Black Country Communion - "Red Sun"

Yellowstone Season 5 Part 2 *** SPOILER WARNING ***

This review is for Season 5 Part 2 up to episode 12 (episode 13 airs tonight). I'll start by saying that this is pretty much my favorite show, but I have to be a little tough here. Here are some of the character developments as I see them:

John Dutton: Part 2 has really suffered from Costner's exit. Dutton is hastily dispatched with by an apparent suicide. Costner is never seen. He couldn't be available for just one episode to allow for a more dramatic departure? While arguably not the most interesting character, he provided the cornerstone for everything else.

Beth Dutton: Beth is a great character, and Kelly Reilly really owns her. That said, Beth stomps around PISSED much of the time in Part 2. She's eternally PISSED at Jamie. She's not a fan of Sarah either. The writers wanted to show her soft side by having her comfort Finn Little.

Sarah Atwood: A pretty good character, the writers had to retcon her a bit as the mastermind of John's assassination. Apparently, this hit job cost $40 - $50 million. I wonder what the return on that investment is expected to be? Her death was quite unexpected and dramatic.

Jamie Dutton: Jamie has to be my least favorite character. Sarah came clean (mostly) about the assassination plot, and he doesn't really offer much of an opinion. Beth likes to camp out in his office and slap him across the face from time to time. You'd think an AG could instruct security to keep her out of the building. Sarah slaps him around a little bit too.

Grant Horton: This is the guy who spearheaded the assassination. He is a discount Gus Fring character who meticulously covers his tracks. Apparently, Horton isn't nearly as thorough.

Kayce Dutton: Mere window dressing last season, this season features a meaner, darker Kaycee who is single-handedly moving the plot forward. He takes over the investigation into John's death and steers the coroner's office to a proper cause of death with his lay opinions. He chokes out an assistant unnecessarily. He easily unveils the identity of Horton with a single phone call and sticks a gun in his daughter's face. He's BFF's with Mo now.

Monica Dutton: She is mostly window dressing again this season. She cheers for Kayce from the sidelines as he quarterbacks the whole game.

Jimmy Hurdstrom: Jimmy provided an interesting arc in the past with a lot of comic relief, but the Texas arc just seems to be a distraction at this point.

Rip Wheeler: Rip hasn't beaten anybody up this season. The writers had him reestablish his toughness by laying down the Cowboy Rules with a young couple asking to pet his horse.

There are only two episodes left, and it doesn't seem like things are coming to a close quickly enough. Many of these final episodes feel like filler, which is frustrating and similar to how Game of Thrones ended. This may be a trend now when there is a hit show and spinoffs are planned.

So, the 538 polls only got it half right.

Their final prediction for Trump was 46.8%, and he got 50.4% (error of 3.6%)

Their final prediction for Harris was 48.0%, and she got 48.0% (error of 0.0%).

538 seemed to overestimate the impact of third-party candidates as it all went to Trump. They are a bit vague about their margin of error (frankly I don't think it is knowable), but you hear the 3% number bandied about a lot. Well, they missed that for Trump. But they nailed the Harris result.

Biden should call on Trump to come clean about 2020

Trump won 2 out of 3 elections and even won the popular vote in the last one. He'd be 0 for 3 if the "deep state" really could rig these. Trump can't be shamed into doing the right thing but can at least be called out one more time. Maybe a little faith in our elections can be restored, there's no upside to kicking at those pillars now. Former American presidents should never nonchalantly refer to the current president as illegitimate.

Very light voter turnout in Fort Mill, SC

This is the suburbs in the greater Charlotte area just over the state line. There was literally no line and idle voting machines when I walked in. In 2020 the line went all the way down the driveway and down the street at the same polling location. I went at 3:30 PM which may be just the right time, or maybe it was the rain all day, or...?

Whatever the case may be, I Harris-Walz-ed right on through the process.

Trump's statement strongly supporting some of RFK Jr.'s views on health care.

Harris gets unfairly criticized for not clarifying her positions, yet Trump throws a stinker like this out there and gets away with it.

https://www.politico.com/live-updates/2024/11/01/2024-elections-live-coverage-updates-analysis/trump-rfk-jr-health-care-vaccines-00186837

If "he's going to have a big role in health care", then I would like clarification on which of his positions Trump does and does not support. Vaccine skepticism? Oversimplified views on environmental toxins? Fauci-bashing? Increased regulation of food and pharmaceutical industries including an overhaul of the FDA?

The Haunting of Hill House

This Netflix series from 2018 was created and directed by Mike Flanagan. It has a total of 10 episodes. The setup is a series of straight horror tropes revolving around a haunted house. Yet, Flanagan's style that combines horror with drama in a nonlinear way makes it a unique, engaging, and unpredictable experience. This is definitely worth checking out if you want something a little different this Halloween.

Kamala and Tim have an opportunity to destroy Trump's staged McDonald's video

Trump suspiciously handed out only bags of burgers and fries to drive-thru customers, but no drinks. Who doesn't order a drink with their combo? One can only assume that these customers all ordered shakes, but the ice cream machine was broken. Trump couldn't fix it. Imagine the disappointment.

Fast forward to Kamala's commercial, which has the duo arriving early at the "same" McDonald's. Handyman Tim sees the problem! He fixes the ice cream machine and Kamala starts her shift on time handing free shakes and ice cream cones to delighted customers!

Microsoft Copilot is incompetent at solving computer issues.

I've tried to use Copilot to save me time resolving minor Windows 10 aggravations. Recently Microsoft added a Copilot application icon to my taskbar. This icon sucked because it wouldn't actually run Copilot and was just a crappy shell around the Edge browser. However, it wasn't immediately obvious how to remove it. Copilot hallucinated about various Copilot taskbar settings that didn't exist and even tried to steer me towards hacking the registry (!) In reality it was just a pinned shortcut that you could unpin like any other.

That's not the interesting part. What's interesting is how this highlights the major shortcomings of AI. So many of these common computer issues have bogus solutions posted and reposted all over the web at places like Reddit and Stack Overflow. A skilled reader can separate the wheat from the chaff, but AI regurgitates low-quality generic solutions like restarting the computer and reinstalling applications. AI can't reason and employs a sophisticated pattern-matching strategy which seems to always get bamboozled by the charlatans.

"In the Tall Grass" went into the weeds

I'm a sucker for these Stephen King film adaptations, but as we know they are a mixed bag. This one is right at five years old and is streaming on Netflix. There seems to be a bit of a parallel with Children of the Corn, but the movie does introduce some new elements. The characters spend a lot of time wandering aimlessly through the grass which gets a bit fatiguing. Their disorientation becomes entirely predictable. There are two structures and a small clearing which provide some relief. The pregnant sister is in distress throughout the movie which is overused as well. The antagonist reveals himself posing as a benign character early in the film, but you are immediately skeptical (he tries to sell it way too hard). There is a child lost in the grass who lures the characters in but denies doing so. There is a time-travel element which is thrown in to amplify the confusion. The rules aren't clearly defined, and it seems to only make the consequences inconsequential. There is a whole army of masked bad guys running around in the field being assholes. This element isn't fully developed, just don't let them grab you, okay? There is a dog who seems to help the plot at one point, but it's another dead end. There are a lot of dead ends in this big open field.

TL;DR summary: skip it.