Oh the Places I Go . . .

Two things:

1. A crossword puzzle led me down a rabbit hole of movies featuring flying cars, and I discovered the first film of said genre, called the "? Motorist" was produced in 1906, when films and cars were all relatively new.

2. The version of it I found on YouTube has a soundtrack by John Phillip Sousa, showing that Monty Python's Flying Circus has precedent in selecting Sousa tunes for filmed comedy.

The version of the film here has no sound, so I don't know if the other version with the Sousa soundtrack is the original pairing, but I like to think it is.

Also, this must have been considered the artificial intelligence "fake video" of the day, yet it led to things that we enjoy now.

Danger, Will YouTuber! Danger!

I've fallen into an odd YouTube rabbit hole lately, listening to videos of random YouTubers "reporting" on the sins of other random YouTubers, with sins ranging from maybe or maybe not publishing autopsy photos without family permission on true crime stations, to ill-treatment and gaslighting of fellow YouTubers and associated staff.

Part of me appreciates the "Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?" (Who watches the watchers?) vibe of the whole thing, as I believe any media outlet, or anyone acting as a media outlet, ought to be called on the carpet when they've legitimately screwed up.

But there's a darker undertone here, expressed widely in the comments, that many watching and listening don't really care if the alleged sins were committed or not, but they're there for the drama and to watch the "mighty" fall and flail and flounder. They actively hope they fail and that their kids fail and that they lose everything they cherish in a barn fire, and hope someone records the barn fire and posts it online for them to see.

While there are many who are caught who continue to lie or gaslight or whatever, there are those who appear, at least in my eyes, to offer sincere apologies and work to fix what they're done wrong. That doesn't seem to matter to the sharks swirling in the comments, who seem to consider that once a person has sinned, there's no amount of apology or explanation of whatever from the sinner than can atone for the crime -- and it certainly doesn't seem to matter if the crime was committed or not.

It's just a really weird vibe, is all I'm sayin'.

I guess if you're a creator putting stuff out there, maybe take a journalism class or two (not that the same thing doesn't go on in the journalism world) or have people to advise you on whether you're about to screw up or not.

Yeah, that costs money. But maybe money is less precious than reputation.

And to the sharks: lighten up, man.

"Nice Ta Meet Ya, Folks!"

Behold the power of pop culture, or something.

I needed to verify the spelling of the term "fire marshal," one L or two?

So I plug "fire marshal" into the ol' Google and come up with 487 million results. The first page is nothing but references to Jim Carrey's Fire Marshal Bill, alternatively introduced as "fire marshal" and "fire marshall." Not until Page 2 of the results do I get a non-"In Living Color" reference (in this case, from the Nevada State Fire Marshal Division) to verify the spelling.

Two things learned:

1. Fire Marshal Bill is a more popular character than I realized.

2. Whoever is doing search engine optimization at the Nevada State Fire Marshal Division is doing an excellent job.

BUT, there's more.

The above was on my work computer.

Turning to my home computer, I get something different. 53 million results, to begin with.

And the first one is a link to the City of Idaho Falls' Fire Marshal's contact page.

The first page is full of state and local fire marshal contacts and a link to the "fire marshal" entry at Wikipedia.

I went through the first fifteen pages of links. Not one mention of Fire Marshal Bill.

Bing.com is powering the search on my work computer.

Google.com is powering the search on my home computer.

Make of that what you will.