Posting As A Coping Mechanism

 A brief note on conversational safety equipment I’ve started noticing a phrase people deploy right before saying something they don’t want examined too closely. A small linguistic seatbelt, fastened immediately before driving directly into oncoming traffic. I speak, of course, of the once humble “ in my opinion. ” People no longer say this then offer their thought. They say it like performing a quick-save in Skyrim before looting a shop. It's become the conversational version of “in Minecraft,” except instead of protecting from the fuzz it protects from follow-up questions. This is a real bummer too, because “in my opinion” used to perfectly perform it’s previous purpose.

Traditionally, the first paragraph of a review attempts to establish the writer’s bona fides, to explain why the reader should bother listening to their opinion at all. For long-running franchises, this often takes the form of the author talking about the first time they encountered it - typically a story from their youth meant to demonstrate that they’ve been around long enough to be taken seriously. Sometimes there’s trivia baked in as well: nothing too obscure, nothing too mainstream. Information just niche enough to signal that they’re hip, that they get “it,” that they are an Authority. You know. Gatekeeping. I’m not going to waste your time with that. Instead, I’ll waste your time explaining what I won’t waste your time with, because that’s different, and it challenges the status quo. Much like this weird little opening, Star Trek: Starfleet Academy starts off a little rough, but ultimately does something unique with Trek - something new for the franchise. It’s a bit weird. But i...

 Hello World! As I write this, it's January 2, 2026. A brand new year, one that will be filled with challenges and change. Probably more of each that I want, and most assuredly more than I've faced in a while. I think it's safe to say that, unfortunately, that's true for many of us. But, as they say: New Year, New Me. But who is Me? That's the question. So, who am I? Well, you can call me Dunny. That's not my legal name, but that's close enough to who I am that it doesn't really matter. I'm just as much me online as I am offline, regardless of what handle I'm going by.