At least in that case, we could look forward to one of them saying something dumb like, "The moon is fake, it's not like I could actually go there." NASA leadership could launch a mission to send them to the moon to prove it real and just go, "Oops, we missed. Darn thing moved on us."

Yeah, always worth bearing in mind that the original pilgrims were such insufferably uptight Protestants, the English said, "Come on, fuck off then, you lot are miserable to have around," in the decades leading up to Parliament starting to pass laws banning Christmas in 1644, and Oliver Cromwell taking over rule of the country a decade later. Really says something about them.

I went and saw Nabucco. Was pretty enjoyable, and I got to sit in the orchestra section with one of the cheaper tickets they release the day of the performance. Would go back for another if I could avail myself of the program again.

I had also deliberately picked one of the shorter operas they put on that season, wasn't trying to commit to some 5 hour monstrosity straight out the gate.

I got invited to some sort of literary award ceremony at the French embassy a few years back. I, uh, severely underdressed for the occasion. I got the invite for participating in the Albertine book store's bookclub, and for whatever reason, my brain went, "I can show up to this like I would dress for a bookclub session, it's the same people." Spoiler, it was not, and I really should have been at least in a button up and slacks, rather than my hoodie and jeans. As luck would have it, the gentleman who won the award, Emmanuel Dongala, was sat next to me during the speeches. I can still remember the look of "What the classless, American fuck is this guy doing?" as he took his seat next to me.

On the other hand, I went to my first opera at the NY Metropolitan Opera last year basically dressed the same way, and it was surprisingly entirely fine. Turns out, very few people want to be sat for hours in formal attire when hardly anyone can see you in the dark, anyway.

Turns out the "Please don't vote for fascism" vibe isn't very appealing to the country.

That was one vibe. Unfortunately, the rest of the vibe from the Democrats have been, "Well, things are actually pretty good, just look at our charts. Economy is doing great!". I think that's where they really failed the vibe check, telling people not that they will improve things in a major way, but that the status quo is mostly acceptable and they'll keep things from getting worse.

Change was the order of the day, and they ran a campaign on stability instead.

Nah, "Brain-eating worm tried to eat my brain and died from it," crazy.

I write almost everything I can with a fountain pen, and have for probably the last 12 years or so. I have my nicer ballpoints for using at work, where a fountain pen wouldn't be practical, or on the rare occasions I have to sign receipts or get a hardcopy of the paper for the crossword.

I've gotten the most use in maintaining a journal, which I've done with some regularity since I first bought a Pilot Metropolitan all those years ago. Now that I'm taking another go at university, I've also written all my course with them, which is probably several hundred pages by now. Every so often, I take a stab at writing some fiction, but those efforts haven't really amounted to more than one short story.

I keep a planner, and write letters to one friend on occasion. I've got a very neglected Gemini blog that I would also like to draft out entries by hand in, just to be writing something and publishing it into the void on a somewhat regular basis.

You could certainly say the Democrats should have been able to come up with a better outreach plan rather than running the same old plan that hasn't penetrated into this group for the last several elections. It's not as though the culture war nonsense and insane rightwing elements of the party are novel factors, such that the Dems can shrug their collective shoulders and say "Hey, we did our best, be we were flying blind into the unknown."