I’m Sure We Can All Relate Redux

Somehow never heard Billy Bragg’s original until the other day. Early twenties suck as bad as the teenage years, just for different and more complex reasons.

Sorry-not-sorry for providing lyrics …

I was twenty one years when I wrote this song
I’m twenty two now, but I won’t be for long
People ask me when will you grow up to be a man
But all the girls I loved at school
Are already pushing prams

I loved you then as I love you still
Though I put you on a pedestal,
They put you on the pill
I don’t feel bad about letting you go
I just feel sad about letting you know

I don’t want to change the world
I’m not looking for a new England
I’m just looking for another girl
I don’t want to change the world
I’m not looking for a new England
I’m just looking for another girl

I loved the words you wrote to me
But that was bloody yesterday
I can’t survive on what you send
Every time you need a friend

I saw two shooting stars last night
I wished on them but they were only satellites
It’s wrong to wish on space hardware
I wish, I wish, I wish you’d care

I don’t want to change the world
I’m not looking for a new England
I’m just looking for another girl
I don’t want to change the world
I’m not looking for a new England
I’m just looking for another girl
Looking for another girl
Looking for another girl
Looking for another girl

Yarp

I may watch this a few times today.

John Oliver discusses the long week of US presidential election results, including Donald Trump’s various attempts to make the election appear illegitimate, and a historic win for Joe Biden and Kamala Harris.

This works.

If you ever buy used records, you’ve learned that however clean they looked in the store, they sometimes skip or have a little scratch as loud as a gunshot, usually on your favorite song.  I’ve used this fix at least five times, and it worked every time, both on skips and loud scratches that run across grooves.  (If the scratch runs with the groove, you’re pretty much fucked, as the gentleman in the video points out. ) Using a toothpick is a brililant solution. It can get into a groove just enough to smooth out the edges, but it’s not sharp enough to go deep into the groove and ruin the record.  I guess you could ruin it if you pushed hard enough, but gentle pressure fixes the problem.

Scooby Truth

James Austin Johnson is a comedian and actor from Tennessee. After coming up on the evangelical Christian comedy circuit, he moved to L.A. to try to make it in the mainstream.

”Whenever I ramble in that Trump voice, I’m hoping to just sort of subtly illustrate, like, this guy just has no idea what he’s talking about. He just talks out of his ass and he’s pure Americana. He is confidence without substance. He gives voice to that angry confidence and he doesn’t have to be right. So, you know, whether or not my takes about Scooby Doo are correct or not, that’s besides the point.”

Also: Shit.

92!

James Randi is a personal hero.

“People who are stealing money from the public, cheating them and misinforming them — that’s the kind of thing that I’ve been fighting all my life,” he said in the 2014 documentary “An Honest Liar,” directed by Tyler Measom and Justin Weinstein. “Magicians are the most honest people in the world: They tell you they’re going to fool you, and then they do it.”

He formed the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry with Carl Sagan and Isaac Asimov. He inspired Penn & Teller.

More here.