Michael’s Journal

TV Isn't What It Used to Be

2026-08-09T14:47:30-04:00

Read on ign.com · View original Mastodon post

I don't watch this series, though it has interested me. Still, its general theme fits what I want to talk about here.

People wonder why TV viewing and TV series are dying. Well, when you have to wait a couple of years for 8 to 10 episodes, maybe 12 if you are really lucky, that is ridiculous. From an outsider's point of view, something is clearly wrong with the TV industry.

I have said this a hundred times, and I will keep saying it: when I was growing up, TV had an actual season. You knew roughly when it would start and end, within plus or minus a week or two. There were holiday specials, and every "TV season" usually had anywhere from 18 to 30 episodes. Of course, there were exceptions, like first seasons with fewer episodes to test interest and ratings.

Now, there is no set schedule. You get 8 to 10 episodes every couple of years, and by the time a new season finally comes out, you have already lost interest. You have forgotten what happened, stopped caring, and moved on.

Then, on top of everything else, they do not even drop all the episodes at once. Come on! That is frustrating.

So I would rather wait until every episode is available, even if I have to wait a couple of years before watching something new. In the meantime, I have been watching more old TV shows. I barely get invested in new ones anymore because of these shenanigans.

Happy Blogiversary to Me, 25 Years!

2026-08-06T07:45:00-04:00

Celebrating 25 years of blogging with gratitude, reflection, and a sweet slice of success surrounded by creativity and joy.

August 6, 2001, 25 years ago. I started blogging. I had a website made by Microsoft FrontPage and hosted on GTE (now Verizon) in the homepages they offered back in those days for residential customers. In fact, your ISP provided everything for you. You had so much website space and an ISP-provided email, which you lost if you changed providers. That's foreign today.

But I started on Blogger before it was owned by Google on this date in 2001. Hard to believe it's been 25 years since I started blogging. Here is my first post ever. It's even harder to imagine I've been doing this for that long. I think blogging helps me get stuff off my chest, though very, very few people read it. I like to vent, review, or just get my thoughts down about different subjects. I like to think not only have my website and my blogging improved, but my knowledge has improved. Here's to 70 more years of blogging. I hope to be blogging and to have a website of some kind, no matter how they may change in the future. So Happy Blogiversary to me.

Learning to Live Without My Glasses

2026-08-02T02:24:31-04:00

I saw the title of Antonio’s post the other day on bubbles.town, “I Couldn’t Live Without My Glasses”, and it intrigued me.

The first thing I do when I wake up isn’t checking my phone or making coffee. It’s putting on my glasses.

This was never me. I was the opposite. I could see my phone and other things up close, such as the alarm clock. Putting on my glasses was usually the second or third thing I did because I needed them to see at a distance.

Before cataract surgery, I was nearsighted and also had astigmatism. I could see things up close without glasses, but I needed my glasses to see clearly at a distance and for almost everything else. What Antonio wrote still struck a chord with me because I could relate to nearly every word in his post.

Do you ever have a

2026-07-25T22:32:16-04:00

Do you ever have a bunch of blog post ideas bouncing around in your head but no idea where to start, what would actually be interesting, or how to flesh them out? That's been me lately.

My vision is improving, but my eyes aren't fully healed. My right eye, the first to be operated on, just hit the one-month mark. The left is about two weeks behind. I have one more doctor visit to get a prescription for reading glasses and maybe fine-tune my distance vision. Distance seems okay, but reading and intermediate vision are tricky. The intermediate could use some fine tuning, and my short-distance vision is definitely worse and needs more correction. With this better vision, I'm trying to blog more, get more done, and make progress before the next hurdle.

Catching up feels overwhelming. I keep trying to do five things at once, so I need to slow down and focus. On top of everything else, I have a backlog of podcasts to listen to or watch and a pile of unread items in my RSS reader. I'm slowly whittling the list down.

I'm trying a new program called Wispr Flow to compose this post and see how it works. I've always wondered if composing this way, using my voice, would be easier than typing and then refining. I'll give it a shot for a little while and see if it helps me focus. If it goes well, I might use it more for quick drafts.

I just wanted to say I saw the news of John C. Dvorak passing yesterday. I hadn't heard mu…

2026-07-23T22:31:54-04:00

I just wanted to say I saw the news of John C. Dvorak passing yesterday. I hadn't heard much from him in years and often assumed he had retired. I was first introduced to him by watching Leo LaPorte and TechTV back in the day.

I remember being introduced to Google Voice when Mr. Dvorak and Leo talked about it on a show. I can't recall the exact show or episode, but Mr. Dvorak talked about how he and his son used it to save on phone costs. If I remember correctly, it helped with long-distance charges, though I'm not certain. I also remember reading the articles he wrote for PC Magazine.

What I didn't know until he passed was that he came from a semi-famous family, the inventor of the Dvorak Keyboard (never used one).

It's getting to the point where some of the pioneers from the internet era are starting to pass, and that's a sad reality. I knew of John C. Dvorak more than Om Malik, even though Mr. Malik and I were closer in age. These losses feel like the end of a chapter.

Praying for his family to have strength and resolve.

Responding to the AI Image Debate

2026-07-19T18:01:47-04:00

A thoughtful couple contemplates the evolving intersection of creativity and technology, symbolized by a brain merging artistic tools with digital circuitry under a spotlight.

I was browsing topics and titles on bubbles.town when I came across a post by Panagiotis Vryonis, AI-generated blog post images are not cool any more. It reminded me of another post I read a few months ago, On AI Images and Feature Images in General by Kev Quirk. I have been meaning to respond to his piece.

Last year, I wrote a post about using featured images called To Feature Image or Not. That post surprised me by getting a couple of responses. I usually get almost no feedback, so the email replies were unexpected.

The readers who responded basically said the same thing: It is your blog. You can use featured images if you want.

Cheers to 100 Years, Moody Radio

2026-07-18T06:00:00-04:00

Celebrating 100 years of Moody Radio, connecting generations through timeless broadcasts and iconic moments captured in history.

This is a year of anniversaries. Moody Bible Institute turns 140 and Moody Radio turns 100. I listen to Moody Radio almost daily. I think Moody Church and Moody Bible Institute are the premier Evangelical Christian sword in today's world. You can find a great timeline with historical pictures here. Happy 140 years, Moody Bible Institute, keep turning out those Christian men and women. Happy 100 years to Moody Radio. Here's to another 100 years, unless the Lord tarries.

Links may be shortened via mtribe.link for cleaner formatting. All links redirect to their original destinations.

Colophon

2026-07-13T00:00:00+00:00

This site is my small corner of the web. It is where I write, experiment, and keep a record of things that matter to me.

Michael’s Journal is built from Markdown, generated with Zola, versioned in GitHub, and deployed on Cloudflare Pages. Zola is a static site generator, and Cloudflare Pages supports Git-based deployment workflows for Zola sites, which fits the way this site is published today.

Why This Site Exists

I have been writing online for 25 years this August, a quarter century that has ebbed and flowed, starting with Microsoft FrontPage and Blogger. When Blogger started to feel limited, I moved to WordPress and stayed there for years, but never really felt comfortable with it and eventually left.

After that I returned to Blogger, then found Write.as and later Micro.blog. Micro.blog changed how I think about publishing on the web, and it eventually led me to platforms like Scribbles that I still enjoy using.

Today I still publish across several platforms, including Blogger, Micro.blog, Scribbles, and Write.as. This is a custom-built system, designed with help from Claude and ChatGPT. My Blog Poster CMS lets me post to any or all of them at the same time, unless I decide otherwise.

This site is where everything comes together. It is built with Zola, managed through GitHub, and deployed on Cloudflare Pages, and it is becoming my primary home on the web.

How The Site Is Built

The site is made from a few small pieces working together.

Generator

The site is built with Zola, a fast static site generator written in Rust. Zola generates complete static files, which makes it a good fit for a simple, fast, low-maintenance personal site.

Content lives as Markdown with TOML frontmatter, all tracked in Git. The design started from the Ergo theme and has been customized over time with things like a rotating avatar, an expanded archive view, custom stats pages, an On This Day page, and a blogroll.

Hosting

The site is hosted on Cloudflare Pages. Cloudflare Pages connects to Git repositories and automatically deploys changes when new code is pushed, which matches the way this site is built and published.

Cloudflare also handles DNS, CDN delivery, HTTPS, and related edge infrastructure. At this scale, it remains a remarkably practical setup for a personal site.

Writing and Publishing

Posts begin in Blog Poster, a publishing tool I built for myself. It handles drafts, scheduling, image cleanup, AI-assisted feature image creation, alt text, and deciding where a post should go.

Most of the time, Blog Poster can publish to all of my platforms at once. That means this site is part of a broader publishing flow, not a separate manual process.

When a post is ready for this site, Blog Poster exports it to the repository as Markdown and commits it. From there, GitHub and Cloudflare Pages handle the rest of the build and deployment flow.

POSSE and Syndication

Blog Poster coordinates POSSE, Publish (on your) Own Site, Syndicate Elsewhere, through my Personal Events Poster (PEP) service for Mastodon, Bluesky, Sharkey, Pixelfed, and Nostr. Blog Poster records the syndicated URLs so posts on this site can point back to their copies elsewhere, while this site remains the canonical version.

Town Square

At the bottom of most pages, and on its own Town Square page, there is a small live park where anyone visiting at the same time shows up as a little figure. You can wander around, sit on a bench, and chat. It is a playful bit of real-time presence on an otherwise quiet static site.

The TownSquare server and widget are self-hosted. Its live connection, operational statistics, and moderation data are described fully in the Privacy Policy. If TownSquare goes offline, the rest of the site is unaffected and the empty element hides itself.

Bubbles.town

Bubbles.town is a community-ranked blog discovery service that reads this site's public Atom feed. On eligible post pages, its optional, pinned widget supplies the vote count and a link to the corresponding Bubbles entry. Bubbles does not host or control the Journal or its posts.

Listening

The Listening card on post pages shows what I am playing now and my five most recent listens from my public ListenBrainz profile. When ListenBrainz supplies MusicBrainz cover-art identifiers, the card retrieves artwork from the Cover Art Archive, a joint project of the Internet Archive and MusicBrainz.

Built With

Built with ❤️ using Zola

IndieWeb

The site leans into IndieWeb ideas. Posts include h-entry style markup, the Atom feed lives at /atom.xml, and the JSON Feed lives at /feed.json.

New Webmentions now arrive through a Cloudflare public edge at a receiver I operate. My receiver verifies the source link and sends the event into my self-hosted personal inbox app. webmention.io, the hosted service that handled this job for years, still serves the older mentions that live there, and both sources appear together under each post.

Reactions to the syndicated copies of my posts on Mastodon, Bluesky, Sharkey, and Nostr are gathered by my own engagement sync and mirrored back onto each post here, so the conversation around a post stays visible on the canonical page.

Bridgy Fed makes the public Journal identity and posts available to compatible Fediverse and AT Protocol services. A repository workflow reads the public Standard.site records from Bridgy Fed's PDS and stores the resulting post map with the site, allowing each article to advertise its matching site.standard.document record. Those services provide discovery and interoperability; Michael's Journal remains the canonical source and neither service publishes or edits the Journal itself.

There is also a Gemini capsule at gemini://gemini.michaelreflects.com for readers who prefer the quietest corner of the small web.

In the future, I might implement a webring.

Design Choices

The design is intentionally quiet. I want the writing and images to do most of the work, not motion, popups, or interruption.

The layout stays simple: a readable column, light and dark themes, and semantic HTML. The goal is not to impress anyone with tricks. It is to make the site comfortable to read and easy to maintain, and it takes inspiration from Jim Mitchell's mnml for Micro.blog.

A few pages differ from the rest of the site, including my Twitter Archive page, my Tweets On This Day page, and my Privacy page. All are intentionally designed.

Body text is set in Montserrat, and the post metadata line uses Raleway. I picked them because they work well together and, after a while, stopped seeing any reason to keep fussing with it.

Two details I am especially fond of are the rotating avatar in the corner and the footer counter showing how long the site has been online. Neither is necessary, which is probably why I like them so much.

Privacy

There are no ads or advertising trackers. I prefer a site that feels like a place to read, not a place to be measured. But there are plenty of interaction points, like a water cooler for civil, polite dialogue.

The site uses lightweight Tinylytics and Cloudflare Web Analytics, and the self-hosted TownSquare keeps bounded operational visitor-activity and message-count statistics. The Privacy Policy documents those systems, the third-party resources a browser may contact, and the limited information involved.

On the production domain, the contact link is obfuscated through Cloudflare’s email protection. It works well enough for normal use and makes scraping a little more annoying.

Standards

I would rather the validators be bored than have the site break in small, avoidable ways.

A recent cleanup fixed a number of long-standing HTML and CSS issues, including missing attributes, duplicate values, outdated embed markup, and other small errors that are easy to live with until you finally stop ignoring them.

The validation links below point to live checks for HTML, CSS, feed output, security observations, and the standard.site records that connect posts here to the AT Protocol. They are there partly for transparency and partly because I like being standardized and conforming to established standards.

W3CValid CSS W3CValid Atom Nu HTMLChecked MDNObserved IndieWebReady Standard.siteValidated

Credits

This site exists because of the work of other people whose tools made it possible.

Zola by Vincent Prouillet.
The Ergo theme by Andrew Plaza, which I have heavily customized.
Jim Mitchell, whose work on Clodd CMS and encouragement inspired me to keep improving this site.
Kev Quirk, whose steady, consistent posting has encouraged me to keep showing up and publishing here.
webmention.io by Aaron Parecki, which received this site's webmentions for years and still serves the older ones.
Bridgy Fed by Ryan Barrett and Anuj Ahooja.
Bubbles.town for community-ranked blog discovery and the optional per-post vote-count widget.
TownSquare by Cauê Napier, the open-source live-presence widget that powers the town square.
Tinylytics by Vincent Ritter, which powers the lightweight analytics, the kudos hearts, and the footer counters.
ListenBrainz, which supplies the public playing-now and recent-listen data shown on post pages.
The Cover Art Archive, a joint Internet Archive and MusicBrainz project, which supplies available artwork for the Listening card.
Simple Icons, whose logo set appears on the share buttons under each post.
Dave Winer, whose work on RSS gave the web its feeds and made a site like this one worth following, and Sam Ruby, Mark Nottingham, and Robert Sayre, whose work with the IETF community produced the Atom format this site publishes.
JSON Feed by Brent Simmons and Manton Reece, the other feed this site publishes.
Cloudflare Pages for hosting and deployment.
The wider IndieWeb community for continuing to keep the small web alive. Special mention goes to Manton Reece of Micro.blog and Vincent Ritter of Scribbles.page, whose IndieWeb principles helped guide the structure of this website.
AI, including ChatGPT, Claude, Codex, and other cloud or local AI models, helps me maintain this site for full transparency, but it does not publish any content that is not made by me. These tools help with theming, maintenance, editing, proofreading, alt text, and feature image creation. But I cannot stress this enough: they make no posts of their own. All posts are mine and mine alone.

Privacy Policy

2026-07-13T00:00:00+00:00

Last Updated: August 8, 2026

This Privacy Policy describes how I (the owner of this blog) use and protect any information collected when you visit Michael's Journal, hosted at michaelreflects.com and originally available at michaels-journal.pages.dev. This is a personal blog where I share my opinions, reviews, and thoughts on a variety of subjects; these opinions are mine alone and are subject to change.

This policy describes the browser requests and data handling involved when the site and its optional interactive features are used.

1. Information Collected via Third-Party Services

Tinylytics

I use Tinylytics to understand how visitors engage with my blog. Tinylytics takes a privacy-first approach:

No tracking cookies. Tinylytics does not use cookies or local storage to build a visitor-tracking profile.
No persistent visitor identifiers. Its documented unique-hit process uses a one-way hash that resets daily.
Limited reporting data. It processes page paths, referral information, general browser or device information, and country-level location. Its current documentation says raw IP addresses are not stored in analytics hits and user-agent strings and filtered server logs are deleted after seven days.
Hosted in Europe. Tinylytics documents European hosting while also identifying infrastructure and limited service providers in its own privacy documentation.

I use the reporting available to me solely to understand traffic patterns and improve content. The dashboard gives me site-usage reporting rather than a visitor account or a direct personal identity.

Cloudflare Pages

This site is hosted on Cloudflare Pages. As part of normal DNS, CDN, security, and hosting operations, Cloudflare processes connection data such as IP addresses, request metadata, and performance information. Cloudflare controls its underlying network logs and retention and may expose aggregate or operational information to me through my account.

Cloudflare Web Analytics is enabled and injects a JavaScript beacon into served pages. The beacon sends Cloudflare page-view and browser-performance measurements. I use its aggregate reports to understand site reliability and performance, not for advertising or behavioral profiling. For details, see Cloudflare's Privacy Policy and Cloudflare Web Analytics documentation.

Fonts, icons, and page features

Some pages load small third-party assets or scripts for presentation and site features:

Google Fonts provides the Montserrat and Raleway fonts used by the site.
Font Awesome provides some icons.
Simple Icons provides several social and service icons.
jsDelivr is used on specific pages for JavaScript/CSS libraries such as Chart.js and GLightbox.
Creative Commons provides the license badge image shown in the footer.

These services are used for display and site functionality. I do not use them for advertising, behavioral profiling, or selling visitor data.

Posts and archive pages may also contain externally hosted images, avatars, video or audio players, and other embedded media. Examples include YouTube, PeerTube, Micro.blog-hosted images, public social-platform avatars, and movie artwork. Loading that content contacts the named host, which receives ordinary connection information and applies its own privacy policy. Most current Journal images are served from my dedicated media.mitchelltribe.xyz media host.

Listening card

On eligible post pages, the Listening card automatically requests my public playing-now status and five most recent listens from ListenBrainz, even if the card remains collapsed. The request contains my public ListenBrainz username, not a visitor account or visitor-supplied profile information. ListenBrainz nevertheless receives ordinary connection information such as your IP address, browser request metadata, the referring site or page allowed by your browser, and the time of the request.

When a track includes the necessary MusicBrainz identifiers, your browser may also request its artwork from the Cover Art Archive, a joint project of the Internet Archive and MusicBrainz. That service likewise receives the ordinary connection information needed to return the image. These requests display my public listening activity; they do not create a listening profile for you on this site.

Bubbles.town

Eligible post pages can show an optional vote count from Bubbles.town, a community-ranked blog discovery service that reads this site's public Atom feed. The widget is loaded only when its reserved space near the response controls approaches the visible part of your browser; simply opening an article without reaching that area does not load it.

When the widget loads, your browser requests a pinned script from bubbles.town and sends that post's exact public permalink to retrieve its vote count. The request does not send cookies, but Bubbles' server necessarily receives ordinary connection information such as your IP address, the requested article URL, and the time of the request. If you follow the resulting link, you leave Michael's Journal and Bubbles' own policies apply.

Bridgy Fed and Standard.site

The site publishes metadata links that associate public Journal articles with their public Bridgy Fed and Standard.site/AT Protocol records. These links help compatible services recognize the Journal as the canonical source and render richer references to its posts. Ordinary page rendering does not load executable code from either service; a compatible client or a visitor who follows one of those links may contact the corresponding service. This integration uses already-public article and account metadata, not private visitor profiles or advertising identifiers.

2. Features I Host Myself

The Webmention receiver and TownSquare service run on infrastructure I operate. The disclosures below identify the external services they still contact and the information retained for operation and abuse prevention.

Webmentions and reactions

New Webmentions are received by an endpoint I operate. Cloudflare provides the public edge and secure route to my receiver; my own receiver verifies the source and target URLs, fetches the public linking page, and forwards the result into my self-hosted personal inbox. Older mentions are still displayed from webmention.io, the hosted service that received them in earlier years, and a post page requests that historical data from webmention.io when it loads.

Public reactions to the syndicated copies of my posts on Mastodon, Bluesky, Sharkey, and Nostr, such as likes, boosts, and replies, are gathered by my own engagement sync and displayed on the matching post here. This is information those platforms already publish, shown with the public display name, avatar, and link from the original platform. Displaying an avatar may cause your browser to request the image from the original platform or its image host.

The Town Square

The Town Square is a small live-presence widget I self-host. While you are on a page with the town square, your browser holds an open WebSocket connection to my server so you and other visitors can appear, move around, and chat. It requires no account or sign-in.

Your browser's local storage keeps a random browser ID, a server-issued browser secret, your optional display name and color, and message-board read state. These values support recognition and reconnection across visits; they are not an account and can be removed using your browser's site-data controls.
The connection sends those random identity values, your optional profile choices, the current page title and URL, focus and widget visibility, movement and presence state, and any chat text needed to provide the live experience.
Recent chat is held temporarily in server memory for live and reconnect display and is not written to the TownSquare data directory as a long-term transcript. The current deployment does not send TownSquare chat to Telegram, Gotify, or another third-party notification service.
For bounded operational analytics, TownSquare retains up to 30 days of random browser IDs grouped by UTC day and hour, plus daily message counts. It does not store chat text in those statistics. Clicks on the configured neighboring-site links are tallied by destination with a count and last-click time; the request IP is used for rate limiting but is not stored with that click tally.
The server records the most recently observed Journal page path for site operations. Visitor-join logs can contain the optional display name, IP address, a stable per-site fingerprint derived from the random browser ID, site origin, and bot-protection status. These are server logs rather than public site content.
IP addresses and random browser IDs may be retained when necessary for blocking, rate limiting, and moderation. The site also keeps a capped log of moderation actions.
Closing the page ends the live connection and presence. If Town Square is offline, the rest of the site remains available and the widget hides itself.

3. Data I Do Not Collect

I do not use Google Analytics or advertising-based analytics. The site uses only the Tinylytics, Cloudflare Web Analytics, and TownSquare operational measurements disclosed above.
I do not run ads.
I do not operate an account-based comment system.
Reading the site requires no registration and no email address or real name. Optional TownSquare display names and already-public names attached to Webmentions or social reactions are handled as described above.

4. Third-Party Links

My blog may contain links to other websites. I am not responsible for the privacy practices or content of those sites. I encourage you to read the privacy statements of any site you visit that may collect personally identifiable information.

For more information on Tinylytics data collection and privacy compliance:

5. Children's Privacy

This blog is a personal site and is not directed toward children under the age of 13. I do not knowingly collect any personal information from children.

6. Changes to This Policy

I may update this Privacy Policy from time to time. Changes will be posted on this page with an updated date at the top.

7. Contact

If you have any questions about this Privacy Policy, please contact me at michael@michaelmitchell.email.

My Vision's Big Comeback

2026-07-12T15:38:17-04:00

Me with my glasses for the last time full time pre-surgery.

I just shared good news about my heart journey, and now I can finally share another medical milestone for 2026: my cataract surgeries are done and my vision is back.

For the last couple of years, my sight kept slipping, no matter how many times I got new prescriptions from the ophthalmologist or optometrist. A new prescription might clear things up for a few months, then the blurriness would come back. I found myself contorting my face and doing all kinds of facial tricks just to see. It was soul-sapping. Anyone who knows me knows I don't get depressed easily. At 57, I've had low moments before, but nothing like this. The vision loss pushed me into a prolonged low spell. I stopped wanting to read and lost enthusiasm for work, except as a way to pay bills. Even blogging suffered. After my most prolific year in 2025, I barely posted because I literally couldn't see well enough.

Echo Results Looking Good

2026-07-10T18:25:59-04:00

A man reflects with quiet satisfaction as he reviews positive echo results, surrounded by reminders of gratitude, strength, and progress in a warm, sunlit room.

I wanted to share a long-overdue health update about what has happened this year and why I can finally talk about it. I recently had my second Camzyos cardiology echo and doctor’s visit of the year. I normally go every six months, and this visit gave me my best numbers yet.

On Camzyos, my obstruction is much better controlled. My echo looked fantastic, so I included a table below comparing my results before and after starting Camzyos.

When I first started Camzyos, I was not getting my refills consistently because of REMS requirements and the timing of my echoes and doctor’s visits. This created gaps in treatment. Once my refills became consistent and those delays stopped, the treatment began working much better.

🍿 Watched Project Hail Mary (2026) on Prime Video

2026-07-05T01:45:44-04:00

⚠️ SPOILER WARNING: FULL SPOILERS

In "Project Hail Mary" (2026), a lone astronaut awakens to an uncertain mission, fighting for humanity's survival amid the vastness of space and the unknown.

My Rating: ⭐⭐⭐½ (3.5/5 stars)

Okay, first thing: overall, it wasn't a bad movie. The pacing drags at the beginning, and several scenes could have been explained more clearly or cut shorter. The second half and the ending are much stronger. The first half felt slow, and the premise is kind of stupid, but the story between the two main characters at the end is the best part.

Ryan Gosling was okay in this movie. The film was definitely too long. It's a so-so movie and not worth buying, but I'm glad it's included with my Prime subscription since it gave me something different to watch.

This product uses the TMDb API but is not endorsed or certified by TMDb.

🇺🇸 Happy 250th, America 🇺🇸

2026-07-03T23:59:24-04:00

Celebrating 250 years of freedom and unity with fireworks lighting up the night sky above the U.S. Capitol, as the American flag proudly waves in honor of the nation’s milestone birthday.

Happy 250th birthday, United States of America!

What a strange moment to mark a birthday, given everything going on in the world. Even so, I believe the U.S. has done enormous good and has served as a beacon for the world since at least World War I, if not sooner.

I remember being about 7 years old in 1976, during the last major milestone, America’s 200th birthday. My aunt, uncle, and cousins lived in Lakeland. I was staying with them, and we went to the train yard in Lakeland to see the Freedom Train. It did not stop in Lakeland until December 1976, but I still remember it.

Now it is the 250th anniversary, and this year just feels different. It should be a big celebration, and I hope it is. For all our problems, this is still one of the best countries in the world, and possibly the best.

We will probably stumble at times. When we do, I hope we correct course and keep moving forward, becoming stronger and truer to the ideals that brought us into being. No kings, no queens, no nobility. Our representative government endures. I believe it can be even stronger over the next 250 years.

So happy birthday, America. Let’s keep driving forward. And to my fellow citizens, enjoy the day and celebrate responsibly.

Related Post from last year and still stands true too: Happy 249th Birthday to the United States of America 🇺🇸

Town Square

2026-06-28T00:00:00+00:00

Welcome to the town square, a small live shared space. Anyone visiting right now appears here. Wander around and say hello.

British Humor

2026-06-13T13:31:47-04:00

This was hilarious

USF Turns 70

2026-06-12T00:00:00+00:00

Celebrating 70 years of USF's rich history and vibrant campus life, where tradition meets innovation under the open skies.

As you get older, anniversaries and milestones hit you differently. I don't know why. I don't regret anything in my life, but I do feel nostalgic sometimes. The other day, driving to work, I learned that the University of South Florida is celebrating 70 years this year. That surprised me, because the first founding class attended in 1960, so the 70th anniversary is actually a few years off.

I attended USF from 1987 to 1990. I didn't graduate; I would have had about two years left. 1991 would have been my graduation year, but I was taking it nice and slow. Most people were taking five years, so 1992 would have been my year if I had stayed on track. What would have been my degree? Hold your chair and keep seated, but it would have been Music Education with a minor in Florida History.

Money ran out, I was loaned out, and I decided to join the workforce. Funny enough, I never moved very far from USF. I now work at a non-profit hospital on the USF campus, so for almost my entire adult life I've been connected to the university in one way or another. Technically I guess I can't call myself an alum, but in every other sense I am one.

Here's to USF, 70 years, and all the good you've brought to the community. Go Bulls! 🤘

Star Trek: Outposts Unknown PC Game

2026-06-07T18:32:29+00:00

Star Trek: Outposts Unknown - Official Announcement Trailer - IGN To boldly go… and build in Star Trek: Outposts Unknown. Check out the Star Trek: Outposts Unknown announcement trailer for this upcoming narrative-driven outpost builder game set in the Star Trek universe. Build complex research facilities through the mysterious X’Lehari System. Explore strange new worlds, guide your crew through dangerous encounters, and uncover a cosmic force threatening all life in the system. Set alongside the era of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds, your journey will take you across hostile environments, abandoned ships, ancient ruins, and a fragile civilization in desperate need of aid. Star Trek: Outposts Unknown will be available on PC. A demo is out now on Steam.

— @video-game-and-movie-trailers-ign on mastodon via Video Game and Movie Trailers

This looks very interesting. I will be following this closely.

🍿 Watched Tom Clancy's Jack Ryan: Ghost War (2026) on Prime Video

2026-05-25T13:33:43+00:00

⚠️ SPOILER WARNING: MILD SPOILERS

Tom Clancy's Jack Ryan: Ghost War (2026) brings intense espionage and action as Jack Ryan and his team navigate a deadly covert conflict in a high-stakes battle for global security.

My Rating: ⭐⭐⭐½ (3.5/5 stars)

I agree with the other reviews. I loved the whole cast. John Krasinski does a fantastic job as the lead, and he works well as a replacement for Harrison Ford in this whole new series. The problem was the format: as a movie it felt rushed and the story couldn’t properly develop. This would have benefited from another season or at least a limited one-season run so the characters and plot had time to breathe. The cast gave you everything, they just needed more room to do it.

This product uses the TMDb API but is not endorsed or certified by TMDb.

Who's the Real Loser?

2026-05-23T18:30:27+00:00

Why Gen X is the real loser generation Don’t cry for millennials or Gen Z. Save your pity for those in their 50s

— @daily-reads-TheEconomist on mastodon via Daily Reads

I am a Gen Xer, and I do not consider myself part of a loser generation.

I do think my generation came up during a time when the family was under assault from companies, the economy, and a culture that made it harder and harder for one parent to stay home. I know my mother and father resisted that pressure for as long as they could.

AI Isn't Black and White

2026-05-17T19:00:32+00:00

People of all ages and backgrounds come together outdoors, connecting ideas and technology to illuminate the diverse and collaborative nature of AI innovation.

Okay, this will probably sound controversial, but that's not my intent. I'm just sharing my thoughts because AI is everywhere right now, especially on social media and in blog posts.

These views range from fairly neutral:

To fairly positive, with the idea that you need to learn or use AI because...

To more negative views, often focused on whether AI's value proposition can actually justify the money being spent:

- Ed Zitron