Over a decade later, the film is more relevant than ever
I saw District 9 when it first came out over a decade ago. I was a fresh-eyed seventeen year old seeing his first R-rated movie without his parents. I went to see the film with a friend of mine on opening weekend. We were expecting a violent alien-filled romp, and that’s sort of what we got. We also got a thoughtful and relevant film that still remains in both of our top ten films lists.
I recently re-watched District 9 as a part of a new movie podcast I’m doing with my wife (shameless plug here). It was her first time seeing the film, and we were both struck by not only how well the film held up, but also how its themes appeared more relevant than ever, at least in the United States. …
Getting started on the massive writing platform as an aging millenial is awkward and terrifying
Look, we all know what Wattpad is, I’m not going to explain it to you.
Okay, so Wattpad is this site where writers can publish their work to a community of writers and readers to get feedback on their work. That’s the long and short of it. I’m not here to talk about the pros and cons of whether it’s a worthwhile investment, what fiction is or isn’t popular on the site, or anything like that. Instead, I have a simple question.
Am I too old for Wattpad?
I’m not “old” in any traditional sense. I’m 28, so that still puts me on the younger side of Millennials. However, most of the users on Wattpad are teenagers. Think fourteen to seventeen. Wattpad has been around forever (hell, I remember reading it when I was in high school). …
The books that got me through this hell year
2020 was a trash year for the vast majority of us (unless you were Jeff Bezos). We all had ways of coping with it, and mine so happened to be digging deep into my favorite hobby: reading.
A lot of people were hoping to make this their reading, but if you didn’t read as much as you do, you shouldn’t feel bad about it at all. This year took a toll on us in ways that are hard to quantify.
That being said, I read quite a bit (especially compared to prior years). …
Reading in the dark kept me in the light
Horror novels have been a staple of my reading diet ever since I read Misery by Stephen King in college. Ever since then, I have read 5–7 horror novels a year. Those have largely been Stephen King and Joe Hill, but I’ve also read Paul Tremblay, H.P. Lovecraft (oof, the racism, though), and Ania Ahlborn.
However, in 2019 I decided to take a break. My personal life was tumultuous, and I recently developed some pretty severe anxiety over it. I used to love dreary, painful, and emotionally distressing fiction more than anything in the world. But suddenly the material I came to love was doing more harm than good. I was losing sleep. I wasn’t eating well. …
Today I got more views than I ever have. So that’s pretty cool. I hope you all enjoy the content. This is my seventh week writing seriously on Medium and…
You can get a lot for $549
Yesterday, Apple announced it’s ludicrously priced Airpods Max, coming in at $549. That is one heck of an Apple Tax for a fancy wireless headset.
As I expressed yesterday, there is just no way that the Airpods Max are worth that much. And I say that as an Apple guy who is pretty much committed to this ecosystem. Airpods Max will have the spatial audio first introduced in the AirPods Pro, but is that really worth it?
Plus, the carrying case looks like a bra.
Are you thinking about podcasting or streaming? I’m launching my own podcast here soon, and I just so happened to write an article about the best streaming mics. If you’re…
There is no way Apple’s new headphones are worth it. Sorry, but there is simply no timeline where the AirPods Max is worth almost $300 more than the Sony WH-1000XM4.
…
These will help you understand what went wrong in the trash year 2020
2020 has been…interesting, to say the least. In fact, it’s been downright awful. For some, the tragi-comedy of 2020 may seem like a neverending stream of bad luck.
However, today I will argue otherwise. A year like 2020 has been a long time coming, and unless there are substantial economic, political, and cultural shifts as a response to it, years like 2020 will become more frequent.
Even COVID-19 and the collapse of the global economy are more directly tied to policy failures and leaders outright ignoring the warnings of epidemiologists for decades. …
The Purdue Pharma scandal is business as usual
Over the weekend, the New York Times published a damning piece revealing McKinsey Co. — the world’s largest consulting firm — worked with Purdue Pharma to incentivize pharmacies to write OxyCotin prescriptions. Their solution? To offer nearly $15,000 to pharmacies like CVS when one of their patients developed an addiction or overdosed on the opioid.
In a 2017 presentation, according to the records, which were filed in court on behalf of multiple state attorneys general, McKinsey laid out several options to shore up sales. …
