My internal thesaurus failed me. 

In five years, Slytherin House is going to be completely legitimate. 

“Great Job, Internet” is a recurring feature that has been around for a while now. It has always been filler: downstream from ancient reddit reposts, YouTube “hot takes,” really just the scavenged remains of the disposable clickbait ecosystem, like a BuzzFeed listicle or HuffPo bullshit.

Even by the standards of “Great Job, Internet,” this is sad. 

See also: The Star Wars Holiday Special. The fact that George Lucas did what he could to keep anyone from ever seeing it again, and it only exists as low quality bootlegs, is the only reason I’ve seen it, and I know I’m not alone in that. 

The most revealing one was “when you watch the Wire you’re rooting for all the gang members to be locked up.”

Not really comparable, since The Wire didn’t allow ANYONE to be nameless/faceless/lazily stereotyped. The Wire is probably the worst example you could have picked to make this point. 

“I’m not voting for Predator, I’m voting against Alien. Lesser of two evils.”

I’ve never seen it. The closest I’ve come is in the Arrested Development episode “My Mother the Car,” where the Bluths are sitting around the house listlessly watching My Mother the Car.

That one I did notice. MST3K trained me from an early age to read the credits in search of funny names. And you’re right about no lack for of opportunity—he would pop up here and there as a guest star until recently, but he was fairly prolific as a TV director (especially of sitcoms).

I recently ran through what Hulu has of The Bob Newhart Show, and a couple of things struck me that hadn’t before (from back during the Nick at Nite re-run days).

You’re making a great first impression, though. 

I’ve always enjoyed Dowd’s festival coverage, and recent events have made me appreciate him even more. I’m glad he’s still here. Probably the last “must read” name for me.

“I’m not rejishish, but I think I’m spidjijishal.”

The content of the editorial is horrifying and cowardly (even if writing it took some moxie).

“Another Dien Bien Phu.” —Donald Trump attempting to pronounce “anonymous op-ed”

The boys are thirsty in Valhalla/

I’ve only loved two movies this year—Upgrade and The Death of Stalin. I thought Hereditary was very good, and BlacKkKlansman good.

For some reason, I read “a lot of post-breakup stuff in the early ‘70s” as meaning just McCartney, I guess because I had McCartney on the brain because of the rest of the discussion, but it’s definitely a case of me reading meaning into it that wasn’t there.

Posing as a cantankerous old man is a venerable trolling institution, with a lot of potential for comedy. You might try skewing younger until you get the hang of things.