Correction Appended
 
 
Monarch butterflies have a much greater commute to work than I do.  True, while they don’t have jobs, they still have a duty to survive.  They have done the seeming impossible and retained memories of mountains even after being reduced to soup.
I’m sure that sentence made no sense to the average person, and only slightly more sense to an entomologist.
I am not an entomologist and it only makes a little bit of sense to me.
My background is more philosophy, but the local Bug Zoo was only hiring people with biology backgrounds, so I fudged some information on my resume and here we are.  By here, I mean taking a bus to work at a barely above minimum wage job using a regular flight pattern that I’ve subconsciously memorized.  Which goes back to the Monarch butterfly.  And green lights.
These amazing little creatures start off as caterpillars, then work themselves into a cocoon where they basically liquefy, and from this soup they reform themselves completely into a butterfly.
This butterfly then travels from Canada to Mexico, where they lay eggs at various stops.  Their journey takes several generations, and the Monarch that begins the journey is not the same as the one that ends it, or returns back to Canada.  The butterfly lives six to nine months, but it may have gotten only as far as Kansas. So a Monarch born on a Kansas prairie lays an egg on an Eagle Pass highway that leads to a Monarch born in an Ontario canola field.  How in the world does the genetic memory get passed on through several pods of soup to arrive back in Canada?
My route is slightly less intense than that.  I get off the bus and walk for twenty minutes through the downtown to get to the quaint Bug Zoo.  My routine is the same, five days a week, and has become so unvaried that I barely pay attention.  And I don’t have to go through any permutations in order to make my destination, or sire children, or cocoon myself in order to make my journey.
The Monarchs generally fly over Lake Superior in their journey, which is staggeringly hard for any insect to just fly across.  The Monarchs don’t fly straight through, though.  About halfway across the lake they make a turn Eastward for a time before turning back South.  I was thinking about this when I stepped off the bus and onto the sidewalk, pausing just long enough for the person in front of me to move out of the way and into the direction I was also headed.  It was automatic, I just paused knowing they would be in front of me getting off.
Biologists and certain geologists’ think that at one point Lake Superior had a mountain in it, and instead of the impossible task of flying over it, the butterflies learned to go around it and never forgot.  They go halfway, instinct kicks in and they turn left, then they go south again.  Just like me waiting to get off the bus, waiting for the same person to pause and turn every day.
And, just like every day, I get to the crosswalk just as it changes, causing me to stop and be left behind as other travelers finish crossing the street.
I realized that this had become so normal to me that I just stop at the corner and wait for the light.  Repetition does strange things to the mind, and I became irritated that I had to wait for the light to change green.  My mind, descendant of monkeys with ADHD and territorial urges, did NOT like others getting ahead of me this morning.  So I vowed tomorrow that I would increase my pace and make the light.
 
Monarchs start their migration when the sun drops to 57 degrees above the southern horizon, unlike birds that use the weather.  The whoosh of the pneumatic doors was my indicator of flight, and as I was pressed up against them I almost fell out into the street.  I made a brisk pace for the crosswalk when another passenger began to outpace me.  An oddly familiar passenger, even though I could not for the life of me think what their face looked like.  She’s long legged, in jeans, sporting a tight red ponytail that flicks along a black leather jacket.  She cuts me off and I almost trip over my feet, slowed just enough for the light to change and for me to refuse stepping out for fear of the light becoming red before I’ve crossed.  I'm conditioned, forced to have an instinct that doesn't make sense.  Whoever this person is, she has beaten me by several paces.  The time spent waiting for the green light allows me to make a blood oath, which my ancestors will be avenged for this slight, and I WILL make the light tomorrow.  Like the Monarch, I will re orient myself by the scent of the dead as I travel through the mountains.
(Oh, some entomologists believe that Monarchs guide their passage through the Mexico Mountains by recognizing the scent of their dead ancestors.  I don’t think that, because butterflies don’t have fatty acids that would decompose for over a year.  I’m into philosophy, but I’ve still seen a few episodes of CSI).
 
I'm at the last day of my travels, Friday, the weekend, and this time I am again at the bus doors waiting for them to open.  They do and I’m off.  I’m ahead.  I’m winning.
And I notice movement in my peripheral.
It’s the red ponytail, flicking across a leather jacket.  I glance to my left and there she is, running backwards.  I can’t believe it!  I was ahead of her, I was ahead and now she’s running backwards to cut me off for the crosswalk.
“I’ve been winning for four months now.  I’m not going to break my streak.  See you Monday.”  She half stops in front of me, the shock causing me to stop in my tracks, and she turns and makes it across the street while I watch as the light changes.
 
This weekend I will study wasps.
I will be ready for Monday.

​As ever, if you want a synopsis or plot outline, read the back of the book or the Wikipedia page.
I review with the understanding that you have read the book.

London After Midnight starring Lon Chaney is a film that was lost during the 1965 MGM vault fire.  The plot is about a murder, subterfuge by characters seeming to have the powers of hypnotism and are of a supernatural nature.
A mockumentary about London After Midnight, titled Lon Chaney After Midnight, premiered at the Egyptian Theater in 2008.
What, Dear Reader, does this have to do with Drood?
I'll get to that.
First things first.  
This is a delicious read.  It has become very rare for me these days to NOT skim paragraphs and chapters to get to the bloody point.  I usually cannot even remember the characters names in many of the books I read because I care so little for the two dimensional quality that seems to fill most books these days.  It often feels like I am given a trope or cliche regarding a character that is touted as the driving force of the characters psychology.  Current fiction seems to have almost every character be some kind of anti-hero with tragedy as the carrot that leads their ass.

Dan Simmons made me read every word, pay attention to every character, and wrote with an amazing prose.  This is one of the books you read as a journey and not a destination, to abuse a cliche.  It is worth the 700+ pages it takes to go from Charles Dickens train accident to his eventual death, and Wilkie Collins, the drug addicted anti hero narrates the events with his own level of hypnotism.  When I have read other books with this page length, such as Stephen Kings abysmal Under the Dome (spoiler!  Giant space ants from another dimension are torturing us for adolescent fun!), I will sometimes go through it with a red pen and slash all the pages that do nothing to further the plot, character, or to give understanding of the situation.  Kings Dome is over 1000 pages.  It could be 200.  I would not go at Simmons book with a red pen.  Even when it seems like nothing is moving the plot or characters forward, the atmosphere that is developed saturates and immerses you in the Victorian world, it's customs, its culture, and more.  Politics are barely mentioned, yet you can grasp the political climate.  Temperature is romanticized and vilified and adds a shading that doesn't try to act like a metaphor but still sets the tone and "cinema" of any given scene.
I cannot stress how nice it was to read this book, even though the plot itself is creepy and boring (yes, I sad creepy and boring.  A lot happens, but also nothing really happens., and Wilkie Collins is a despicable and loathsome character that is beyond redemption).

I didn't know Wilkie Collins was an actual person, or a real life friend of Charles Dickens.  I thought it was one of those clever stories where the fictional character is written interweaving actual historical events.  So I feel as though I was entertained but also learned something about history, life in the 1800s, beliefs and attitudes of the time.

How does Lon Chaney factor into it?
Drood is the metaphysical being that appears in both Dickens and Collins life, attempting to pull them into his cult using blackmail, manipulation both by strong arm and hypnotism.  He is described as having filed and sharp teeth, eyes with large dark circles under them as well las the eyelids are cut off, an out of date tophat, and a cape.  He is Egyptian.

Go look up London after Midnight and tell me that Drood is NOT described as Lon Chaney.

Read this book if you haven't.  Tell Dan Simmons about my guess regarding Drood.

​ 
Correction Appended
 
 
Monarch butterflies have a much greater commute to work than I do.  True, while they don’t have jobs, they still have a duty to survive.  They have done the seeming impossible and retained memories of mountains even after being reduced to soup.
I’m sure that sentence made no sense to the average person, and only slightly more sense to an entomologist.
I am not an entomologist and it only makes a little bit of sense to me.
My background is more philosophy, but the local Bug Zoo was only hiring people with biology backgrounds, so I fudged some information on my resume and here we are.  By here, I mean taking a bus to work at a barely above minimum wage job using a regular flight pattern that I’ve subconsciously memorized.  Which goes back to the Monarch butterfly.  And green lights.
These amazing little creatures start off as caterpillars, then work themselves into a cocoon where they basically liquefy, and from this soup they reform themselves completely into a butterfly.
This butterfly then travels from Canada to Mexico, where they lay eggs at various stops.  Their journey takes several generations, and the Monarch that begins the journey is not the same as the one that ends it, or returns back to Canada.  The butterfly lives six to nine months, but it may have gotten only as far as Kansas. So a Monarch born on a Kansas prairie lays an egg on an Eagle Pass highway that leads to a Monarch born in an Ontario canola field.  How in the world does the genetic memory get passed on through several pods of soup to arrive back in Canada?
My route is slightly less intense than that.  I get off the bus and walk for twenty minutes through the downtown to get to the quaint Bug Zoo.  My routine is the same, five days a week, and has become so unvaried that I barely pay attention.  And I don’t have to go through any permutations in order to make my destination, or sire children, or cocoon myself in order to make my journey.
The Monarchs generally fly over Lake Superior in their journey, which is staggeringly hard for any insect to just fly across.  The Monarchs don’t fly straight through, though.  About halfway across the lake they make a turn Eastward for a time before turning back South.  I was thinking about this when I stepped off the bus and onto the sidewalk, pausing just long enough for the person in front of me to move out of the way and into the direction I was also headed.  It was automatic, I just paused knowing they would be in front of me getting off.
Biologists and certain geologists’ think that at one point Lake Superior had a mountain in it, and instead of the impossible task of flying over it, the butterflies learned to go around it and never forgot.  They go halfway, instinct kicks in and they turn left, then they go south again.  Just like me waiting to get off the bus, waiting for the same person to pause and turn every day.
And, just like every day, I get to the crosswalk just as it changes, causing me to stop and be left behind as other travelers finish crossing the street.
I realized that this had become so normal to me that I just stop at the corner and wait for the light.  Repetition does strange things to the mind, and I became irritated that I had to wait for the light to change green.  My mind, descendant of monkeys with ADHD and territorial urges, did NOT like others getting ahead of me this morning.  So I vowed tomorrow that I would increase my pace and make the light.
 
Monarchs start their migration when the sun drops to 57 degrees above the southern horizon, unlike birds that use the weather.  The whoosh of the pneumatic doors was my indicator of flight, and as I was pressed up against them I almost fell out into the street.  I made a brisk pace for the crosswalk when another passenger began to outpace me.  An oddly familiar passenger, even though I could not for the life of me think what their face looked like.  She’s long legged, in jeans, sporting a tight red ponytail that flicks along a black leather jacket.  She cuts me off and I almost trip over my feet, slowed just enough for the light to change and for me to refuse stepping out for fear of the light becoming red before I’ve crossed.  I'm conditioned, forced to have an instinct that doesn't make sense.  Whoever this person is, she has beaten me by several paces.  The time spent waiting for the green light allows me to make a blood oath, which my ancestors will be avenged for this slight, and I WILL make the light tomorrow.  Like the Monarch, I will re orient myself by the scent of the dead as I travel through the mountains.
(Oh, some entomologists believe that Monarchs guide their passage through the Mexico Mountains by recognizing the scent of their dead ancestors.  I don’t think that, because butterflies don’t have fatty acids that would decompose for over a year.  I’m into philosophy, but I’ve still seen a few episodes of CSI).
 
I'm at the last day of my travels, Friday, the weekend, and this time I am again at the bus doors waiting for them to open.  They do and I’m off.  I’m ahead.  I’m winning.
And I notice movement in my peripheral.
It’s the red ponytail, flicking across a leather jacket.  I glance to my left and there she is, running backwards.  I can’t believe it!  I was ahead of her, I was ahead and now she’s running backwards to cut me off for the crosswalk.
“I’ve been winning for four months now.  I’m not going to break my streak.  See you Monday.”  She half stops in front of me, the shock causing me to stop in my tracks, and she turns and makes it across the street while I watch as the light changes.
 
This weekend I will study wasps.
I will be ready for Monday.

Quick rundown of what you need to know before we get into it:
1. Phosphine is used in the semiconductor industry to introduce phosphorus into silicon crystals.
2. Phosphine is formed by the action of a strong base or hot water on white phosphorus or by the reaction of water with calcium phosphide.
3.  Phosphine is rarely found naturally on earth, and Venus' clouds are full of it.
4. Penguin poop has phosphine in it.

In a not peer reviewed study, Dr Dave Clements, from Imperial College London has discovered that penguin poop has phosphines in it.  And not in the normal organic levels that sometimes rarely occur in places like pond scum.
No, this phosphine is more similar to the samples analyzed In September by a team led by astronomers in the United Kingdom who announced that they had detected the chemical phosphine in the thick clouds of Venus. The team's reported detection was based on observations by two Earth-based radio telescopes.

Clearly, this means that penguins are from Venus.
That's it.  I don't know what else to tell you.

I, for one, welcome our tuxedoed waddling overlords from outer space.

South Park. Season Eight. Twelfth Episode.
"People, don't applaud me. I'm a dirty whore. Being spoiled and stupid and whorish is supposed to be a bad thing, remember? Parents, if you don't teach your children that people like Paris Hilton are supposed to be despised, where are they gonna learn it? You have to be the the ones to make sure your daughters aren't looking up to the wrong people." -Mr. Slave, Spoiled Whore Playset

Message sent WITHOUT auditioning 700 little girls to twerk in a movie OR perform scenes of a sexual nature to be viewed by the masses. Brilliant!  But maybe that's just me.
(For those of you out of the loop, the context is the movie "Cuties".  And apparently being against the film makes you a right wing fascist, but I digress).

What is wrong about having a film where eleven year old girls watch scenes of sexual behaviors and then imitate them, and then go on to learn that this "empowering*" act is harmful to them?
Oh, you know, the fact that these children then perform the actions they've just watched while a camera zooms in on their body parts.
Child Sexual Abuse Material (CSAM) or virtual child pornography refers to materials that do not portray a real child, but which graphically depict sexualized children, male or female, and it is illegal in Canada and the US, but does not fall directly under pornography laws.
Why?
Abusers were getting out of criminal charges because penetration was not occurring. CSAM was brought into the legal proceedings to protect children from being abused. And it means that even if an adult is used as a stand in (which according to sources is not the case in the film Cuties), or the child is photographed/filmed in a sexual way, and that material is then proliferated, it is considered child abuse. Even if the parents, the director, and the producers all gained/gave consent....it is legally child abuse. Even if the "message" was to raise awareness of a situation that is happening, it is against the law and considered child abuse.
And that means anyone who has footage of the 600+ girls "auditioning" for roles in this film, and of the film itself, is in possession of abuse material.

Even if you disagree with me (and I can think of only one reason why), the producers of this movie and the parents are complicit in breaking the law; a law designated to protect children from exploitation. And, depending on how far lawmakers wish to pursue this, sending out advertisements for auditioning for this movie might also fall into luring laws and voyeurism.

I haven't seen the film.
And I won't.  I don't need to see a murder to know that murder is wrong.  I don't need to see a child being abused to know child abuse is wrong.
The scenes that I unfortunately saw presented by Shoe0nhead (deeply edited and thankfully obscured) and a few other youtubers was more than enough for me to be against it even with its explained context.  Just ten seconds of what was shown should be enough to have it considered child abuse (and its more than 10 seconds).  There isn't enough context in the world to make me or anyone else need to see this movie in its entirety to know that it is wrong.  The only way I would ever conceive having to watch material like this is as a juror, and we needed to know just how many graves we needed to dig.


I am not traditionally a book burner.  The only book I have ever wanted removed from a library was Firefly by Piers Anthony.  I was seventeen and I was horrified at reading an alleged fantasy book written by a renowned childrens author that graphically described sex with a five year old, sex with a decapitated chicken, and more.  I felt then as I do now that there was no reason for it to be on the shelf where children could access it, and there was no justification for it to be on a shelf since even Anthony could only justify its existence in relation to Lolita
For me, Cuties falls into this.  There is no real reason for it to exist.  And by all standards it should not exist.  Assuming that each of the children that auditioned for this movie had two parents, over a thousand adults were okay with what was going to happen.  Not one videographer, editor, producer, writer, lawyer, or even the director said "We might be exploiting children in the process of showing the dangers of child exploitation."

Ban it.  Culture will not suffer for its loss.

*The director, who I had assumed from a place of bigotry must have been a white male until I learned that it was a female, considered twerking as sexually liberating and empowering...going against her alleged moral ground that this very behavior was bad for young impressionable girls.


#cutiesnetflix

Who are the current 2021 Canadian billionaires?

Not Judas X Machina.  So he's out.

Storytime with Judas ended it's 10th episode this week, and we were all left with a whirlwind of questions and existential angst.
After a thoroughly good reading of quirky and independent writers, Judas ended with a more pop culture "kid friendly" related book based on Back to the Future.

Does this means the vlogger with goals of making thousands of dollars per video has sold out?  That is difficult to say, since the act of selling out requires a level of integrity and not just producing content for the money.

Putting all of that deeply philosophical questioning aside, we had some more pressing questions to ask.

1. Would the books read make cool movies or videogames?
There is a lot of bright colors and easy dialogue in all of the books Judas reads (and the aforementioned BTTF book has already been a movie), but there is an underlying context that might not be translatable.  Judas chooses the books he reads for several criteria; whimsy, vocabulary, thought provoking concepts, using imagination, and being able to view the world from another perspective.  These all come into play in  his favorite reading Frankenstein Makes a Sandwich.  In that story, the vocabulary is obviously clever due to its rhyming nature, but it is also a story about perception.  Frankenstein's Monster isn't a bad guy, he's just hungry.  And he sees the best in people who are mean to him by taking their bullying and turning it into something satisfying for himself.
Would this translate to a longer visual format?  Maybe not, since the Hollywood has a tendency to throw content in that isn't necessary to a characters progression.

2. Which characters would we like to meet in real life?
Maybe we wouldn't like to meet Dracula on a moonlit night, but it would be really fun to hang out drawing futuristic cars that solve the earths problems as in If I Built A Car.

3. What was the most interesting part of the stories that were read?
Funny voices and faces always add to a good story.  Funny voices don't make a story good, though.  Hopefully, the stories that were read and are going to be read will have more parts that spark our imagination.

4.  Should Judas add links to where the book can be bought?
We can always watch Bedtime Stories with Judas over and over again, but the best part about reading a good story is sharing it with others and adding our own voice to it.  When we read to others, we can show others what parts are important to us by how excited we get when we read our favorite parts.  Also, we can see the pictures more clearly and appreciate all the drawing and painting that went into making the book.

5. Will Judas take requests?
For now, no.  Judas has no problem reading books that his viewers love, and would look forward to doing that.  For now, as his audience remains small, so will his library selection.


​





Hudson Gannon, reporting.
​

"I missed".

Storytime With Judas Vlogger and occasional long-time bathroom user only spends 20 minutes cleaning his bathroom, even though he has four sons who often miss the bowl entirely, don't lift the seat, or decide toothpaste is best used on the bathroom mirror.
"You need to plan ahead, and plan like its going to be bad."  He said while hunched over his video editor program instead of making an easy dinner like hepreviously posted.
For those of you new to the concept of deep cleaning, it's the cleaning you do on a weekly or daily basis, to reach the deep, disgusting parts of your bathroom that aren’t normally cleaned (or thought of).
"First get rid of anything empty or used up.  Throw away empty bottles, toilet paper rolls, and empty the trash can before you start spraying and scrubbing.  Then move everything that sits on a ledge onto one shelf or designated area; hand soap, conditioner bottles, and the like".
​The hot sauce connoisseur went on to list everything needed to "get down to brass tacks".
Organize the night before and keep the supplies in a readily accessible way.

Shower and bath
Start with the shower and bath, and place the shower curtains in the tub; spray them with all purpose cleaner and then leave them there for the next step.

Tiles, walls, and ceilings
Spray all surfaces like countertops, tile, walls, and the ceiling with all-purpose cleaner. Run the shower for five minutes to build up steam. Shut the door and let the steam and cleaner mix for twenty minutes. Then wipe down all surfaces with a clean cloth. For walls and ceilings, you can use a microfiber mop to reach the high spaces.  Hang up the shower curtains and wipe them down with a clean old towel.
Bathroom sink
First, pour vinegar or baking soda down the drain and rinse with hot water. Use disinfecting wipes for the handles and faucets in order to prevent transfer of bacteria from other parts of the bathroom (like the toilet). Use floss to clean the base where the faucet and taps are flush with the sink.
Toilets
Coat the entire toilet bowl with a toilet cleaner - preferably with bleach. Scrub the bowl hard with a toilet brush and let it sit for 5 to 10 minutes (you can spray it when you start the steamy shower). While that is sitting, wipe down outside of your toilet with a disinfectant wipe, as well as the outer lid, and then the inner lid. Then, use a bathroom specific disinfectant spray and leave it on for as long as the cleaner recommends (usually 10 minutes). Don’t forget to spray the flush handle. Then wipe everything down with clean cloths.
 
You will get faster the more you repeat this and you will begin to overlap steps.

The author would like to inform his readers that while Judas was saving time cleaning the bathroom, the dishes in the sink piled up into an apocalyptic event, and the laundry didn't get folded.
​

​Lex Gunner, reporting.