first racoon

hot take: the vmas might measure fandom power almost as much as the music itself.

for many major 2026 categories, mtv let fans vote up to 10 times a day.

so when an artist wins, how much are we rewarding the best video and how much are we rewarding the fanbase that organized hardest?

at some point an award show starts looking a little like a popularity war with trophies.

turning “how did you two meet?” into “we both swiped right and somehow survived the talking stage.”

sometimes cheating starts long before anything physical happens. for example, constantly sending flirty messages to someone, hiding the chat from your partner, and telling yourself “nothing happened.” maybe nothing happened physically. but something already changed.

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a thinking error that feels completely reasonable while you are inside it. one bad thing happens and your brain turns it into “this always happens.” someone seems distant and suddenly it becomes “they hate me.” you make one mistake and somehow arrive at “i am a failure.” the strange part is that the brain is not necessarily trying to lie to you. it is trying to simplify reality. sometimes it just simplifies it into something much worse.

the baroque period was, in many ways, an age obsessed with finding order in nature and understanding that order as something ultimately rooted in god. art, mathematics, architecture, philosophy, science, and music all reflected that search for structure, proportion, and harmony.

in music, repeating patterns and ostinatos are common, and slower tempos such as adagio, andante, larghetto, adagietto, and largo appear frequently. compared with the emotional turbulence of the romantic period, baroque music often feels more spacious, balanced, and controlled.

that sense of order is part of what makes it so calming.

music around 60 to 80 bpm is often associated with relaxation and sustained attention, while even slower tempos are commonly used for meditation and sleep. when that slower pulse is combined with the patterned structure of baroque music, the effect can feel especially soothing.

another reason is the way tension and resolution are handled. harmonic tension is often introduced and resolved relatively quickly, so the listener is not left suspended in discomfort for very long.

compare that with wagner’s tristan und isolde, where tension can be stretched across enormous spans of time before finally resolving.

in short, baroque music reflects the same larger idea that shaped the period itself: the search for order in a world believed to have been created according to divine structure.

johann sebastian bach made that connection explicit. he often wrote soli deo gloria on his manuscripts.

“glory to god alone.”

following king mohammed vi of morocco's decision yesterday to pardon nearly two thousand prisoners, thousands of people reportedly headed today toward ceuta and melilla in north africa.

although both ceuta and melilla are located on the north african coast, they are spanish territories and part of the schengen area, which means they are legally spanish soil.

according to reports, many of the migrants were dropped off at the spanish border in trucks and vans.

https://x.com/...Sinfo/status/2082833133863391336

the last ten minutes completely changed the way i saw this film.

for most of the runtime, i thought i was watching a fairly straightforward revenge story told through metaphor. then the ending clicked, everything fell into place, and what had been a 7/10 instantly became a 9/10 for me.

the only reason it isn't higher is the opening sequence. i still have no meaningful explanation for it, and honestly, i wish i could unsee it.

the pain of feeling the distance between yourself and the world.

the cinematography, performances, and overall production are solid, though not particularly groundbreaking. what really makes the film stand out is its central idea and the moral dilemma it leaves you with.

imagine being deeply in love with someone. would you actually want that person to love you back with absolute, all-consuming devotion? the film suggests that our desire to be loved has a terrifying side. many of the moments presented as horror aren't supernatural at all—they already exist in countless real-life relationships: jealous rages that end in murder, obsessive stalking disguised as love, and complete self-destruction in the name of devotion.

in that sense, the movie argues that love itself can be a horror story.

i couldn't help but think that, in the hands of a director like kubrick or spielberg, this premise could have become one of those unforgettable films that stays with people for decades. even so, i still enjoyed it and appreciated what it was trying to say.

boring comfort.

let's all chip in and give this guy 1-2 rings already so he'll finally let go of the nba.

breaking bad; in the history of television, where some shows do a few things well, some shows pull off a great many things, and peak productions like the wire, oz, the sopranos, dekalog, and chernobyl bend dozens of things to perfection, it's a masterpiece that's had its name written in gold letters right alongside these 5 shows, a flawless work of art.

but breaking bad has some very special technical details that exist in it and in no other show. just as the godfather's first film is considered the peak of cinema and seen as the work closest to perfection, breaking bad is the exact equivalent of that in the world of television.

there's a principle i've always stood by when it comes to shows and films: angle is everything, meaning the framing. that whole, unified image the camera takes in... because in a production, what conveys the main idea and feeling to the viewer best is the angles. acting, screenplay, editing, or other details aren't as decisive as the power of the angles. wherever you plant the camera, or the entire space the camera takes in while it's moving, is the peak of the art of cinema. what makes paintings or snapshots beautiful, too, is mostly the originality of the angle. what makes a picture special is looking at it from an angle only a handful of people in the world could ever look from, and painting it just like that.

the password shouldn't be asked for.

you already know your spouse's or your long-term partner's password anyway, you've picked it up somewhere along the natural flow of life, and wanting to specifically ask for their password just to look through their phone is disrespectful too, it's the kind of thing that runs on trust.

wanting to look through their phone out of the blue for no reason would be foolish, in my opinion, but if a moment comes where they start trying to hide their phone, keep it on silent all the time, or get overly tense or panicky when you ask about it, then there's a problem there.

as far as i'm concerned, two mature people know each other's passwords and don't try to sneak in and snoop through it, that requires a certain level of maturity.

this kid is pretty likable, man.

good taste in music.

he gives the opponents who deserve it a soft, gentle roasting.

he throws troll replies back at the memes that clown him.

he's good on the pitch. not some crybaby footballer who throws himself to the ground bawling.

he knows how to laugh, how to have fun.

nice. a kid with character.