I just got invited to join a site for “influencers”, and I’m so enthused. I never imagined that an OnlyFans-like site would send me a personal invitation to participate.

Hi PZ,

I’m reaching out on behalf of Top4Fans, a subscription-based platform that’s a strong alternative to OnlyFans. Our goal is to help you boost your earnings, save time, and benefit from personalized support tailored to your needs.

We’d love to offer you a custom collaboration, with the possibility of a paid partnership, depending on your profile and level of engagement.

I took a look at some examples from their site.

Should I join? Would you pay to subscribe to pictures of my feet or my tushie? I have some doubts.

When I was a kid, I would park myself in my grandmother’s vegetable garden and snarfle my way down the rows, eating the carrots and peas like some gigantic verminous pest. My wife planted peas in our garden just for me, and the first pods were ready for eating.

Mmmmm. Peas. A glorious vegetable.

I think the nearest Little Caesars to me is in St Cloud, about a 2 hour drive away. I think the company must hire people like Hiro Protagonist from Snow Crash to make their pizzas.

OK, that settles it. If I can’t get my relatively minor health problems fixed soon, my backup plan is a lots of alcohol and all kinds of drugs. It worked for Ozzy!

I’m drawing the line at the bat head diet, though. I hope that wasn’t the secret ingredient for longevity.

I’m going mad here. I’ve got limited mobility — I’m supposed to take it easy, but I can limp around, and I’m able to drive, but I have limited access to a car (my wife needs it to go to work), and I’m only good for short walks. That means I’m more or less confined to my house. I get out twice a week to go to the lab because I need to take care of the animals, but otherwise I’m bouncing off the walls.

This weekend that got translated into sitting in my home office and reorganizing. My computers have benefitted, with all the cables getting tidied and accumulated gadgets getting purged and stored away. I am much more efficient at sitting quietly and staying out of mischief, which I am finding frustrating. So I’m fantasizing about escape.

Before getting laid up, I was planning a day trip to Granite Falls, about an hour drive away from me. The route would follow the Minnesota River, and there are parks and wildlife management areas all along the way, that are probably full of spiders. At the end of the drive there’s something called the Fagen Fighters WWII Museum, which looks interesting. The plan was to make frequent stops and hike around, maybe a picnic, that sort of thing…which is off limits right now. I’ve lived here for 25 years and never even knew about this museum! But table that for now.

Another thing I was looking into was our regional creationist group, the Twin Cities Creation Science Association, a dreary, tedious group of Christian weirdos who have found a home in Minnesota. I should probably spend some time dismantling the local nonsense. I did see that the Christian twit, Brian Lauer, is doing a YouTube debate next week — I can spectate that! And maybe add some commentary. Unfortunately, it’s organized by the odious Donny Budinsky, so it’s not going to be particularly informative.

More interestingly, they’re planning a creationist trip to Como Zoo. I love Como Zoo! I could see joining their little group, documenting (not disrupting) their absurdities, and spending a lovely afternoon strolling through a very pretty park. That’s on 19 August, about a month away, so I can hope to be a little more mobile by then. I’m meeting with my orthopedist on Tuesday, so we’ll see what she says about expanding my activities a bit more.

I have high hopes for my doctor’s appointment this week. If she tells me I have to stay off my feet longer, well…my office is going to be incredibly tidy and shiny.

I said I was burned out on superhero movies and wasn’t going to watch them anymore. But then I saw that Fox News declared that Superman was superwoke and Kellyanne Conway came out against it because it was nice to immigrants. James Gunn, the director said that “Superman is the story of America, but for me it is mostly a story that says basic human kindness is a value and is something we have lost.” If MAGA hates it, I might like it.

So I saw it last night, and those reviews are correct — it is a “woke” movie, it does valorize the immigrant experience, Superman’s greatest quality is not that he’s invulnerable (he’s not), but that he is kind. This is a Superman I haven’t seen since 1978, with Christopher Reeve in the lead role. I think maybe I’m not so much tired of superhero movies as I am grimdark superhero movies.

That said, while it’s a much more optimistic kind of movie that represents the values America was brought up on (although it’s often poor at the practice — this is the idealistic superhero that masks the American villainy that has blossomed on Fox News), a Gunn superhero universe could be just as wearing as a dark Zack Snyder universe. It’s silly. It’s colorful. It has swarms of goofy superheroes. It’s a comic book movie!

Comic books had to churn out new plots week after week for decades, and they often got ridiculous. Remember Mr. Mxyzptlk? Bizarro Superman? The many colors of kryptonite? The contrived plots that wobbled between melodrama and comedy?

I would get so annoyed at those wordy covers that set up some improbable gimmick that would be completely resolved by the end of the issue, usually with some strange unlikely twist that Superman was just pretending, the bad guy didn’t stand a chance.

This movie would have appealed to me much more when I was 14. I’m a little bit older now, so I’m thinking it was fun, the message was great, but, you know, the country is in crisis right now and a bit of fluff isn’t what we need. OK, maybe we do need a sense of humor to get us through dark times, so it’s nice. And kind of Gunn to give us a little sweetness to annoy the MAGA trolls.

Also, Superman doesn’t actually punch Donald Trump in the movie. Although he probably should.

I got an invitation to collaborate (that is, host advertising)! With Red Bull!

Hi there!

This springs from the team at Red Bull Partnerships. We detect how your
uploads boosts people — that’s something meaningful! We believe as a
team we can create something influential.

What we propose:
• Product trials or name drops within your uploads
• Professionally produced advertising feature at the start of your video
• Exposure of Red Bull gatherings through your channel

Collaborating with Red Bull means VIP passes, behind-the-scenes info,
and opportunities that will help your visions come alive.

Ready to talk? Ready when you are.

Stay motivated,
Red Bull GmbH, Am Brunnen 1, 5330 Fuschl am See, Salzburg, Austria
Red Bull ©2025

Wow, I must have finally made it! Either that, or Red Bull is desperately scraping the bottom of the barrel.

I’m sorry if you’re all clamoring for more Red Bull content, but I’d have to turn them down.

• I don’t drink Red Bull.
• I think gulping down stimulants is bad for you.
• I hate advertising.
• I despise capitalism generally.

I guess I’m disappointing my readership again.

I’ve long wondered how any woman can bear to stay with the selfish scum of the right. There’s no accounting for taste, and some of those women are probably sleazy themselves, but sometimes we can see lines being crossed and spouses just plain giving up on their terrible men.

Case in point: Angela Paxton is divorcing her slimy partner, Texas attorney general Ken Paxton. I’m happy to applaud her imminent independence, but she stuck with him for forty years — what was she thinking?

Some gossip we’ll have to wait on is the rumors that Katie Miller and her rat-faced evil partner, Stephen Miller, are on the outs. She’s rumored to be shifting to Elon Musk, which is the one choice that debatably is not an improvement in her situation.

I know I’m being petty, but I enjoy seeing these people suffer.