TBT^16: Reclaim the Rainbow

5 June 202531 May 2025 The Portly Politico15 Comments

It seems that last year’s trend of major corporations downplaying gayness is continuing. Yes, a recent iPhone iOS update mentioned including a “Pride” background or wallpaper or some such nonsense, and I’m sure all of my phone’s apps will turn into rainbows until July, but the more blatant and outrageous stuff seems less prevalent.

As I noted last year, I could be wrong, but the general tenor of the times have changed. The essential problem with all of corporate America and our governments celebrating homosexuality is that, eventually, all of these people will die off. You’re already engaging in a form of behavior that makes procreation impossible, and even the heterosexual fellow travelers (“allies”) are pumping themselves full of birth control and/or anti-human ideology. The demographic reality favors religious traditionalists, not men in assless chaps engaging in buggery.

I don’t think that demographic implosion has occurred yet, but maybe we’re witnessing the beginnings of it. In twenty years, I would not be surprised if Target quietly pulled all “Pride” celebrations and began marketing baby diapers to conservative Christians aggressively.

Regardless, let’s pray for all of those lost in the quagmire of sin; we’re there, but Christ Redeems and Saves—even the guys in assless chaps.

With that, here is 6 June 2024’s “TBT^4: Reclaim the Rainbow“:

TBT^4: Summertime Schedule Begins

29 May 202523 May 2025 The Portly Politico8 Comments

Well, here we are again—another summer vacation, which means another school year in the books. This past academic year was not nearly as taxing as the one that came before, but I am always amazed by how exhausting teaching can be, even though I have lived it for over fifteen years now. March through May are always a mad dash, and then—as I have noted many times before—everything just… stops.

Not precisely, though. I’ll do my annual Minecraft Camp next week. Dr. Fiancée and I are also in the depths of wedding planning. And I am looking forward to my annual visit to Indianapolis to see my older brother.

Every year I think about what I will do with the time, and every year I find that I fail to meet the breadth of my ambitions. I do want to put in some more work on Offensive Poems: With Pictures, as I think that could be a fun project and might actually move some copies. Otherwise, I’ll do some more digital composing.

One thing I am looking forward to is the return of the afternoon nap. Goodness, how I love a good siesta!

With that, here is 30 May 2024’s “TBT^2: Summertime Schedule Begins“:

TBT^4: Zelda Game & Watch

22 May 20254 May 2025 The Portly PoliticoLeave a comment

On 2 May 2022 I purchased the legendary Zelda Game & Watch by Nintendo (that link is an Amazon Affiliate link, which means I receive a portion of any purchases made through that link, at no additional cost to you). It’s a small, handheld device that has the first Zelda games, as well as the Gameboy’s classic Link’s Awakening. It also functions as a clock, which is kind of cool, too.

I wrote a very long post about the unit back on 31 May 2022, lovingly detailing the wild nostalgia trip the unit sparked. Honestly, 2022 seems like the distant past, and it was only three years ago! Regardless, I still have the unit, and while I am clearing out a lot of my old technology, I don’t have any immediate plans to sell this bad boy.

If you’re a gamer and you appreciate the classic Zelda games, I highly recommend you grab the unit. It’s currently $53.93 on Amazon (again, that’s an affiliate link), but it’s worth every penny. Considering most video games now are at least $60 brand new, that’s a steal.

Or you can live vicariously through this massive reblog for free.

With that, here is 23 May 2024’s “TBT^2: Zelda Game & Watch“:

TBT: Mystery in the Blogosphere

15 May 20254 May 2025 The Portly Politico7 Comments

It was almost exactly a year ago that legendary Trinidadian blogger Renard, formerly of Renard’s World, disappeared—or, at least, his blog disappeared. To my knowledge, no one knows anything about the once-ubiquitous blogger or his whereabouts.

In searching for his blog, I found two different blog titles from his site, which still shows up in search results even though the site has been deleted: “Renard Is Not Overly Attached to His Blog,” dated 5 February 2024; and “Nothing Ever Gets Between Me and Blogging,” dated 12 April 2024. It seems Renard was sending mixed messages in the final months of his blogging journey.

The blog Geek Mamas ran a post on 30 May 2024, “What Happened to Renard’s World?“; it asks all the questions we in the WordPress blogosphere were asking at the time, and noted many of the similar themes: the change in Renard’s tone; the possible use of AI to generate images and/or to write his posts; the total and sudden disappearance of the blog. I can’t find much more (although, to be honest, I didn’t dig that deeply), and this may simply remain one of the great unsolved mysteries of the Internet.

Why speculate? Well, let’s be honest—it’s interesting. To understand how huge Renard’s sudden disappearance was, this guy was everywhere—every blogger on WordPress followed Renard, even if we didn’t always read him, and he seemed to follow everyone else. He even liked a few of my posts on occasion, which isn’t a brag so much as a kind of surprise, because the guy was all over the place.

Anyway, it seems the weeks of speculation died down, and I had not thought of old Renard until casting about for some old blog posts to repost for TBT. Now I have to wonder again: what happened to him and his site? Does anyone have any additional information?

Perhaps one day we’ll know, but I suspect that the mystery will endure.

With that, here is 15 May 2024’s “Mystery in the Blogosphere“:

TBT^16: SimEarth

8 May 20254 May 2025 The Portly Politico2 Comments

The big news in the gaming world right now is the incredible The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Remastered. It came as a total shock to the gaming world (yeah, there were rumors swirling that it was in the works, but no one knew it was coming so soon), and managed to update the game’s graphics and fix some bugs while also maintaining the legendary “jank” for which the game is so fondly remembered.

Yours portly has not yet taken the dive back into Cyrodiil (although, goodness, I am desperate to do so), but I am looking forward to the rapidly-approaching summer for a chance to dig into some classic games. It’s been so long since I’ve really been able to sit down and lose myself for hours into a good game. I haven’t even been able to touch Civilization VII in almost two months!

Gaming always comes to my mind during the hot, lazy days of summer, when it’s so unbearable outside, I l basically live like my home is a life support pod on Venus, only venturing out when absolutely necessary. So it was that I booted up old SimEarth some years ago, and took a rose-tinted, nostalgia-fueled walk back to my past, when I first played a copy of the game my Indian friend copied onto a 3.5″ floppy disk for me. Those were the days!

With that, join me on this extended walk through the past; here is 16 May 2024’s “TBT^4: SimEarth“:

TBT^16: Egged Off

1 May 202530 April 2025 The Portly Politico4 Comments

Eggs are still expensive. My attempt to legalize these friendly, productive fowls failed after a bunch of angry Boomer women scuttled it for fear that chickens will decrease property values (the opposite is true). Also, when you’re 80, why do you care how much your property is worth? When will this selfish, shortsighted generation cease to meddle in everything?

To be clear, I don’t wish ill to the Boomers just because a handful of hysterical old ladies opposed legalizing chickens—which are cleaner and easier to care for than most dogs—but, goodness! Eggs are literally $6-8 a dozen at my local grocery store. People should be allowed to raise chickens. By God, they allow it New York City (when I brought that up, a crusty old lady said, “so we’re as progressive as New York City?!—what a stupid old hag)!

As you can tell, I’m still salty about the chicken ordinance. But I haven’t given up yet. In the meantime, Americans have a proud tradition of ignoring blatantly stupid and self-destructive laws.

No amount of cluelessness will lead to people to starve themselves. Let a thousand chickens cluck!

With that, here is 9 May 2024’s “TBT^4: Egged Off“:

TBT: The TJC Challenge

24 April 202518 April 2025 The Portly PoliticoLeave a comment

Last year I issued to my readers The TJC Challenge, a challenge to listen to all of my music on either Apple Music or YouTube/YouTube Music. At the time, The TJC Challenge took about three hours to complete, appropriate for a morning of shirking responsibilities at the office.

The entire challenge now takes approximately seven hours and eleven minutes. If you just listened to the albums (some of which are, ironically, shorter in playtime than the EPs), it would take five hours and fifty-eight minutes—just shy of six hours.

Actually, it’s a bit longer: when I initially did the above calculations, I forgot to include my latest release, Leftovers IV, which clocks in at nineteen minutes, thirty-nine seconds. That brings the total playtime up to 7.5 hours and change.

Also, you can now attempt the challenge on Spotify as well. I gave up my doomed boycott of releasing to Spotify. I don’t really make any money from streams there, sadly, thanks to their thieving streaming policy, but I realized that the vast majority of music listeners (including my older brother and Dr. Girlfriend) use the service, so I might as well let the people I love have the ability to listen to my music easily.

The point is, it now takes about an entire workday to listen to all of this music. I don’t expect most people to do it, but I will send a free hat to the first person who listens to all of my releases on the streaming platform of their choice. All you have to do is listen to every release, then send me a 100-word blurb about which albums/EPs/songs/pieces you liked—and which you did not—and tell me why. And, no, I’m not going to count every word; you can write more or less. Years of teaching have taught me that people crave a word count or page requirement, so there you go!

Do you have the guts to take on The TJC Challenge? Or the free time, for that matter?

With that, here is 10 April 2024’s “The TJC Challenge“:

TBT^65,536: End the Income Tax

10 April 20259 April 2025 The Portly PoliticoLeave a comment

I hate the income tax. It’s an intrusive and demoralizing experience filing them every year. Why does the federal government get to know about every transaction I’ve made over the course of a fiscal year?

It’s also expensive. I work exceptionally hard so that I can attempt to enjoy a decent quality of life. That’s only gotten harder with inflation. As I prepared my income taxes this year, I found that, even though I earned less from lessons during FY2024 than FY2023, I somehow owed more money—by a factor of three.

When I first wrote this post, I argued for a national sales tax as the lesser of two evils. Now, I’m tariffs all the way, baby. They act, in a sense, as a national sales tax, but they have the social benefit of bringing jobs and industries back to the United States. I’d rather pay an extra fifty bucks for my American-made washing machine and give a fellow citizen a good job than have to shell out my meager savings and reveal all of my financial underwear to the IRS every April.

At least with Trump in office, there is a faint hope—very faint, but a hope nonetheless—that the income tax might be reaching the end of its abusive, wicked life. What a terrible system!

With that, here is 11 April 2024’s “TBT^256: End the Income Tax“:

TBT: Concert Week!

3 April 202530 March 2025 The Portly PoliticoLeave a comment

Tomorrow night is the big Spring Concert at school, so my kids will playing their hearts out. Indeed, tonight is the school play, so yours portly will be working hard to flip everything from the play over to the concert.

The concert is coming a few weeks earlier this year than last year, but I am looking forward to getting it done a bit earlier in the season. It makes the rest of the school year a bit more manageable.

Not much more to say at this point, but I’ll have a full review of the concert done soon. In the meantime, I’ve got two very long, grueling days ahead of me. Gulp!

With that, here is 29 April 2024’s “Concert Week!“:

TBT: Support Culture, Not Political Machines

27 March 202523 March 2025 The Portly Politico2 Comments

The big scuttlebutt in the conservative world is the rumor that Ben Shapiro‘s The Daily Wire may be going bankrupt. I have no idea if that is true or not, although their longtime co-founder, Jeremy Boreing, is apparently stepping down from his position as co-CEO.

It’s a good reminder that some of these big-named conservative commentators are often too big for their own good. In some ways, having a bigger brand and presence means you also have to walk a thinner and thinner line. I am increasingly ambivalent about Shapiro, who I think hedges his bets too much. He was flat-out anti-Trump eight years ago, and now acts like he was leading the charge for Trumpism in 2015. Balderdash!

Whatever happens at The Daily Wire, Ben Shapiro is going to be okay. He’s got book royalties, a nationally-syndicated radio show, a popular podcast, etc., etc., etc.

But you know who does need support? The small fries. But not just the political commentary small fries: the artists, authors, writers, composers, musicians, painters, craftsmen, etc., the people who are making culture on a shoestring budget and a prayer.

Not just me, either, but that would be nice.

With that, here is 19 April 2024’s “Support Culture, Not Political Machines“:

The Portly Politico

One Southerner's unique, erudite, conservative perspective in a hectic world

Tag: TBT