I don’t watch live TV or assorted live media. This is for the same reason I step around dogshit rather than smear it on my face.
However, there times when I want information right away. It’s an election and curiosity got the best of me. How was it going? I had to know.
Hulu had live commentary. It looked like Biden was doing well but all I could think was “what language are these twerps speaking”? It was an unwatchable combination of fancy graphics and obfuscation. “Among left handed suburban Chicano single moms who voted for Hillary in 2016, Biden is doing within reasonable expectations. Also the number of Octogenarian cancer patients in Florida divided by the GDP of this particular precinct in New Hampshire is…” That’s not providing information, it’s vomiting data.
Wisely, I turned out and watched Tremors. Gotta’ love Bert Gummer.
After the movie I tried again. PredictIt wasn’t loading. The whole ‘net seemed slow. I couldn’t endure the crap on Hulu. Finally, I gave YouTube a shot.
Unaccustomed to modern “network news”, I wallowed around YouTube trying to find actual information. Lots of mask wearing yo-yos talking about anything other than electoral college votes on a state by state basis.
Then I heard it. Here’s the quote of the day:
”It’s too early to tell but it doesn’t look like Trump will have the total wipeout some Republicans feared.”
Wait… what?!? The Trump wipeout Republicans feared? What the hell are they smoking and is it legal outside of Colorado?
I fiddled with the remote, failing to rewind to the money quote. I started thinking I’d somehow mis-heard.
Then I saw a brief flash of a map. There was a smattering of encouraging red blobs on the east coast. More importantly there was a tally showing Trump with an inconclusive but not insignificant lead in electoral college votes.
OK, this is what I was looking for. At least I’d found the mute button. Maybe I’d get the feel of things.
Then, with a flourish they called the entire west coast for Biden… with zero votes counted. It was in mute but I put the words out for them; “Trump was looking ahead so we decided this is a good time to call half the map with zero votes counted… enjoy this brief respite before Orange Man Bad stomps Biden like Godzilla doing the Can Can on top of Tokyo.”
I poured a nice drink and settled in to watch. I tapped this post into a tabled. Then I decided to watch old Wile E. Coyote cartoons instead. At the time some talking head was yammering on “it’s important we don’t jump to any conclusions before every fucking mail in ballot is counted sometime next week…”
Ha ha ha… the things the media says are true in terms of what they won’t say. I can tell what they’re not saying.
Have a great evening y’all. Time for me to see what my favorite coyote does with his new rocket sled.
A.C.
P.S. If tomorrow dawns and everything is ashes, I’ll rethink my optimism. For now “not quite the total wipeout Republicans feared” sounds like a punchline.