Drowningworms - Drowning Worms

I want to encourage the streamers who are putting in the work playing and reviewing half-assed terrible games for half-assed terrible video game companies. I know you hate those games you have to hype up and pretend to be scared by stupid jump scares. I know you have to write your own dialogue because there is nothing interesting or fun or cool about most of those awful "games". And you are probably doing it just to put food on the table or get your channel started.

But here's the thing. Your audience doesn't care. Your audience is children. And they just like to watch you have fun and to live vicariously through you. You are the cool people they look up to and the entertainers who make them laugh.

My kiddo is chronically ill and basically bed ridden. She watches so many of those videos and laughs and smiles along with you. Those videos make up a huge portion of the life she lives through her phone much of the day. And significantly contribute to her quality of life.

That's right. Your minor channel makes her life better and all your viewers' lives better. It might not cure cancer. It might not feel like success. It might have felt like shit work at the time. But you are creating something that brightens a lot of kids days, and that is not worthless in this world we share.

the scream i scrumpt

shoutout to my best buddy in highschool who once told me "you speak like how tumblr users write their textposts" and i was mortified for a second but then realization hit me and i rebutted with "wait how do YOU know how tumblr users write their textposts???" and we were both like

I don't want to die anymore, but if I am ever an innocent bystander, I really hope I'm wearing this shirt that day.

I actually went to Gobblers Knob in Punxsutawney and was close enough to see the no shadow for myself before the drunk guys in top hats told us what they saw.

I experienced the whole frigid, boring, tedious, painful, boring, long, standing room only for 6 hours of physical hell, low rent, cheapass, tacky, corny, tawdry, obnoxious, fucking dry event for you.

It involved security pat downs for liquor on every man woman and child to keep out liquor. Weed was illegal by community consent thanks to Reagan. It was 10 degrees and dark in the dead of a Pennsylvania Winter. And there was absolutely no entertainment for hours till it got daylight. Then this local DJ comes on to entertain the out of towners. He's horrible.

Remember that we are the cash cow for this little group of local good old boys and their buddies. And for the entire town. And they treat us like shit. Just penned us up and hit us for cash money at every turn. This was 1998, so that wasn't unusual everyone outside major businesses required cash. I'm dead sure they have those little credit card scanners everywhere now. They milked us for everything they could think of.

And it was so fucking cold. You don't understand cold until you know standing huddled still in the dark cold. Most people never really experience cold. Insulation is really fucking good now. I overpaid so much when goose down jackets got sorta affordable. They were like miracles to me. I would have given anything for such a miraculous jacket then. I had to make do with layers of insulated flannels and long underwear. I did have true winter underwear from my Boy Scout days so I was a good bit less cold than my buddies who didn't know how to layer.

Most people only experience shoveling snow cold. Maybe skiing cold. A few hunting cold. (Real damn cold) And a mighty few who have lived in it for days just sitting around camping in tents with nice sleeping bags and a big fire to warm us. In teens or subzero temps. I have. You have to dig deep and layer well. And just accept being cold every single minute of your life outside of your sleeping bag.

So we were doing hunter cold. This was Western Pennsylvania. Everyone knew how to do hunter cold. My buddies were all suburban kids. I told them how to dress. A few listened.

3+ hours of my best friends in the world talking shit to AC/DC and Ace of Base or whatever was the thing.

That night we started at like 3am and drove a few hours of dark Pennsylvania highway. Just darkness, trees, and sky. I can't remember if the stars were out. Something about those Appalachian Forest highways just are monotonous in a weird way.

Those road trips are always fun. I strongly suggest. Even if you have to brave the Appalachian Static.

Anyway we arrive at Punxsutawney. It is in the middle of nowhere. Just another isolated abandoned steel town. They have a bit of a real downtown that most of these towns utterly lack. Often it's a gas station and a Dollar General and a bunch of run down houses with a school 40 minutes away it shares with the other rundown towns.

But Punxsutawney has a nice little town of happy people because of Phil and our fascination with this thing.

So of course there is not parking for 30,000 people. In a town of 5,000. So they rope off some field frozen solid and park us all charging Disney parking fees.

They subcontract school buses to haul people from the parking lot to the main event. The bus drivers are the first line of defense against alcohol and drugs.

Security is the second. Compete with pat downs and local cops along with PA Troopers with drug dogs and quotas to meet. No spoiling the fun with chemical enhancement!

Then you walk for fucking ever. Slowly. Going to the Knob.

It is deadly cold. And it begins to dawn on you what you are in for in this grassy pen with nothing but a porta potty or two for entertainment.

Look at all that fun!

This was before phones people. My friends and I were super studious and none of us owned any kind of video game. No handheld games. Maybe you thought to bring a newspaper or book. I think I brought a book. I'm sure at least one of them brought engineering notes to study. Most just talk and bitch about the cold.

Cold in the dark is different from cold in the light. It is so much deeper without the solar radiation slightly warming your surface and your spirits.

Then the dawn brings light and a little warmth and hope.

Then the dawn brings the DJ.

Small town DJs are interesting critters. They are small town famous and often they are unique personalities that can be really entertaining. At least between songs and commercials. Some of them are pretty amazing like Nipsey, Jen, and Earl in Harrisburg/Hershey/Lancaster/Lebanon area back when it was even more podunk backwater.

It was 1998 and this guy showed up.

So this small town guy is used to entertaining local venues with his shtick that everyone knows and loves with his slightly out of date look and inside local jokes.

Today he has 2 hours of just him on a stage in front of 30,000 pissed off college students who were expecting a lot more entertainment and maybe some food or drinks and tired & grumpy rural folk hoping to get in a little fun and excitement before going to work. At least half the crowd had found a way to sneak in a flask or something. So people were unruly.

And we just watch the poor guy spend 2 hours fighting for his life up there feeling bad for him trying to entertain us while hosting his fun little morning show for his listeners who are probably loving it all.

He got heckled. Badly. This was 25 years ago and we weren't very nice.

After 2 hours of this entertainment. The main event started.

My heroes arrived on the scene.

They have been partying all night long. In a nice warm place with warm food, comfy chairs/couches, running water, and a ton of alcohol. They are all drunk as skunks. The all come up on stage, wave and whip up the crowd, pull out their buddy, give him some scritches and lift him up to the crowd like he's the new Lion King, and then examine his shadow, make their proclamation, smile and wave, go back to their party, and count their money.

This is the highlight of the entire event. The peak of excitement. The best it got for the whole day.

Then they shoved the DJ back on stage, the national media and anyone with connections left, and the rest of us were kept penned up for another hour or 2 till it was our turn to take a school bus back to our frozen car, a 3+ hour drive through winter highways to get back in time for afternoon classes.

It was so much fun.

Inevitable Climate Change Response in America (and rest of the "civilized" world)

In the end we will have to accept the global warming will happen and is a fact.

Of course we won't change anything whatsoever. Except that there will be massive "mismanaged" government program to subsidize the relocation of rich homeowners away from the coast while making bank for bankers. And you can guarantee they will be leaving the renters and poor to basically defend for themselves with a single COVID check or some such bullshit.

A really good hamburger could save America.

There are a ton of foods that taste so much better and are so much more satisfying and pleasing to me in every way.

But nothing hits like a good burger. Every American needs a 5 guys within easy errands distance.

I think that burgers taste like America ought to be. Burgers taste like freedom and liberty. And I think that a good, juicy fresh burger cook out could save America.

We can have an app to match up members of opposing factions for a BBQ of well made hamburgers.

# BBQforAmerica

Sit down and talk about your favorite burgers and burger joints. Compare recipes and hints. Crack some cold ones and tell some stories. Heal America 2 families at a time. And those nice normal weird families might have friends for life. At the very least they will tell everyone they know about the nice loving normal and weird family and all the chisme. It will humanize each other. Eating a good burger with someone else can bond Americans for life.

Burgers could heal America.