[Website] Airbnb - The Landlord App for Landlords

 Short: This app is all about making landlords money and has long since ceased to be about meeting the locals or having an enjoyable stay; and except for 4-6 week stays really isn't cheaper than most hotels.

Medium: I have never had an enjoyable stay with this app despite using it for 10 years (save two) despite using it about 9-12 times.  Its like Frozen Yogurt; I was in denial about the truly ridiculous crap that these shadow hotels push on their customers and by allowing the landlord to rate you after the fact, they encourage you to leave happy shining reviews or you won't be able to use the crappy imitation hotels again.

Maximum Verbosity: We rented a small hidden gem in Marblehead for 6 weeks while looking for a new apartment and had a lovely time.  Only a week later our puritanical former land lord filed a claim for a few hundred dollars claiming out cat had pooped and peed'd all over the place; never mind that it was water solubable hair dye and our cat is the most fastidious in the history of mankind.  There is a subset of people in Massachusetts who simply take a Disney attitude towards cats.  Then, after having our pet insulted by our cat, we began to remember what we had gaslit ourselves into forgetting; like the towel rack I simply bumped into that fell off the wall, the phone booth sized shower, the upstairs cleaners who made insane amounts of noise at 8am on a Saturday (The same ones who claimed that our cat pooped and pee'd everywhere).  At a hotel, you have a certain expectation of service, but if you are using Grandma's Dead Empty tomb, you can save a small amount of money and meet the locals.

But we haven't met a local in the last 8 years.  When we went to Montreal, we had a hermetically sealed anally retentive psycho landlord in this bizarre apartment building/shadow hotel that was build like a hotel but full of pseudo condominiums and we left a positive review but in the private notes mentioned things like hoarding toilet paper and insane weird rules including having to unlock the Davinci code and 5 phone calls to find out where to stay.  

The first time we used the app we met a charming woman when we went to the Stiletto festival in Charseston.  True, the second time we found that she had tons of smelly and rotten food in the fridge, but she was still a very nice person.  We met our hosts one more time when we went to Del Ray which was the last positive experience we had with it.  

Speaking of our Cat, we had a negative experience with another puritanical actual landlord which changed our persopective on who should or shouldn't be one; so I've been researching this problem a lot more.  Airbnb is responsible for raising housing prices by tying up affordable housing in shadow hotels.  New York City recently made very strict rules that it can only do what Airbnb actually originally was supposed to be which is rooms in houses that a family actually has where they live there instead of unregulated crap shadow hotels.  Blackrock is a bigger problem, but Airbnb is the tool for wanna be slum lords to move from Upper Middle Class to Lower Upper Class.

Needless to say, I've literally deleted our account.

[Website] Hotels.Com

 When you have Captcha that doesnt work, it means I dont use your website.  What's the point of using a website that makes you leap through hoops to just access the content? We're not talking about booking; we're just talking about typing hotels.com to look up fares.  But, full disclosure? 9 years ago in Miami was the last time we used them, because we booked a hotel, and they didn't have reservations for us during an emergency when we paid for a hotel, couldn't get it and had to drive around Miami in the middle of the night.  The hotel was quite reasonable but couldn't do anything because hotels.com locked them out of their own reservation system.  Since then, I have only used hotels.com to find hotel deals and called the hotel directly.

So I am glad their business model is idiotic.  Fuck hotels.com

[Movie] Challengers

 Short: A complex love triangle between two male and a female tennis player that offers complex compelling characters for the 21rst century and Generation Z.

Medium: If you have 19th century morality this film isnt for you.  The R rating is for authenticity rather than shock value for a surprisingly chaste film given where it DOESNT show nudity or sex.  Make no mistake, the sexual tension exists in ever element of this film but the well paced non linear timeline slowly doles out twists and turns that makes the stakes between the three protagonists (with no antagonists) compelling and fascinating to behold.

Maximum Verbosity: The most fascinating thing to me about this movie is the courage it has not to turn into a sex film.  Three fit, charismatic individuals are all attracted to each other with a different dynamic in each act.  The narration is well done but the cinematics and visual appeal of the film make it more art than sports film.  Most sports films are a study of the culture of the sport just as much as a heroes journey of the protagonist, but in this case the only element of sportsball that comes to fore is the competitive nature of the three protagonists, and there are no wasted frames.  It is tightly edited but ensures that no character is 'the good guy' while each character's choices matter and impact the trio in complex ways.

The Lincoln style friendship between Patrick and Art is hit by a wrecking ball as the two fall all over to please and win the favor of Tashi Donaldson (played by Zendaya) which boils down to a single tennis match that follow's the 20th century romance patterns of 'and they lived happily ever after' for Patrick and Tashi; only to find that the cost of Tashi's favor broke something critical in Patrick and definitely broke Art in its entirity.

While sports is merely a vessel for the film, it shows with excellence the harsh bittersweet deathmarch of the grinding human cost of capitalist sportsball as at one point Art is literally starving to death as a "Challenge" (Minor League Tennis player).  The sportsball accuracy is also highly accurate for correct (and authentic) Tennis rules, sites and terminology from the onsite locations in Atlanta and Conneticut to the hyperenthusiastic (dare I see creepy) devotion and minionosity of the Ball Handlers/Fondlers eagerly rushing on to court to please their Tennis masters.

I highly recommend this movie unless you can't watch R rated movies or only enjoy missionary sex.

The Third Skill

To do a job

You need three skills

1) Being able to ypur job

2) Being able to LOOK like you are doing your job

3) Getting the job in the first place

Here are some 101 tips.

A) You lost your job

-File for unemployment immediately.  Swallow your pride and do it.

-Chamge your budged to only essentialls immediatrly.  Swallow your pride.

-Update your resume immediately 

-Put that Resume up EVERYWHERE you can immediatrly including Indeed, Linkedin, Monster and any recriuiters who have reached out to you in the last year.

-Contact or get your references NOW. You may need them quickly.

B} Resume 101

-Have one

-Have a one page and multi page version depending on for whom; for recruiters send both

-For anyone  but recruiters send that fucker in pdf format. Control how it looks

-If you can afford it  pay someone else to do it 

-If you cant, get help or at least a second pair of eyes

-Proofread. Proofread. Propfread. No one is hiring a nuclear engineer who spells it Nukleer.

-Be consistent in your formatting.

-Managers fucking love numbers.  Dont say you helped customers say you helped 12 customers an hour 20 hours a week for 37 months.

C} Unemployment 102

-For most non entry level jobs,this is marathon not a spring, spend 1-3 hours a day looking and then do sanity maintenance

-Exercize. Every single fucking day.  Depression kills ypur productivity.

-Check job boards. Check specific conpany websites.  Make a circuit you check once a week or every few weeks. Check federal, state, county and city governemnt boards who may not post on monster or inderd.

-Unless a scam artist  always reply to anyone who reaghes out even if not relevant

-Do volunteer or service if you can.  Paying it forward is not only good karma it belps keep you sane.

D) Interview 101

-Review the job description the day before

-If able do nothing else before the interview.

-If able be near (but not AT!!!) the job site 2 hours early.  Murphy lives and he has your number 

-Wear the most professional clothing you have and can afford.  For men, thats a suit.  If you cant get that shirt and tie.  TIE.

-Bring a phyiscal copy of your resume on nice paper, 3 copies if you can.

-If the job demands it, have examples of your portfolio in a professional looking binder.

-YES you have questions.  

-YES you have a weakness if they are stupid enough to ask this question, make it a positive weakness

-If you can  roleplay out the interview w a friend and ask them to point out nervous non verbal tells like blinking checking your watch or folding your arms

-Send a thank you email if you actually want the job

[Mush] Liberation Mush

 Short: A v20/w20/m20 world of darkness mush where you will feel grateful to get a dot of Grill Cheese Sandwich Skill after nine epic quests.

Medium: The Mush is well run and has clearly learned from the problems of other mushes (reference City of Hype mush) while inventing whole new problems for itself that it doesnt need to have.

Maximum Verbosity: Alright lets start with the positive.

-Very helpful and supportive staff, absolutely no psychos (cant say the same of players but staff keeps them mostly in check)

-Very well built and thorough grid

-Very robust and balanced chargen

-Sane and minimal house rules with one notable exception

-An intriguing influence mini game that actually works without making the staff give up their lives

-Coherence of theme: They make you have a good reason for merits and backgrounds etc

-A healthy RP policy that allows PRP without locking up meaningful items only for staff (with an exception see below)

Sounds like heaven right? Well.

No  not really.

What doesnt work

-Secondary skills are now mandatory, and xp is also reduced.  Other mushes got around xp creep by reseting periodically  Liberation mush wants to be around forever so they solve the problem by letting you work five years for a dot in grilled cheese sandwich making.  They are particularly arduous about combat skills creating a perverse situation where every PC suddenly becomes Mr Miyagi in order to have the instruction skill.  

-Prp is only available for MUNDANE plots (they recently opened up ghosts but still highly limited).  That sounds nice but the staff run plots I participated in seemed giant circle jerks where you had the illusion of participation without actual progress.  The setting is dynamic  and pcs can make a difference but I was there for nine months and never felt a scene I participated in actually had any meaningful contribution to the game.

If they would lighten up in their xp policy and prp policy this place would truly shine but I left without feedback since it appeared to me that seeing others make suggestions werent really heard.

If advancement doesnt matter to you, running your own plots doesnt or you wanna play only a mortal in WOD this is definitely the place for you.

[Movie] Barbie

 Short: Its a cool meta movie about Barbie's understanding of who she is in an area of patriarchy, corporate technofascism and reconciling what it means to be human.

Medium: Jesus, that was a lot for short.  Is this review becoming self aware just like the movie? It appears so, so this review is self aware just like the movie Barbie.  If you like to live in your own little world and dont like your reality challenged, this movie is not for you.  There, we got rid of that guy.  This movie is for you.  You want to watch it.

Maximum Verbosity: In a world where people fear the creation of a better (potentially) species that we are worried we will enslave and mock (we will if not careful) and that our jobs (how many define themselves) will be taken machines; this movie is absolutely perfect.  The movie's primary focus is the image of Barbie, what it has become, where it originated, and also basically a fun summer blockbuster.  But also asking touch questions like the existential nature of death and the inevitable questions that come from defining yourself by what you own, what you do, or how society defines you.

The review is confident in itself because if fictional characters are going to becoming real, then authors should definitely be kind to them especially if they enter magical portals to our reality only to take their creator to a subjectively linked world like Terra or Barbieland where he will aquire the powers of a (mostly benevolent God) due to metawareness and imagination....or we could hang and have a good time.

Anywho (Spoilers)

Barbie starts in her perfect life and its about what you expected watching this world.  But then someone somewhere is playing with her who has existential crisis of death and so, Barbie (with stow away Ken) goes to the real world to find the girl who is playing with her and fix things up.  

Things in this movie that rock:

-Margie Robbie as Barbie - Every Frame

-Ryan Gosling - Almost every frame

-Will Farrel for the role he was born to play (well..Elf but second role) as Mr Mattel

-America Ferrera starts as a pedestrian 'mom' but the humans in this movie really shine especially when they go back to the real world.  She has one of the best monologs in cinemea and saves two realities in the process of it.

-Rhea Pearlman as Ruth Handler is fucking perfect.

This has a Netflix rating of 89% but that is because some people are going to feel very threatened by this movie but we already got rid of that guy.  It made Fox News go fucking nuts....so see it for that reason alone.  Or see its because its fun, but it also makes you think.  This is (I suspect) a generational touchstone for a whole new wave of future feminists who will take no shit from anyone without accepting the threatened nature of toxic masculinity whilst also (for some men) ironically helping them learn not to be afraid of Feminism.

Also, now on my way to enter a magical portal to give my creator God like powers...or not.

[Browser] Google Chrome

 I'm using a Google Chromebook, on Google Chrome OS, and Google Chrome, all google on google equipment with a loggged in google account and even though I have a VPN set in Europe, trying to get to a website, it says "Non human activity detected"

I am getting a windows or linus laptop; firefox or opera as a browser, protonmail as mail provider and frankly likely wordpress as a blogging site because when google controls the hardware and software and browser AND IT DOEST EVEN WORK TO LOOK UP WEB PAGES, then you know Google is broken.  Where is it reportable? NOWHERE.

Fuck Google.