Attack of the Anonymous Keyboard Warriors (So Scary!)

 I have found a new inspiration to post a bit more here. Heck, it has only been six months since my last post, it is not like it has been half a year or something.

And that right there... that right there is where the anonymous keyboard warriors attack.

Six months and half a year are the same thing, but those anonymous keyboard warriors would be very quick to point out how dumb I am for not knowing the difference.

~

I launched this humble little blog five years ago, and I have had almost 95,000 people visit. I think that is awesome, but it has come with a price.

You see, the difficult thing about blogging, or finding the motivation to continue posting, is this: There are people out there who delight in insulting others anonymously. As usual, this is the pond scum who cannot differentiate between sarcasm, irony, cynicism and satire.

Fourteen months ago, I posted about an expedition in the South Pacific to find Amelia Earhart's long lost plane. The post was part genuine curiosity, and part sarcasm. I found something on Google maps that looked interesting and suggested I had discovered her plane (all by myself!!) on Nikumaroro Island, where the Taraia Object can be found. 

The object I found was a shipwreck, which is well documented. I knew that. Unfortunately, this was ill received by the simpleton crowd.

Anonymous keyboard warriors, having no idea who I am and clueless to my sense of humor, attacked me like you wouldn't believe.

Among the less insulting comments were, "How dumb." "Do your research" (I love that one). "Your an idiot" (that would be "YOU'RE an idiot," you jeenyus -- and yes, I intentionally misspelled genius, just in case you are wondering and are sitting at your keyboard ready to attack). 

In 2021, I turned on the comments here for anyone, including folks who wanted to remain anonymous. I enjoyed the feedback. I liked exchanging ideas with people. I liked creative criticism. But that was a mistake. Something has changed over the years. 

Why have people become so fucking vicious to others? Why do people type things that they would never dream of saying to you face to face? Have we always been this awful as human beings? Is the lack of accountability hiding behind a keyboard given us this "courage" to be bad people assholes? Do we feel better about ourselves belittling others? 

Indeed, something happened. And I know what it is. It isn't a mystery. But I will keep that to myself.

It is especially hilarious when something is written tongue-in-cheek and it flies like a fragile bluebird over the heads of those who are intelligence-starved.

Don't get me wrong, because deep inside I know the vast majority of people are good. I see it everyday at my workplace. But there is an old saying that goes, "One rotten apple spoils the whole barrel."

Anyway, after weathering so many negative comments, I thought about just closing this site. Why would I open myself up to that kind of abuse? 

But giving up is not in my DNA. I swing back.

I am going to continue to write what I feel like writing and I am going to write more frequently. If I post something that pisses somebody off, then I am doing something right. Like they say, if you don't stand for something, you'll fall for anything.

This site is still open to all public search engines and open for the public to read; however, if you want to leave a hurtful comment, you now have to be a member of this blog. If you want to call me "a fucking loser," you can't hide behind your keyboard anymore. You will be required to identify yourself so we can have a little discourse. 

And if you look at my occupation on my profile, I am not an interpretive dancer. That's called humor. It is also called irony, because I am a white middle-aged male and I can't dance.

Cup of coffee, 27 March 2026

 A chilly but sunny morning here, unfortunately it feels much colder with a brisk northwest wind. The weather is schizophrenic this time of year: 70 degrees one day, 30 degrees the next. I've got a few things on my mind, so have a cup of coffee and let's talk.

My Wall Drug coffee cup. I like the old "cafe" design. I got this on vacation in South Dakota a few years ago.

For the last few weeks I have been slowly weaning myself off social media. In light of recent world events, I found myself spending too much time on Facebook, Reddit, X, Threads, etc. and it was starting to kill my soul: A state of constant anxiety. Inability to sleep at night. A never-ending pallor of impending doom. 

I decided I cannot live like this. I am old enough to remember life before social media. And it was a much better place.

I deleted all but one app: Instagram (and that is strictly because my kids like to send me things like memes, reels, or whatever the hell you call it). I don't scroll Instagram. Instead, the only time I open it is when I have a new message.

While I want to stay informed of national and world events, I have found that social media is a breeding ground for misinformation. These platforms are contributing the the downfall of our society and it is burrowing an addictive, anxiety-ridden, toxic wormhole into our consciousness.

But what caused me to finally say enough was enough? The conflict in Iran was the last straw.

First, almost everything we see on social media these days is AI generated. And so many people believe everything they see without questioning or scrutinizing. Education is important, folks.

Second, any web site can call itself a "news source" and it can post any fiction under the sun. There's always a simpleton or a malcontent out there who will take a story at face value and repost on social media, especially if the content fits their agenda.

The cesspool known as Facebook is especially bad. That platform is full of gullible, uneducated, village idiots. "News stories" are shared as Gospel without verifying a single legitimate source ...then the name calling, arguments and threats start. Family vs. family. Friends vs. friends. Strangers vs. strangers. Day after day after day. 

Daily exposure to this can kill your joy for living really fast. 

Other platforms such as Threads, X, Reddit, etc. are filled with paranoid doomsdayers, who clearly have nothing to do but doom scroll all day while curled in a fetal position. Sadly, it doesn't take much to follow them down that morbid blackhole and I admit they nearly got their hooks in me before I finally woke up.

Third, every news source in the United States has an agenda; to understand this truth is to be ahead of the game. Today's "news" falls into two categories: it is either anti-Trump or Trump-sponsored propaganda. Both are designed to divide us and it has worked spectacularly well. 

A certain faction of our populous has been led to believe if you are anti-Trump you are anti-American. Not only is this an unpatriotic, un-American way of thinking (if you know American history, you know this to be true), it is groupthink at its finest, just as Orwell predicted some 77 years ago. 

What do I mean by this? Over the years, I've know many people who were anti-Obama, anti-Bush, anti-Clinton, anti-Reagan (yes, I am that old). Did I ever think those folks (who are good friends/family/co-workers) anti-American? Of course not. Just because your political beliefs do not align with the current president's agenda, it does not make you "an enemy of the state" (unfortunately, that's a quote). However, that is the current climate in our country. 

And this sentiment is as un-American as you can possibly get. Wait... how is that un-American?

The United States of America was founded on differences. It was founded on open debate and intellectual discourse. It was founded on argument, exchange of ideas and, ultimately, compromise. The Founding Fathers were not a bunch of "yes men." They were feisty dudes who yelled, pounded tables and bickered a blue streak, but they all had a common cause: love of country. That's been recently minimized from our collective consciousness, but it doesn't change the truth. 

And the first step to the truth is getting news without an agenda. 

I have found four excellent news options: Reuters, Associated Press, BBC and Al Jazeera (yes, Al Jazeera; this is a trusted, impartial, internationally award-winning news organization -- rednecks ain't gonna like the name, but once again, education is very important). These are the news sources I personally trust.

So what do I do now that I am not scrolling on social media? The site 1440  is incredibly refreshing (I am providing the link here just in case anyone else is seeking a "way out" of the perversion of social media). The 1440 site is free and is full of awesome stories for the intellectually curious. They also provide daily news updates (email) which are balanced from an assortment of agencies, along with daily interesting tidbits from around the world.

 I am going back to a more simple time. It is difficult to do these days, but I am determined to get there. 

Go outside. Start writing. Learn a new skill. Start reading. Find a hobby.

Think of how much of your life is wasted staring at a screen. This is just a temporary stop. Make the most of it.

 

The Land of Hype and Hyperbole

 If only it felt as nice as it looks outside. 

Blue skies, bright, blinding sunshine bouncing off the snow. But it is about 10 degrees with a nasty 30 mile per hour wind, making it feel like -2 degrees Fahrenheit. 

There was a significant snowstorm about 70 miles south of me this weekend. I was right on the border of the storm, stuck in forecast purgatory; literally, "1 inch to 13 inches of snow", but the unknown forced me to stay at my workplace Saturday night (I must be within 20 minutes of my work when I am on-call, and I had no idea what the weather was going to do; nor did Mr. Weatherman). 

Turns out we got perhaps three inches, maximum. 'Tis the "Land of Hype and Hyperbole," I like to call it.

Looking out my window on this chilly Monday, 16 March 2026

Turns out, not much happened workwise this weekend. But it was one of those things where I couldn't do much but wait for my pager to go off, so I made a huge dent in a new book I am reading, John Williams: A Composer's Life by Tim Greiving, which I am just loving.  

I knew nothing about Williams prior to opening this book, and what a life -- what a career!! Of course, he's known for his close association with Spielberg, but Williams was in the music/television/film business for twenty years prior to meeting Spielberg. 

Williams had already scored films such as The Towering Inferno, The Poseidon Adventure, Fiddler on the Roof and Valley of the Dolls as well as made-for-television movies such as Jane Eyre and the infamous (to football fans) Heidi, plus television series like Lost in Space (he wrote the theme song), Gilligan's Island and Wagon Train, just to name a few. If that wasn't enough he had also already won a Grammy and an Academy Award. At 43 years old, he was considered perhaps the best film composer in Hollywood. 

Then he met a 25 year-old film geek named Steven who was a Williams "fanboy" and desperately wanted to work with the music legend. I think it is very akin to compare their fortuitous union with that of Lennon and McCartney in pop music: the meeting of two geniuses from which the rest of the world was rewarded with a lifetime of entertainment.

One of the interesting bits that I have read is that Spielberg strongly recommended John Williams to his friend George Lucas, who was struggling with a "space opera." Lucas thought it would ultimately be "a film to be watched by 10 year-old boys on a Saturday afternoon." As partial payment for his work, Lucas offered Williams 1% of the film's box office earnings.

Star Wars has earned approximately $10 billion at the box office; 1% of $10 billion is $100 million. Not a bad day's work.

Remember,that's just ONE film. We won't even go into the remainder of the Star Wars series, Jaws, the Indiana Jones series, the Jurassic Park series, E.T. (The Extra Terrestrial), Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Schindler's List, Home Alone, the Harry Potter series... well, you get my drift. The man is simply the greatest movie composer of all time and no one else is even close. Period. (Oh, did I mention Superman?)

Anyway, what I meant to say before going off on this tangent is that I am enjoying this book very much.

So that's it for now. I will update again, soon. Meanwhile I will sit in my easy chair and sadly watch the world burn. I have a feeling the other shoe is going to drop soon, I am just not sure which shoe; I am hopeful of one and fearful of the other. 

I promised myself not to get political on this site, so I will stop there. 

(**Gemini, Google's AI platform, tells me that it was Alec Guiness who was offered a percentage of the box office receipts, not Williams. However, author Tim Greiving has done impeccable, detailed homework in this biography and I trust his years of research over a shitty one second AI search.)