Ray "Scotch" Coulton

Tubthumping - They Might Be Giants & The AV Club Chorus YouTube video by ParticleMen

Good morning! Starting the day with They Might Be Giants, and a surprisingly fun cover.

Gonna go back and watch the trailers so far where Yoshi speaks to see if I can hear the Gloverness

Where were you when you learned Donald Glover was Yoshi?

He's a bad rep involving lots of past relationships with women?

Pixar Head Pete Docter Defends Cutting LGBTQ Content in Movies Apparently, Pixar will happily spend 40 years playing therapist to anyone about anything, but they draw the line at queer people.

Hoppers was fantastic. That said, not sure I would have seen it if I'd read this "explanation" re: cutting LGBTQ+ content from Pixar films first. gizmodo.com/pete-docter-...

Ahem, you mean Javie Martzoukas :)

Yep.

Very curious to see if Brennan sticks around... though, sadly, I also recall he did a Dimension 20 collab with the WWE, an organization that's long had ties to Tr*mp. Regardless of the involved wrestlers' positions, still a terrible, baffling look.

(bing)
(bong)
(bing)
I taught you how to Cyclops Rock
And then you go and move around the time on my clock

...anyone (even genre fave Nathan Fillion) associated with that show, IMO, has compromised values & is saying they're OK with all of the above. So it's doubly disgusting when supposed progressive ally Sam Reich not only gleefully jumps at the chance, but sidesteps that very point in his response.

...in articles minimizing the severity of the crossover:

LAPD is friendly with ICE. Police orgs are provably, widely racist, and the LAPD has a history of it. And they provide access to The Rookie, which presents a sanitized, fictionalized version of the LAPD. Thus...

Read the Vulture article on Sam Reich's decision, after being approached by the creatives of ABC's The Rookie, to go through with the crossover, and the fact that he's nothing but gleeful at the opportunity is as galling as it is disappointing.

Again, and this point continues to be glossed over...

People that post they don’t like Santos in #thepitt are reminding me of the people that didn’t like Carol in Pluribus. Y’all need to get some taste. she can be often unlikable, but we know there is more depth to her. That’s what makes good tv.

...eventually either find redemption or atone for their mistakes. That's ultimately what this show is about, I think, and it's just using subverted "alien invasion" tropes to do it.

...what if you had "the wrong person" as humanity's last hope? That's honestly what made it interesting for me. Also, Vince Gilligan is known for taking flawed, grating protagonists (I mean, Walter White annoyed the hell out of me, and he was a literal criminal and killer in the show) who...

... It will also address the consequences of her actions. She's not just annoying for the sake of being annoying, and she does, in a manner of speaking, change over the course of the season. The show is also about subverting tropes--instead of the do-everything-right "nice guy" as the hero...

Carol's attitude is a feature, not a bug, and intentional--after all, who better to go up against a plague of endlessly happy drones than someone terminally pissed? The show explores *why* she's this way (which also explains why she's even more averse to the hive than others)... but...

S5 ... considered by many to be in the top 5 series, if not the best

either you act rude to a hive mind that wants to convert you against your will, or play nice to manipulate them. Carol did both, and both are valid options, and the result was the same both ways.

Though, arguably, Americans colonizing something British would be so richly laden with irony and redundancy I wouldn't know what layer to start peeling back

Cheers ... I was extremely tempted to cross-reference those very clues against one another... it wasn't meant to be! ;)

Minute Cryptic Mini Crossword - 6 March, 2026
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I used 0 letters
I used 0 hints
My time was 00:07:24

www.minutecryptic.com/minis/61?utm...

Great clues this week @rayscotchcoulton.bsky.social! Loved 7A and 8A

I'd love to show this clip to someone who's never seen the show, and make them wonder if every contestant is required to dress as a pirate at some point

When Will You Die? - They Might Be Giants (Official Video) YouTube video by ParticleMen

I very strongly doubt they ever would. Plus, well, I'm not saying they wrong this song about him already, but I'm also NOT not saying that youtu.be/kSQ8tZ35t4U?...

Half the graphic from this Gizmodo article was (I'm convinced) intentionally placed to make one Pixar character put "their arm" around another... so the pattern-seeking part of me is bugged that no attempt was made with the other half of the graphic

Side note: this isn't the first time a Dropout show collab with a MAGA/Tr*mp-friendly org -- Dimension 20 (yes, with Brennan involved!) did a WWE crossover.

that have in the past used their unique positions to speak truth and opposition to power are hard to come by and greatly valued. Through that lens, that's what's galling about this crossover: a seeming ally & voice of resistance, teaming w/allies of fascists for $$$ & revealing who they really are.

...given everything happening here and abroad adds to the sting of it. Again, I'm not conflating the disappointment of this crossover with the needless war in Iran, ICE running unchecking, voter rights being demolished, etc., and I never will. But platforms, and people on those platforms...

In this time of all the horrible things happening in the world, you seek allies where you can, and look for responsible progressive voices in media that people can rally behind. Dropout is--well, was--one of those voices. In fact, the timing of this crossover...

You know you're winning at parenting when They Might Be Giants drops a new song or two every few weeks, and when they do, your grade-school son spends hours creating remixes and mashups of them unprompted