Now that we've connected cows to the internet, we can finally achieve great grandpappy's goal of utopia. They always figured, back in the 90s, that the more folks they could put on the internet, the better. Turns out that wasn't entirely right, but it helped support ad sales, so we ignored it for awhile. Until we ran out of people. Cows were the next big step! You can train them to click on banner ads and watch ninety-minute YouTube tutorials about how to eat grass, and watch the revenue roll in.

“It is interesting because we actually wrote every season as if it could be the last one. We actually made sure the last episode of every season, if that was the last episode of Leverage that you ever see, that it was a wrap up. We said, “If we are only going to make these thirteen, we are going to make the hell out of it!” And that’s my I like the micro-ending! I like the idea that we told that story for that year well. I hate cliffhangers. I hate cliffhangers with a burning passion. Come back and watch our show. We’re not going to give you the really cool part of the episode; you’ve got to come back next week. Screw you. Give the people their ending and come up with some new shit next year. Give the people their fucking ending.”

Myth: "I only wear vegan fabrics. Better for the animals, better for the planet." Let's check in on Doris's annual contribution. Once a year, in late spring, Doris is sheared. The procedure takes approximately three minutes. Doris does not enjoy it. Doris does not, by any visible measure, suffer from it. Doris is, immediately afterwards, a noticeably more comfortable animal in the British summer. The fleece weighs approximately 3 kilograms. It is sold to the British Wool Marketing Board for, depending on the year, between £0.40 and £2.50 per kilogram. The shearing costs more than the wool fetches. Brian is shearing Doris at a loss. The wool is then: - Naturally flame-retardant - Naturally antibacterial - Moisture-wicking - Biodegradable - Renewable, annually - Carbon-storing while in use The replacement, in performance fabrics: - Polyester - Polyamide - Acrylic - Polypropylene - All petroleum-derived - All shedding microplastics on every wash - All requiring fossil fuel inputs to produce - All non-biodegradable, with a typical landfill lifespan of 200-500 years A single wash of a polyester fleece can release up to 700,000 microplastic fibres into the water system. These fibres are now in: every tested water source on earth, every tested human placenta, every tested rainfall sample, the deep ocean, the Arctic ice, and the lungs of marine mammals. A single wash of a wool jumper releases: nothing. The wool, when eventually disposed of, returns to soil within a few years. The fabric being marketed as the "ethical" alternative to wool is plastic. The plastic is "ethical" because nobody has been asked to slaughter the polymer. The polymer also has not been asked. Doris, by being a sheep on a fell, is producing the most thoroughly sustainable performance fabric humans have ever made. Brian is selling it at a loss. The fashion industry, meanwhile, is selling petroleum at a profit and calling it ethical. Reject plastic. Wear wool. Doris is, this morning, growing next year's batch.

That Carrie post reminded me of my biggest and oldest pet peeve: adaptations taking a character who's supposed to be ugly, or at least not beautiful, and casting someone perfect-looking. A lot of the time this is simple misogyny, but the inability to allow ugly people to exist also extends to men and boys, and I remember how pissed I was when I started understanding this at around the age of eight.