• Reservoir Dogs / Pulp Fiction / Kill Bill

• Stand By Me

• Dirty Dancing

• The Lost Boys

Star Trek: TNG

Batman: The Animated Series

Space Ghost Coast to Coast

Sexual positions are locked behind tiered paywalls. The most basic ones are free, but as they get more interesting, you have to pay increasing royalty fees.

Chemtrail conspiracy theorists in absolute shambles.

Donald Trump is Pantone 16-1449: Gold Flame.

You must never go there.

That’s basically a plot point in Heinlein’s The Cat Who Walks Through Walls, where visitors have to pay for the amount of air they intend to breathe while visiting the moon.

Also, Idea: invent a copyrightable method of filtering or otherwise treating air. Release your “specially modified” air into the atmosphere. Start charging for every time someone inhales one of your AyreMolecuulz™.

Picsart. I’d like something that can do a bit of photo editing, adjust brightness/contrast/curves, work with layers, and conveniently slap together collages, but that doesn’t interrupt me in between every other operation with an ad or a request to sign up for a subscription to the app.

For sure, the technology and fashion is all VERY late-90s. But the way that The Matrix informed SO many action and scifi movies to follow, and spawned so many cultural touchstones made it break containment.

And then you’ve got subjects that it brings up, like mixed technophobia and technophilia, gender identity, anti-authoritarianism, and so on that are still at the forefront of our cultural awareness. The Matrix has stayed relevant and meaningful in ways that very few works have managed to.

Hackers

Romeo + Juliet

There’s a filter that I apply to these kinds of questions, and it’s that there are some works that are of a particular time, but they ascend beyond that time and just become a part of culture, broadly. Like, Wizard of Oz just IS, Bohemian Rhapsody just IS; they aren’t bounded by their decades of origin.

I’d argue that at least Jurassic Park, and arguably also The Matrix, are above and beyond the '90s in ways that other movies can’t quite achieve.

Clerks is a lot closer to real people’s experience of the '90s, as opposed to quintessential '90s fictions, like Pulp Fiction or Hackers.

Most bugs do groom themselves, but here’s a fun fact! Bed bugs don’t groom themselves, and this makes most standard insecticides ineffective, because they won’t ingest any of the poison they might get on their bodies!

Another fun fact: bed bugs are the fucking devil and I don’t hate them, I haaaaaaaaaaaaaate them.

I bought a warhammer. Then I bought a second warhammer. Don’t regret either purchase.

Okay but hear me out:

I’m not sure if the meme conveys my point precisely. I’m not saying that the Olympics are a genetic superman breeding program.

I’m saying that if you put a call out across the globe for the most gifted competitors for decades, you’re going to be getting people who are already deeply passionate about their events, but if you presume that level of competitive spirit to begin with, then you’re going to start seeing people who are also genetically advantaged emerge as top competitors.

Michael Phelps is already an incredibly passionate swimmer, but then again so is everyone in the pool with him. He’s got his super long arms that, if he weren’t competitive, wouldn’t be worth a damn, but combined with his training and commitment help give him an edge.

I bet if you did a little digging you’d see all sorts of genetic quirks among top level Olympians. Weight lifters with surprisingly dense muscle fiber, skaters and gymnasts with extra-robust inner ears, target shooters with extraordinary eyesight. It’s not meant to take away from their talent or the work they’ve done, but it’s not any more surprising than seeing extraordinarily tall players in the NBA, or extraordinarily stocky NFL linebackers.

Pretty much

Highly recommend Pod Save America and their spinoffs / associates. The Pod Save guys are ex-Obama staffers, so they know how the sausages are made, but they are by no means full-time DNC cheerleaders. Just lately their conversation seems to in the realm of “Biden is the nominee, but we have a responsibility to have a level-headed conversation about if that is the best idea; every possible choice comes with risks, and we aren’t doing ourselves any favors if we don’t consider them.”

They make no secret about the fact that they are pushing a progressive agenda, but they also aren’t blowing smoke up your ass about how well we are or aren’t doing, or if democratic figures have made gigantic fuck-ups, which I appreciate.

I was trying to watch the original Nosferatu but the version I was watching had dogshit Casio keyboard accompaniment. I muted it and had Spotify put on a playlist based on “Danse Macabre.” Much better. That said, a proper silent movie with live accompaniment is fucking fantastic. I saw Dorothy Vernon of Haddon Hall that way and loved it.

I wonder if he was trying to mate with the toilet.