Search is full of ads and wrong answers. Every other email is an ad. Prime Video charges you and shows ads. Paramount? Ads. Peacock? YouTube? Hulu? Ads followed by more ads. Netflix full of ads. Meta and X, every other thing is an ad. Pinterest is nothing but ads. AI is in everything. AI finishes sentences incorrectly and won’t stop. AI reads your email and search history to target you with more ads. Every time you open an app or visit a site there’s an update making it worse. In a hurry? First, click here to agree to terms you don’t have time to read and must accept. You need an account to do that. Change your temporary password. Enter your 2FA code. Check your email and enter that code. Now use a passkey. Your password is too simple to remember. Change it. No, not like that. Now log on. Enter your 2FA code. Check your email for a code… Welcome back! We’ve updated our terms of service and privacy policy (you have none). Subscribe to the site. Subscribe to Netflix. Subscribe to toilet paper. Subscribe to these groceries. Pay a membership fee for the right to subscribe then tip your driver who delivers the subscriptions your membership lets you subscribe to. Time to work? We’ve got to update your laptop and will slow down everything you do until you agree to update. But first, click here to agree. Update installed — your laptop’s broken now. It doesn’t matter, since your boss just replaced you with AI. Go to your phone to complain on social media. Wait, your phone needs an update so we can add more AI. Click here. Oh sorry, your phone can’t handle this update. Now it’s useless. Go get the newest phone. Here’s a text from a friend, an email, a voice mail they left three days ago but you didn’t see until now because of sync problems with the cloud. It’s their GoFundMe. Their MLM. Their Patreon. Never mind, you didn’t respond to their text within 9 minutes and now you’re no longer friends. They blocked you. Make new friends. Download this app to find people in your area. In your neighborhood. On your street. Two doors down from you. Do you know this person yet, we think you’d get along. You need an account to use this app. That username is taken. Enter a password. Not that one, you used it on another site. You need to be connected to WiFi to download the app. Allow the app to connect to other devices on your network. Allow the app to access your contacts, know your precise location, store your credit card details. Oops, sorry, we got hacked now all that info is available on the web. There’s a class action suit. You can join. It’ll take a decade to get your $3.73 share of the ten billion settlement. We’ll send it via PayPal or deposit it to your bank, just tell us those details. Oh no, another hack. That info is circulating now, too. Here’s a spam call, a spam email, a spam text. Why are you angry? Why are you talking about getting rid of your phone? Why don’t you like AI, it lets us make all of this easier? Do you know how ridiculous that sounds? This is progress. You’ll be left behind. Do you want to be left behind? Do you???

Imagine waking up to find your loans, bad credit & mortgages had been wiped out by hackers. Can you imagine the spending surge (and economy boost) that would follow? 🤣

It is bad enough algorithms put us in echo chambers and bubbles on social media, politicians lie to us, and online scams loom at every turn. But now we can’t even trust that what (or who) we see is real. We don’t need this. No one needs this. Make it stop.

Fellow GenXers: they’ve discovered our lifestyle and repackaged it as “friction maxxing.”

Tried reading a story on Google News today. It was behind a paywall, so I went to the next. It was video only and I don’t have time for that. Third had Hyderabad for the byline and rambled for three screens without getting to the point. Fourth? Another paywall. WHAT IS EVEN THE POINT OF THE INTERNET ANYMORE?

I just want people to read. I don’t care if you read books on a Kindle, in paperback, or in hardback. Reading will take you out of your bubble, expose you to thoughts and situations you’ve never had, and make you ten million times more sexy. Ok, I may be exaggerating that last bit. It’s only nine million times but the point stands.

Books are to adult readers what teddy bears are to kids.

This story from Peter DeMarco @PDMwriter is a wild ride! “Eddie came back. They said they weren’t in the mood to dance, he said. I don’t get it. They were looking at me. You were staring, I said. Maybe it was uncomfortable. I’m still in character, he said. Like a real fucking actor.” doric-literary.com/2026/10/0…

It’s a documentary. She went to jail. That was in the news. How is it a spoiler unless you don’t read the news?

To recap: the BBC is doing the investigations Congress should hav, France is having the riots we should have, and the Saudi royals are monitoring OpenAI like the government should have. Did I miss anything?

I love every word of this story. “Some things can’t be buried in the ground. The Hush made a nest in my body, dug down deep in flesh and bone. It ain’t goin’ nowhere. My jaw aches from holdin’ my tongue, the space between what I know and what I’ll ever say.”

La chanson reste la même.

I love that Dostoevsky is trending on Twitter. xitter.cf/i/trending/21119377372…

Still like my kid’s reaction to Sony’s digital-only move.

And just last night I was telling someone Kansas City’s no longer a cow town.

For me, it’s about consistency. Morning, night — whatever time I hit my stride on a piece, I have to stick with that, day after day, seven days a week until it’s done. It’s almost like hypnotizing my brain to start producing at that time, and it’s served me well for 22 years of paying the bills thru writing nonfiction until I switched back to lit earlier this year. But one interruption, one burp in my routine, and it’s a struggle to get back. Which is why I’m a viralgo toward anyone who interrupts my routine once I’ve hit my stride.

oh no anyway