David: Clone

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I’m, like, 84% certain she’s a clone, and her “abandonment” was an intentional act to create another hole card, carried out by the same old fellow who had that missing map piece.

David: Vodka and Key Lime LaCroix

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The most refreshing way to get tipsy.

David: The Way I Feel About Guns

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I like guns.

Whenever a person hears the word "gun" a mental picture of a gun usually appears in their head. Of course, it largely depends on context what your brain chooses from the catalog of firearms you're familiar with. When it comes to me, it's more often than not to be a Colt Single Action Army. My love for this particular firearm and revolvers in general is likely born from a childhood of cap guns, TV cowboys, and a fascination with the clockwork machinery.

Other people see different guns. Some see a semi-automatic Glock pistol. Perhaps an Uzi SMG (80s action movies, anyone?). My kids picture the cartoony proportions of various Fortnite weaponry. Still others picture AR-15 style "sporting" rifles, bolt action hunting rifles, or maybe even fantasy pieces like Deckard or Han Solo might carry.

Despite their varying proportions, they all share one thing in common. Ammunition goes in and damage comes out.

So why do I like guns? As I touched on previously, the machinery of a revolver is particularly interesting to me. Something about the ratcheting clicks and visible rotation when the weighty hammer is pulled back scratches an itch. When live, there's a sense of an explosion being held back. The gun is stuck in a moment in time, the inevitability of it being fired is definite. The bullet will fly and will damage the target. When released, it will travel faster than I could ever imagine being propelled, and carry more kinetic energy than I am capable of generating. It's devoid of decision making, however.

It has to wait for me.

It's a powerful feeling, controlling that explosion. If you're a good shot, it's also very rewarding to see a tight spread on the target. To direct with precision such energy.

The entertainment value is secondary, however. Guns weren't invented to solve the problem of how to shoot holes in paper from afar. Guns have a primarily lethal purpose. Anyone who tells you otherwise is at best lying to you and at worst lying to themselves.

Guns make many people feel safe. I get it. They believe they're protection from whatever boogeyman they're afraid of. And make no mistake, there are boogeymen out there. The boogeymen will always have guns, so we must have guns ourselves to even the playing field. For that very reason, guns don't make me feel safe. I've watched too many people handle firearms irresponsibly. I've been in rooms where firearms have been waved about without regard to muzzle direction. I've witnessed accidental discharges.

I'm more worried about being shot by accident than I am about being shot on purpose.

I think a world without guns would be better than the one we have.

I realized the other day that kids probably don't read nearly as much as they did when I was young, and that the same was probably true for my generation, and even the one before. The lack of imagination of my generation seems to be on weekly display in movies and television. The truth is there are only so many stories you can tell (man v man, man v nature, man v himself), but we've given up on original settings, characters, and storytelling patterns in favor of a constant revisit of the existing. 25 years ago stories used to breathe more, but now they're just conflict, joke, conflict, joke, conflict. Every 5 minutes you are awaiting a resolution. Tension, release, tension, release, tension, release. It's a pattern that creeps into life. Into the news. Into politics.

I think the imagination that we used to use to solve big problems is shrinking.

I think they'll still be trying to figure this out 100 years from now.

I still like guns, but I also like a lot of things that aren't good for me. Like sugar.

David: Once Upon a Time...in Hollywood

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Funny. Deliberate. Perplexing. Heartwarming. Disgusting.

Clever.

David: Wing Commander Parable

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Besides Infocom's text based adventure "Deadline", Wing Commander was my favorite computer game back in 1992. I loved everything about it. The gameplay, the cutscenes, the dialog. I went by the callsign "Tight Shot" (no idea what that means). I replayed the game dozens if not hundreds of times trying to map out all the points of the branching narrative tree. If fandom wiki's had been a thing back then, I probably would have been very active on Wing Commander's.

My friend Brandon had a copy of Wing Commander as well. Playing at his house led to a revelation; there was an animated flight stick in the cockpit. Back home, there was just empty space. My 12 year old self was confused. What was happening here? Did he have a different version of the game? Nope. The answer (as probably told to me by Brandon himself) was that the Emerson family computer lacked the RAM requirement to add some of the graphical bells and whistles.

The next time I typed "wc.exe" into the DOS command line at home I was greeted by a game that was lacking. That empty space in the cockpits of my fighters was a constant reminder that there was something better out there. That the computer I was using could be better. Wing Commander suddenly wasn't fun. It was a poor benchmark score.

So I started playing Altered Destiny instead.