Big Dumb Bear 🍸

Stay at Home Astronaut, Critter, Corgi Tamer, Moose, Dungeon Master, Software Spaghetti Maker | he/him

[Big Dumb Bear 🍸 @DoucheHooligan]

Many years ago during the course of a murder mystery held at @RabbitWrath's, my dear friend @shavawesome (playing the part of the sheriff) accused my Matt Steele (bounty hunter extraordinare) of murder most foul. Stammering to find the words... Ya Douche!... Ya Douche Hooligan!!

[Everyday Astronaut @Erdayastronaut]

Not meaning to complain too much, but... I've just had this overwhelming feeling lately that so many things are objectively WORSE in 2026 than they were say 7 years ago. Here's a short list of things:

1. Google. I no longer get anywhere near an honest search, mostly either AI or ads
2. YouTube, search is also completely broken, serving only recent things and / or shorts. I guess social media in general just feels more and more pointless and far less about humans.
3. Uber / Lyft, prices are INSANE
4. DoorDash, prices are also absolutely off the charts
5. Rental cars, needed to rent a car yesterday, couldn't do it under a few hundred for 2 days.
6. Groceries are almost $200 every time I go
7. Insurance has sky rocketed for everything. The house in Texas is about 2 times more expensive to insure in 2026 than it was in just 2021
8. Food. Starbucks and Subway sandwiches were never particularly amazing, but now they're not even a shell of what they used to be, and many many others.
9. Online ordering. I feel like I used to kind of know what I'd get. Now there's a decent chance of seeing some AI slop and getting a complete scam of a product with no responsibility
10. Phones. I'm less happy with my phone and getting more and more spam calls now more than ever, and I'm more often either waiting for faceID to work, or accidentally hitting something, or accidentally hitting the camera button, or accidentally changing the background. Like multiple times a day, I'm doing an input that I did not want to do. That didn't used to happen
11. Housing / Rent prices / hotel prices
12. EVERYTHING being "private equity", screw that. Stop chasing profit, chase making good products.

I guess a lot of this is just inflation in general. I'm really noticing the price of things get more and more ridiculous...

But it also feels like a lot of things are just getting worse. Adding features that shouldn't exist, chasing profits over making a good product, adding steps to make something more frustrating to use or order or do. Trying to have AI just simply "replace" something instead of being a tool to help improve it, or a way to just opt back.

I don't know. I'm trying hard to just keep my head down and do my work the old fashioned way, and I just feel like there's this mantra of "hurry up or you'll miss out". I've been enjoying being outside more, trying to be healthy and offline, and it just feels more and more like things aren't what it used to be.

I say this, yet I'm still hopeful for the future. I still think there's incredible things happening and amazing technologies, and exciting things happening in our world. I just feel like if I could hit the rewind button on a few things, I absolutely would. Would you? Maybe this is just part of growing older and feeling nostalgic? I am getting old...

[Big Dumb Bear 🍸 @DoucheHooligan]

@chrisfluming The latest from the Stow, MA police blotter. At least someone is trying to keep things weird in your absence. ❤️

[NYTPitchbot @DougJBalloon]

Military experts say it will be difficult for the United States to retrieve Iran's nuclear materials. A senile rapist who shits himself in public says it will be easy. For busy Americans, it can be hard to know who to trust.

[Big Dumb Bear 🍸 @DoucheHooligan]

@thejackbeyer @mcrs987 Could SpaceX (indirectly) owning Twitter put them in ITAR crosshairs.? Even if the content is generated by a 3rd party, they're in the position of distributing it. Less he's breaking the law and more maybe they would be? Hard to understand otherwise.

[Big Dumb Bear 🍸 @DoucheHooligan]

@RadioFreeTom Person, Woman, Camera, DDSBZDT

[Big Dumb Bear 🍸 @DoucheHooligan]

@BrynnTannehill I’m not sure why we force airline pilots to retire at 65, but somehow think it’s fine to let a 79yo be in charge of 3,700 nuclear weapons.

[Big Dumb Bear 🍸 @DoucheHooligan]

@Aviation_Intel @fredzannarbor Plus, honestly, the chances *weren’t* great. The fact that we’ve beaten them so far is no guarantee that we’ll continue to.

[Hans Kristensen (also on Bluesky) @nukestrat]

Good night, USA. It was a great idea.

[Big Dumb Bear 🍸 @DoucheHooligan]

@Aviation_Intel Presumably the official comms won't let you delete your conversation...

[Big Dumb Bear 🍸 @DoucheHooligan]

@Cbp76 @Aviation_Intel Yep. I think you can see all three of them pre-detonation for a hot second. There's one that's relatively easy to spot in the upper left and then one that's mostly obscured by the timeline in the center bottom (barely in frame and disappears through the roof of the structure).

[Julie Roginsky @julieroginsky]

Is it a story about him sexually assaulting women or paying off a porn star or grabbing women by the pu**y or getting payoffs from Saudi Arabia or praising Hitler or inciting an insurrection or stashing classified info in his bathroom or obstructing a criminal investigation?

[David Simon @AoDespair]

With regard to the presidential election, there are no undecided voters in the United States at this moment. Not a one. There are voters who will cast a ballot for the diametrical opposites of Trump or Harris and a handful who will waste their vote on a third-party pout. And then there are a mass of people who despite all the evidence available that American democracy itself is at stake, don't care enough to show up and do the job of citizens. That's it.

I'm not calling any voter at this point undecided. That's too nice a word for indifference and ignorance; it wrongly implies ongoing engagement and thought.

[Shahanshah of the Internet Age @ChazakielDoremi]

Unfathomable amounts of people have fallen in love, found beauty in a sunset, were brave, cowardly, loyal, traitors, died fighting senseless wars in the names of tribes and gods that will never be remembered for an amount of time literally incomprehensible

[🐔 Brian Bucklew 🐔 ₑͤ＞∿＜ₑͤ ∞🌮 @unormal]

everyone using meth instead of using chatgpt is the plot of dune

[goo goo g’june @folieajune]

there’s a WHAT in the WHERE??

[The Intellectualist @highbrow_nobrow]

“When you see Trump with Putin, as I have on a few occassions, he’s like the 12-year old boy that goes to high school and meets the captain of the football team. ‘My hero!’ It’s really creepy.”

- @TurnbullMalcolm, 29th Prime Minister of Australia.

[Big Dumb Bear 🍸 @DoucheHooligan]

@TajaKayScaper Totally get it - it sucks. But his base was going to think he was killing it if he literally shit himself on stage. Admitting anything else would just be too painful. I just hope there’s still a couple of reasonable people seeing him for what he’s clearly showing himself to be.

[Big Dumb Bear 🍸 @DoucheHooligan]

@TajaKayScaper Counterpoint: almost every word he’s saying is hurting him and making him look ridiculous.

[Big Dumb Bear 🍸 @DoucheHooligan]

@TajaKayScaper Point: https://t.co/srTXm6Nsi2

[Geoffrey Skelley @geoffreyvs]

Trump is getting *a lot* more time to talk in this debate