Friday Thoughts

June 05, 2026

Lotta stuff going on in my brain. The past, the future,…the nightmare of existence. Y’know…the usual.

Apparently (according to a Facebook post from a former classmate) Wednesday was my 37th anniversary of graduating high school. It’s not the time that bothers me anymore. Not very many of my high school memories are separate from my friend Billy. The night of graduation, we went home, got changed, met up, and went out to a party some of the other graduates had set up. As I recall (my memory is fuzzy because I got a concussion in a car wreck months earlier and also…37 years ago), several of the people were already…”celebratory”. We talked to a few, but then we went and did what we did most of the our time in high school…drove around, listened to music, talked, laughed, and did absolutely f*ck all. It’s not the years anymore. It’s the punch of remembering I still miss him every day.

But things aren’t all bad. Sometimes they’re downright terrible! Even though generative ai is trained on humanity’s collective work and knowledge without compensation or even credit, and that same fun thieving mechanism is using up all of our natural resources like land and water and poisoning the rest…according to reports, tech bro oligarchs are lobbying Congress to be able to pillage our pitiful little 401ks and savings accounts to fund their little scifi experiment because “it is a moral imperative we beat the Chinese developing this garbage thing that no one wants”. So we have that to look forward to.

There ARE good things I’ve seen this week. At least half of ai data center projects in the country that are scheduled for construction are actually on hold right now. Due to the populace uprising over the damned things, local politicians may be starting to realize that their little bag of payola from tech companies might not be enough to protect them from angry citizenry. Grab a pitchfork and do your part!

Another good thing…as of this writing, he hasn’t made a public appearance in over a week. He keeps posting but that could be anyone with thumbs and a sense of whimsical, evil gibberish. Is he in the hospital? Is he dead? When do they quit trying to hide it? We know they won’t be able to hold anything together once he’s gone. What happens if he is? Do we ALL get a big 250th birthday gift for the ol’ red, white, and blue? Or is this just another tease? Update: they dragged his bloated carcass out in front of a televised meeting, where yet again he “fell asleep” which I’m pretty sure is code for “died briefly in the chair”. Even when talking, it’s not really a confirmation of life, is it? Anyways, going for that long without having to hear his actual voice is pretty nice.

I think that will do for this week’s ramblings. I’ve had a ton knocking around upstairs the last few days but this has let out enough pressure. Have a safe weekend. Make good trouble and raise hell. Remind them we’re here.

-The Paintmonkey