Nightmare film festival

Thursday 9/25/25

I hate how you look something up on Google and AI intercepts the request so that you get that block of AI-generated text before anything else. Depending on the subject, most of what's in that block can be wrong. This is almost always the case with anything related to art. You have to scroll past the block to get to the results. Many people--most--don't do this. They rely on the AI. They're unwilling to put in the "effort" to go any further.

This is one reason why magazines and newspapers get even fewer of their precious "clicks" now, which is all that they became interested in. Not their content and the quality thereof. They didn't care about that. Stopped caring about it, if you prefer. They just wanted your click, when they should have been investing in talent and making sure the product was as strong as possible. Meaning, they featured the best writing. But now AI jumps the route, so to speak, makes the interception, and people get what they think is the information they wanted so there's no need to click on that piece in The Atlantic or The New York Times, which they don't even see as an option now because they scrolled no further than the AI block.

I was going to try and do something I'd not done in the Monument this week, but I was derailed yesterday and ran zero circuits. I had an exchange with someone I used to be friends with that was highly unpleasant, and then I got caught up in the writing of a new story which I will return to shortly. It's early now and I'm fairly fresh and up and running so it needs to be a full, productive day.

I had many nightmares last night. It can be like a film festival of nightmares. Quite a few involved college, for some reason, with a bunch within that group involving a girlfriend from back in college, about whom I've not had nightmares previously, though she has turned up in dreams every now and again. There were also nightmares about classes themselves. Then I had a nightmare about the first person I dated after my divorce, back when I dated people, which I have not done now in more than ten years, for a multitude of reasons, including the situation I am in and that there is no one for me in this world of stupidity, simplicity, and narcissism. Or so far as I can tell, there is no one for me. Who will be smart enough? Decent enough? Who will grow enough or be open to? Who will be able to keep up? Who will want to be a part of this situation and life that is worse than hell for me right now? There are no vacations, no house. Nothing but the torture, the discrimination, the pain.

No one is going to be strong enough to want to pair up with that person, and we're going to have nothing in common anyway, which would be the same if life was wonderful for me and the opposite of what it is right now. I keep going up, and the world keeps going down, taking seemingly everyone with it. There is little to no real connection in this increasingly post-human world anymore. We're becoming incapable of it. People are too broken. Too scared. Too insecure. Too selfish. Too self-obsessed. They need to be enabled. Lied to. Coddled. They're inauthentic. They can't communicate. They don't have the language skills or the brain power. They mostly just want those "likes," whatever form that takes. It's not limited to the screen and social media. That kind of thinking--and that way of being, which isn't a way of truly being at all--is pervasive throughout life now. Regardless of how miserable they are, and how miserable being like they are has made them. How disconnected and alone. They offer almost next to nothing. Take the physical out of it, and we're rubbing right up against nothing. Companionship for the sake of companionship, while really being two people in semi-shared isolation. You need to talk like a moron, or else you'll find yourself alienated. You have to be like everyone else, and what everyone else isn't good. It's awful.

This woman lived in Los Angeles. Owned a business getting the kids of very rich people into "elite" colleges, which is an oxymoron. The only way to be educated is to educate yourself. No school system or university is going to provide anything but the barest rudiments. Like how to sound out words and then do long division and later know that a guy named Faulkner wrote a book called The Sound and the Fury. It goes no further than that. Look at all I know. Where do you think it came from? Every last bit of it. From me and no one else.

I'm pleased with what the Red Sox did the last two nights. They essentially played themselves into the playoffs. Well done, team. Meanwhile, the Tigers and the Astros have essentially played themselves out of the playoffs, though one of them is going to have to make it because there are six spots to fill. I think the Tigers have the tiebreaker over the Astros--who trail them by one game--but I'm not sure about that. I just know the relevant Red Sox tiebreakers (and a few stray others I've come upon by accident). The Astros are a game back of the Tigers so it looks like they'll be the team on the outside looking in.

Crochet gave the Sox eight innings last night, allowing only three hits, with zero walks. Shutdown performance. Win number 18, which, as I said back when he had 16, would be a nice number to finish at, and so he did. He delivered on the promise of his talent in his first season in Boston and will likely finish second in Cy Young voting.

The Red Sox are likely to find themselves back in Toronto next week. They'd have to advance to the next round to play any playoff games this year at Fenway.

Everything people say now is wrong, no matter how simple and limited the topic. I never see anything anyone writes anywhere that is correct all the way through. Here's something I saw today, about Trevor Story's worthiness for Comeback Player of the Year:

Given where he was over the prior three years, I can't see how it's not Trevor Story. This is the Trevor Story we expected after his stint with the Rockies. What a joy he's been to watch. He hasn't had exceptional stats but his 3.2 WAR is nothing to sneeze at, and his base running has been a joy. Who else has had a comparable comeback season?

This is completely wrong. Backwards. His quality stats, as such, are his traditional stats. Home runs and RBI. His WAR is what's lackluster. If you were Trevor Story's agent trying to talk up the season he's had, your focus would be the RBI, and you'd try not to bring up his pedestrian WAR.

It's absurd how far from the mark of truth that every Beatles comment, attempt at analysis, "hot take," and "observation" is.

NFL released it's long list--so many of these guys have no business being on it--of modern era Hall of Fame candidates. I loved Tedy Bruschi as a player, but come on. And Alex Smith? What are we doing? As I say each year it seems around this time: Randall Cunningham should be in. His career looks better now than it did when it was playing out. And so should Rodney Harrison. Those are the two guys among this group of players that I'm probably the most invested in as a "cause." Stanley Morgan is my main football Hall of Fame cause overall, but he's part of a different group.

My five-year-old buddy Amelia FaceTimed her grandmother the other day from the playground, all excited, because she wanted to show her something. A few months ago, Amelia made it all the way across the monkey bars, and she was very pleased with herself, but then she wasn't able to anymore. This frustrated her, so she kept working at it, and then was able to once again. After she did it, she had to show my mom, who then watched Amelia do it a second time. She would get blisters on her hands from trying so hard. Obviously I respected that, and sent my sister a text telling Amelia great job.

It's warm and wet outside this morning. Bedewed and humid. The internet was down for a couple hours since I began this entry, which I spent working on the new story. May be close to done. This one's gone fast. Paragraph from it:

So, you know. Stick to the story. Remember the skyline. It’s fine. Probably. Make it fine in your mind. Get on board with it being fine again. Hang tight. You’re just tired. Dealing with a lot. The side hustle. Mom and pop. And not the type of store. The winter we’ve had. He left because of this, but I should have left because of that. Speaking of games. Blame. You sit here, I’m over there. A disgusting over-familiarity with the word “oncologist.” The kid you can’t reach for the two that you do, and it’s not like you can say two out of three is better than none at all. Funny how that works. But yeah. It’s probably fine. Don’t buckle. See it as you should, not as you never once thought it was before today anyway. Or last week. Two weeks ago. Whenever. We good? Great.

The stuff.