I don’t know how to think anymore.

I tried to write an earnest reflection about how I’m currently feeling about life. But, lo and behold, it turned out to be an overwrought thinkpiece of half-nonsense and half-pretense, and ultimately a whole lot of nothing. I’m thirty-one, which is five years too old to wax philosophic and call it honor.

So I killed that darling.

Then I tried to write one of my standard pieces of drivel-fiction. Y’know, the ones where I use robots and space as stand-ins for people and circumstances. The one I tried to hack away at this week was about an android named Dorothy who couldn’t bring herself to kill a dog, despite being able to predict that the dog was going to maim a little boy. Engrossing, I know, but it just felt too paint-by-numbers for me.

So that darling got killed, too.

Where does that leave us? Where does that leave me? Well, I guess all I can say is that I don’t know what – or maybe even how – to think anymore. But I have to believe that some of you are still thinkin’!

So let’s do this, MONDAY MORNING COMMUTE! I’m going to tell you what I’ve got lined up for this week. Then you swoop in to comment on my plans and share your own.

Let’s rock!

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Let’s all do a celebratory jig for the arrival of Spring Break tomorrow! Oh, you’re not partaking? Well, shake your ass anyways. As Freddy Nietzsche said, “we should consider every day lost on which we have not danced at least once”, ya feel? Anyways, this is a lot of padding before an underwhelming Desktop Thursdays! I don’t take many photos lately, namely because my phone is a shattered collection of glass and guts masquerading as an iPhone 6. Camera is juddery as fuck!

But, enjoy the photos below! Of my desktop(s), my doggo, and a glorious chocolate lab we babysat last week! Then, share your own existences in the comments section. Allons-y!

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How are you folks doing? I know it’s been quiet around here. Sure, there’s the occasional pop-culture kernel that I’m interested in enough to share. As well, there’s the Facebook page, which seems to have struck ground as an enjoyable repository for said kernels and infinite memes. And finally, yeah, we do stream every weekend on Twitch. But around here, man. The hub. It’s been quiet. At first, I wasn’t sure why it was so hard to maintain the grease on the perpetual-engine at the center of the Space-Ship Omega, but then I remembered.

We’re all just sort of busy.

Rendar’s got two jobs. Bateman’s got, I’m not really sure how many jobs. I oscillate between teaching four classes and one class depending on the semester, and I’m always tutoring 30+ students a week. Compliment that with a commute which is generally one-and-a-half-hours each way every day, and well. I’m fucking tired, man.

All of this is a meandering preamble to serve as both an acknowledgement that it’s quiet around here, an apology for said quiet, a paean for the older days, a notice that I miss you folks, and a reasoning for why things can get so quiet.

I hope you’re well. I hope you’re still here, even if you’re lurking. And if you’re not, eh, I can’t blame you. Entropy claims everything.

But, I’m here now, dudes! I’m here now, with yet another tardy Monday Morning Commute. It’s the gabfest where I share what I’m looking forward to in a given week! So, without further ado, here’s what I’m sweating!

I hope you’ll join me in the comments section!

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It’s the weekend, friends. The fucking weekend, friends! Man, I don’t know how a shortened week felt so fucking long, but here I am. Basking in the freedom of two days of adolescent debauchery with a grown-up bank account. And if you’re reading this, you’re here too! By chance or by intention, you’re fucking here too! At the Weekend Open Bar! So now that I got you, so now that you’re here, let’s hang out!

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I just, just saw Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure for the first time last week. Man, it’s a tremendous movie, and after finally basking in it, I feel as though I’ve discovered a long lost part of myself. Where am I going with this? Well, this right here is Desktop Thursdays. The theoretically weekly column where I share a look into my varied lives, and then ask you to do the same in the comments section. And if I’m sharing a look into my existences, I would be remiss if I did not open with a B&T gif. It’s my soul this past week.

And remember, folks. Be excellent to each other.

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The latest Twitch stream is up on YouTube. And oh boy, it’s a doozy. Bateman spends too much time ruminating on the, uh, uncomfortable fate of the slave kids in the Last Jedi.

We also really focus on the Cronenberg-esque body horror of Yoshi’s Island, which finds the reptile-alien-thing metamorphosing in truly horrid manners.

Finally, if that ain’t enough, we deep dive into the various characters we’ve met in a sauna at our gym. Uh, yup!

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Don’t try tell me about patriotism, hombre.

Y’think you’re a patriot? Y’think you love America? Y’think you’ve bled red, white, and blue for the nation?

Well, who am I t’say y’haven’t?  Nobody. So I won’t.

But let me just give you a hypothetical. What if there was a guy who somehow figured out how to travel to different realities? Y’know, like, different dimensions. And what if every time he went to a different reality, it wreaked havoc on his body? And what if we ain’t talkin’ `bout no minor headache – we’re talkin’ about bleedin’ from the eyes and bones feelin’ like they’re breakin’ and lungs wheezin’ out but not fillin’ up and vomitin’ out the ass and a really bad genital rash?

Y’know, like how it is after takin’ some really quality club drugs.

Anyways, back to my point. So, what if – just what if – despite all of negative repercussions, this guy keeps on travelin’ to different realities? And what if this transdimensional sojournin’ wasn’t for recreational purposes, but for patriotic ones?  Y’know, like, a fact-findin’ mission. Go on enough to find out how different scenarios play out, and y’might be able to help your nation steer away from the Sirens and towards Valhalla.

“If this went that way and that went this way, well, then we’d be better off! What if `ole Jelly Bean Reagan didn’t run for a second term? What if Baby Hitler choked on a chicken bone? What if? What if?!”

So, despite killin’ himself slowly – and surely – this guy keeps hoppin’ into different realities, all for the sake of givin’ Uncle Sam the fullest report possible. Would y’call this guy a patriot?

Y’goddamn right.

Apologies if I come across as rambunctious, I just always get whupped up on Presidents’ Day.

But, as President RFK once said, “Get me a coffee, a copy of the Times, and an answer as to why the hell we don’t have a moonbase yet!”

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Welcome to the MONDAY MORNING COMMUTE!

Now that you’ve survived some drivel-fiction, it’s time to share what we’ll all be doing this week. Y’know, to survive the grind of the day-to-day.

What albums, books, movies, video games, beers, roller coasters, pharmaceuticals, aerobics classes, or foodstuffs will you be using as protective padding these next few days?

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Welcome to the Open Bar, you fucks. The wank-off where we, the gilded turds of the Space-Ship Omega, share what we’re up to during the weekend. I must level with you, seeing Black Panther is at the core of my entire existence the next couple of days. Seeing it tonight, Friday, with comrades. Seeing it Sunday night with my male progenitor. And in the middle? I imagine gushing and flushing all my savory glands discussing it. Here, on OL. Saturday night, on Twitch.

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Smash your face through the glass.

Don’t resist. Why resist? Because you think there’s another way out? Because you think that someone will come to save you? Because you think the robot sent to murder you would rather have a smoke break instead?

There isn’t. They won’t. It wouldn’t.

So with your arms tied behind your back and that glass window the only means of egress at your disposal, you’ve only got one viable option. You’ve got to smash your face through that fucking glass, projectile yourself through the jagged shards, and pray to Baal that you don’t fatal-nick any of your precious heart-tubes.

But if you pull it off, you’ll be staved. Not saved — `cause no who’s been targeted by one of those clunky metal fucks gets away forever – but staved. And don’t give me any shit about the “you” not being the direct object or that it’s “the inevitable” or “your demise” that’s been “staved off,” because I know what the fuck I’m going for here.

Anyways, I hear the gears and whirrings of a Kill-Bot coming. So, what’re you going to do? Accept your doom or fight for a few more minutes of possibility? What do I suggest?

Smash your face through the glass.

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Welcome to the MONDAY MORNING COMMUTE!

Now that you’ve survived a worrisome bit of drivel-fiction, it’s time to share the fun stuff we’ll be doin’ this week! What’re you puttin’ into your brain so that it lights up? What’s the rock that you’ll be rollin’ to get through the workin’ days?

Let’s go!

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