What grinds my gears

If someone even just mentions the name Donald Trump in your presence (in real life or online), regardless of the tone or why he was mentioned, do you immediately feel the compulsive need to butt in and say something negative about the man? If someone mentions merely something that's commonly attributed to him and his presidency (for example the infamous tariffs), do you likewise feel the compulsive need to butt in and disparage the man (even if the original comment was not actually critical)? Do you frequently start saying or writing negative comments about Trump even in conversations that had nothing to do with him? If the topic of conversation deals with negative traits in people in general, do you often feel the need to mention Trump (even if the conversation had absolutely nothing to do with politics)?  Do you readily and eagerly believe every single negative thing claimed about Trump without doing any fact-checking or corroboration that the claim is actually true? Do you immed...

Because the modern western world just loves to self-flagellate and declare all western countries, especially the European and North American ones, as pure evil incarnate, British colonialism has, unsurprisingly, got a really bad reputation and is considered one of the biggest crimes against humanity, perhaps only surpassed by American slavery (and even that just barely). It's curious that only the UK gets that widespread reputation even though Portugal, France, Spain and Italy were also huge colonizers in that same era (and in many aspects in fact even worse, when it comes to the treatment of natives.) Especially Portugal was really prolific on that department, even rivaling Great Britain in terms of the size of their territory and their control over it. Thus, it's a bit odd that only the UK is being mostly maligned on this front. (Spain and France get a bad rep for colonizing North America, but that came later.) But one has to ask: Was British colonialism actually such a horre...

For decades Bioware was one of the largest and most renowned game studios in the world, creating some of the most memorable and lauded game franchises, such as Mass Effect, Baldur's Gate, Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic, and Dragon Age (before the travesty that was the latest installation, that is.) Then, at some point during the last ten years, like so many other western game studios, it got invaded and infected by far-leftist activists of the worst kind. The exact kind of people who openly and brazenly mock and insult their very customerbase because they don't like "gamers", and who killed franchise after franchise with their politics. Former employees have also revealed that, like so many other game studios, also Bioward had become an absolute nightmare and hell to work in because of all the far-leftist activists and busybodies who were more interested in enforcing their politics in the workplace and injecting their politics into the games than actually crea...

There's a scene in the TV series  Better Call Saul  where Mike goes to a group therapy session where the participants have experienced traumatic events, loss of loved ones or other tragedies, and he exposes one of the participants as a pretender, a liar who frequents such sessions and makes up completely fictitious sob stories about a non-existent dead wife. A lot of therapists and people who run these group sessions will attest that such a thing is not just pure fiction, but it does indeed happen in real life, and it happens a lot. In other words, people who go to such sessions and just make up completely invented sob stories, or at the very least greatly embellish what they have experienced (or, perhaps, tell someone else's experience as their own.) I suppose in many, perhaps most, cases this is a form of "Munchausen syndrome". In other words, the person making up fictitious illnesses or tragic events in order to garner attention and sympathy. And what better enviro...

Grand Theft Auto 6 is one of the most anticipated video game sequels of all time (perhaps only second to Half-Life 3, which unfortunately will actually never be made, at least not as originally planned, as has been clearly indicated by Valve.) This is largely because of the astonishing popularity of its predecessor, ie. Grand Theft Auto 5 (which is currently the second best-selling video game of all time, which is pretty remarkable and astonishing, when you think about it.) In fact, it's so anticipated that waiting for it has become an outright popular meme (often of the form "we got (something unusual) before GTA6".) Many people, however, have raised concerns about the possible leftist political messaging and content that the game might contain. These concerns are actually not recent; they get back several years. The concerns have only intensified with the published preview trailers. There are some indications that Rockstar Games, the game studio developing the game (and...

I have written before about absolutely insane laws in the United States that feel  extremely  wrong and unjust. The following two examples of American legal practice are not at that level of total insanity, but they still feel a bit iffy with regards to one's sense of justice. 1) Imagine that you work for a company as an accountant and treasurer, and while doing your job you engage in some shady illegal behavior, embezzling company money, falsifying bookkeeping to try to hide your theft of company money, and so on. This, of course, is very illegal. However, when you get caught, you simply quit your job in that company and... that's it. Nothing happens to you. The company stops pursuing the case and just lets you go free. No consequences. Or imagine that you are a nurse working in a hospital, and while doing your job, you start secretly poisoning patients. Highly illegal activity. But when caught, you just quit your job there and... again, that's it: No consequences. The ho...

Only You (And You Alone) is a famous and very beautiful 1955 song by The Platters. Because of how popular, famous and memorable it is, unsurprisingly it has been used in quite many movies, TV series and video games, such as for example Deadpool&Wolverine, the Fallout TV series and Far Cry 5. And, in at least one sense, that has pretty much ruined the song. If you go to almost any YouTube video for the song (especially the official one), 99% of the comments will be nothing but completely stupid references to those games and movies. One particular example I found particularly sad was a comment made by an elderly widow who wrote a really emotional and touching comment about how her husband would sing the song to her, and how much she misses him. And what do you know, almost every single reply to that beautiful emotional comment is nothing but idiots making stupid references to those movies and video games. It's extremely tactless, inappropriate and infuriating. Here we have a swe...