and someone should restrict his caffeine intake. Still, he has a lot of car enthusiasm. His hot takes come from a place of ‘I like cars and care about them way to much.’

Enough

The Garmin Swim 2 is an utterly crap watch.

Positivity for later, this is crap. I walked three miles with a pulse of 198? Seriously? Am I dead?

Hypothetically

You pick a good name for a character and write a hundred pages before googling his name. Then you find out he’s a struggling actor in Omaha and spokesman for an incontinence medication.

Ah

Settle for the win. When in doubt, settle for the win.

Thoughts on Uri Beliner, Katherine Maher, and NPR

Agreeing with a political position is political.

If Alice thinks the Democrats are right 90% of the time and votes accordingly, she’s a Democrat. That’s what that means. If she supports the Democrats in conflicts with Republicans because while she might not agree with the Democrats right now, she knows she’s probably going to agree with them in the future, that’s being partisan. That’s what that word means.

Looking at the Uri Berliner affair, I think way too many people in NPR think, “But of course we’re all Democrats. We agree with them!” The NPR staffers aren’t lying. They’re not siding with the Democrats out of vindictiveness or funding desires. (The GOP has been sawing on ‘defund NPR’ for a while, so siding with the Democrats could reasonably be interpreted as a self-serving move for NPR staffers.) People tend not to carefully silo themselves, so the various positions might blend together.

But if everyone at NPR is a Democrat, that means everyone at NPR is a Democrat. And if they show the world as they see it, that’s going to be a very slanted worldview.

I looked at Uri Berliner’s essay at the FP and Maher’s reply at NPR. Katherine Maher does not seem to address any of the points Berliner raised. She doesn’t address newsroom bias, she doesn’t really talk about ideological conformity, nor the ‘lecturing tone’ Berliner criticizes. I was unconvinced.

I’m a Subaru-driving, PhD student at a private university in Denver. I listen to a lot of radio and read a lot of news. I’m NPR’s prime target, and I don’t listen to them.

Life’s Mysteries

Dating is really weird right now.

Is this just a guy thing? Are the ladies running around thinking, ‘Yes. This is the way I want matters.’

I doubt it.