Wed, 6:20: Me to anyone discussing zodiac signs unironically, as if they mean anything AT ALL: https://t.co/xr4zi7lRCB

Wed, 9:31: All this nostalgia for the nineties is strange to me, because we went into the nineties with a picture of that decade as this forward-thrusting threshold into the next millennium: culture was still fixated on "The Year Two Thousand" as this iconic symbol of futurism, even when it was less than a decade away.

I don't think any other decade was ever regarded in quite the same way. As far back as the mid-seventies there was the TV series SPACE: 1999; the "futuristic" movie STRANGE DAYS came out in 1995 and was set on the last two days of 1999. My guess is the 1968 Kubric film 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY was a huge part of this, with an effect that was surprisingly enduring.

Back *in* the nineties, the nostalgia was for the seventies (then a little bit of eighties nostalgia, by the end of the nineties). This seems to be the cycle: nostalgia for the decade before last. People are already starting to look back at the "old ways" of the early 2000s, and I guess once you get into your forties and later, that shit starts to feel very weird.

I mean . . . anyone born just twenty years ago (that's 2001!) probably has no real clue what, say, the cultural narrative of Y2K was like. In 1999 in particular, the ideas permeating the zeitgeist were full of excitement, promise, and danger. The clock ticked us into the new millennium and it was really more like ... huh. That's it?

Probably the only thing that came even close to how we all envisioned the transition into the new millennium was the explosion of the internet, and it was another decade before even social media began to transform into what it is now. We STILL don't have flying cars and I am very disappointed!

Wed, 18:31: Somebody likes to fish! https://t.co/AQ57ReDFPp
Wed, 20:14: I fail to see the use in any movie whose entire worldview is straight up nihilism. https://t.co/dAAEcVjmoB
Wed, 22:10: This was the lullaby I needed tonight. https://t.co/wxu4Nin9cC

— चार हजार नौ सौ बयासी —

Shobhit had to join his Project Management class late last night, as the class starts at 5:30 but he had a work shift until 6:00, not getting home until around 6:30—this might be the first time he did not manage to schedule himself a work shift that did not overlap so much with one of his classes.

As soon as my work day ended, I made dinner: a bag of frozen rice and vegetables, which I mixed with one of the bags of veggie chicken, in both cases samples from work. I had thought about making pasta but did not have all the ingredients I wanted for a sauce. But then this brilliant idea came to me. Shobhit wasn't overtly excited about it—he never is when something I make has a lot of veggie meat in it—but, at least he didn’t complain either. And sometimes I have to deal when he makes a dinner I find unexciting to, so hey, fair is fair!

For some reason I can't remember much what I did for the next couple of hours. I know I didn't watch a movie. Did I watch a TV show? Aside from a 12-minute episode of UNHhhh with Trixie Mattel and Kata Zamolodchikova, not that I can recall. I did spend some time captioning photos from my Birth Week, which I am still working on. (Some of them I am captioning just as I use them for these DLU posts; that way of anyone ever clicks on any of the images used in these posts, there will be a caption below it.) I finally finished the Jarrell Cove State Park / Birth Week Overnight with Jennifer photo album, which at 57 shots was the largest album for this year's Birth Week.

Oh! Right: I also edited and uploaded all the photos I wanted to keep from my iPhone taken since my Birth Week ended. That was 37 shots, so it took a little bit of time. I also updated the iOS on my iMac, which these days takes a frustratingly long time, so I scrolled TikTok for some of that time.

— चार हजार नौ सौ बयासी —

— चार हजार नौ सौ बयासी —

Shobhit had some post-class discussion with his usual class group, and then we did watch this week's Last Week Tonight with John Oliver. He had this kind of astonishing main story about local news outlets including "sponsored content' clearly designed to look like it's part of the news broadcast, and he basically pranked local news stations in three cities (Salt Lake City, Austin and Denver) into running "sponsored content" hawking their obviously bullshit "sexual wellness blanket."

I found this whole thing unusually uncomfortable, and I was deeply embarrassed for all of these news anchors unwittingly revealing their complete lack of credibility. I found myself searching for local news coverage of this happening in each of these cities, and it wasn't that hard to find: the Salt Lake Tribune ran an article here (classic lede: "KTVX-Channel 4 was the butt of the joke on HBO on Sunday night, and station personnel have no one to blame but themselves."). The Denver Post covered it here ("Denver7’s 'Mile High Living' fell so hard for a “Last Week Tonight with John Oliver” prank that the impact could practically be heard on the moon."). Austin was slightly more of a challenge, as their main daily newspaper, the Austin American-Statesman, appears to have no coverage; but the new, apparently online local news source Austonia.com has coverage here, featuring a few tweets from locals expressing disappointment in their local TV news channel.

The lack of credibility being revealed here is perfectly valid, but I also think the anchors being embarrassed by John Oliver maybe don't deserve this degree of public humiliation. It's the stations themselves who should be shamed much more than the anchors, but then, of course it's difficult to see how John Oliver could have reported on this issue anywhere near as effectively without highlighting the aired "sponsored content" segments.

One of the articles (Salt Lake City) goes out of its way to say that Last Week Tonight "is a comedy show, not a newscast," which by turn unfairly discredits John Oliver. I won't deny that it's comedy first and news second (not to mention clearly biased), but they still go far more in depth reporting on issues than most news program stories do. People still learn a lot from that show that they don't learn from any other news source. Of course, it would be better if more people read in-depth reporting in actual newspapers, which of course are themselves mostly heavily biased one way or the other . . . it's hard to find truly objective, in-depth coverage anywhere, really. One thing we know for sure: it sure as shit isn't found in Facebook memes.

— चार हजार नौ सौ बयासी —

I just finished with Office Lunch Meetup #43 (my 41st) on Microsoft Teams. Once again not a huge number: just Rebecca, Noah and myself. We talked a lot about travel. At least it was more than just two people, as it had been last week. We now haven't managed more than three in three weeks, but I'm sure we'll get more one of these days. Or, in a month or two, we'll be back working at the office anyway. Here's hoping!

— चार हजार नौ सौ बयासी —

[posted 1:00 pm]