I knew the ex and I were in trouble when we went to the Grand Canyon and she described it unironically as "just a hole in the ground."

So, you're saying that parenting can be hard and requires actual work? I don't think that's really gonna fly...

John...
Wait for it...

Turturro.

Lex Luthor is Jesus, bitch.

When I worked nights and kept abnormal hours I usually took melatonin to help me sleep. Since it's the hormone your body produces to make you sleepy, it's reasonably "natural" and I did not find it habit-forming. Now that I keep normal hours I find I rarely need or want it and sleep fine; and some days I'd get home from work and was so tired that damn the sun I just fell asleep at once. It's far less expensive than any prescription sleep med and you won't half wake up and try to make coffee with salami or something like people do with ambien.
I also find that valerian root helps to quiet the incessant shouting in my head about all the things I haven't done (today; in this lifetime; whichever). It's also usually cheaper than melatonin; both of them are at the CVS or Walgreens. Valerian doesn't really make me sleepy, it makes me less anxious. From what I hear that's almost what normal people feel like, but I wouldn't know. It smells like bad asiago cheese, though, so keep some listerine around.

Not to be reflexive, but I enjoy consuming the media that I enjoy consuming. I don't write the media I consume; I write, but not for my own consumption. The handful of things about which I am specifically a huge fan I am mainly a fan of BECAUSE I feel like I can just sit back and enjoy them. Maybe there are things I'd do differently, but that's just the point: I'm enjoying what someone else is making for me. Really, as a maker myself, I have to admit: I make things for me and hope other people like them. I assume the people who make the things I love are in the same boat: they make things they love, and hope other people will, too. I dig that. I enjoy what other people make without wanting to edit their vision; I don't want them to edit mine.
I do get nervous around big changes: a new Doctor, Dan Harmon getting the boot on Community, Futurama coming back after an extended absence, the redevelopment of Star Trek, any form of X-Men anything, the secret sneaking fear that somewhere someone in Hollywood is trying to think of a way to profit off of Calvin & Hobbes... I mean, it's human nature to worry about the things we're emotionally invested in. But we shouldn't take it too far, and, as fans, I think we often do.
When there's a change I really DON'T like (I admit it, I didn't like The Wrath of Khan II and don't like the tenor of the new movies much) I just go back and enjoy the things I always enjoyed before. Still great episodes of a tv series to watch, books to read, movies to enjoy...everything new doesn't have to be as perfect as what came before, but if I trust the people in charge then mostly I figure it will work out. So instead of thinking, "Oh Buddha this is going to be awful I hate this," I think, "I hope this is good but I trust they'll figure it out because they've done right before." Sometimes (Dan Harmon getting booted from Community) they don't. Oftentimes they do, at least partially. But it's long been true that even a cack-handed "re-imagining" of something isn't going to wreck the good stuff that came before it. ST:TOS is still awesome even if I'm not a fan of the current movies.
We'll get a new Doctor. Capaldi certainly wasn't on my radar as a potential selection, but have they ever steered this ship so badly wrong that the series was forced to shut down production forever and all existing copies of the previous episodes were burned? Unless I'm way behind on the news this morning, I'm pretty sure the answer's no.
To me, being a fan (in non-sports contexts) is something that brings me joy and pleasure. If it brings me worry and heartache, I think I'm doing it wrong.

The third laptop suffered from cheap, poorly constructed hinges. I had no problems with the actual guts of the machine and the screen always worked, but the hinges allowing it to open and close--and incidentally holding the screen in the open position so I could actually use the thing--began failing about two years into its life. I did not at that point have money for a replacement, and the computer still worked dammit! So once it got to the point that the only thing holding the screen on was the actual wire connecting the screen to the processor, I JB-Welded some friction hinges to it. It was amazingly fancy. It opened and closed properly, sort of, although when closed the hinges stuck up four inches into the air. It looked more like alien technology than jury-rigged nonsense, but nonsense it was. I was able to continue using it for a while, though, which was the point. I have pictures somewhere.

Your label is so awesome I peed a little. I really hope I'll be able to get some of that out here in NC. I don't even really care if the beer's good (it will be) I just want to set that (empty) bottle (or six) on my mantle.

The original original trilogy, the one that actually revolutionized filmmaking back when it came out in the 70s and 80s and not any of the things that followed.
Also the entire collection of Monty Python's Flying Circus, including the fourth season. And Ghostbusters, but not the sequel. Am I watching the things in the archive? Because I need The Hunt for Red October, Get Shorty, and The Fifth Element as well. The archive needs movies that were pretty good but also kinda bad.

Also, is Eli hiring? I work in a lab with tools now, but his lab and tools sound better.