Random Darts: AC/DC, Nolan's Odyssey, and Broken Promises

Good morning. I’m back with the blog. Two days in a row — I know, slow down there, champ, you’ll pull a hamstring. This one’s going to be a bit more free-wheeling: a grab bag of random topics, less a coherent essay and more me throwing darts blindfolded and seeing what sticks to the wall (and to you, dear reader). First up: music. My friend Eric went to see AC/DC live in Denver, living his best air-guitar life, and — of course — they didn’t play the one song permanently welded to my Spotify rotation, “Who Made Who.” Rude. Absolutely criminal setlist choice. But don’t worry, I’ve got you: my blog will play it for you right now, free of charge, no ticket scalpers involved. 😂 The header image up top is even ripped straight from the video, so you’re welcome.

🎬 Nolan’s Odyssey: An Epic in Search of a Soul

Onto the important, juicy stuff: I caught Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey in glorious 70mm. Big screen, big sound, comfortable chairs — basically a religious experience for anyone whose home couch has started to feel personally responsible for their back pain. Quick review: it’s an epic journey, visually stunning in that unmistakable Nolan way — think Interstellar, but swap the wormholes for wine-dark seas and cyclopses. One of our kids complained the sound mixing let the big musical swells hang around way too long, like a guest who won’t leave the party. Didn’t bother me. My actual gripe is bigger: this is loosely based on Homer’s poem and functions as a sort of sequel to the Iliad, and somewhere between page and screen the characters lost all their depth. I’m not mad it’s in English — creative liberties, modern adaptation, fine, sure. What I am mad about is that I didn’t care about a single person on screen. Zero emotional investment. Near the end, Odysseus disguises himself as a beggar under a full cloak, face totally hidden, and honestly I just sat there waiting for him to whip it off and ignite a lightsaber. Nolan, if you’re reading this: next time, commit to the bit.

🤝 Promises, Broken: The Patriot Missile U-Turn

Promises. Remember those? Turns out they have an expiration date, and apparently it’s about three weeks.

President Trump has quietly walked back a promise he made to the Ukrainian people: handing over the technology behind the Patriot missile system so Ukraine could start manufacturing its own, according to the New York Times. He made that pledge at the NATO summit in Turkey. Three weeks later, at a Cabinet meeting, he said the quiet part out loud: “We have not agreed to that.” His reasoning? The people you hand advanced weapons tech to “could someday turn on you.” Fair point, except Ukraine is currently getting missiles lobbed at it by Russia, not plotting a coup in Washington. I’d call that a low-risk client.

So when exactly did American promises become a rough draft instead of a commitment? Because it feels like this happens constantly. I’ve lost count of how many pacts, pledges, and deals President Trump has walked away from — deals Obama signed, deals other countries signed, even deals Trump himself signed in his first term. Apparently his own word from four years ago isn’t binding on his current self either. That’s a special kind of consistency.

Trump loves to ask people, “Do you want the truth or the political answer?” — as if those are supposed to be two different things. When did honesty become optional and “the political answer” become the default setting?

Meanwhile, the Ukrainian people woke up to this news the same morning they were digging through rubble from another round of Russian ballistic missiles — at least nine dead. Nothing says “we’ve got your back” like pulling the rug out mid-airstrike. The image below is from that morning.

💰 Follow the Money: The Anti-Weaponization Fund

And while we’re on the subject of promises, here’s another one worth watching. CBS News reports Trump wants to revive his so-called “anti-weaponization fund” — a $1.8 billion pot of money for people who say they were unfairly targeted by the government, including some of the January 6th defendants who assaulted police officers, disrupted the certification of an election, and smeared feces on the walls of the U.S. Capitol. Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche has repeatedly said the fund is dead. Trump keeps trying to resurrect it anyway — he’s even threatened to tank Blanche’s own confirmation over it.

But here’s the part that should really get your attention: tied up in all of this is a settlement that reportedly shields Trump, his businesses, and his family from IRS tax audits. Funny how that works out. It’s almost like somebody in the legal department looked at the numbers and said, “we should probably make this problem disappear first.” How exactly did we get to a place where the IRS is signing agreements that conveniently favor the sitting president? Conflict of interest? I’ve heard of it. I just didn’t think we’d see it in HD.

🛒 Meanwhile, Back Home: The Day One Promises

Since we’re already cataloguing broken promises, let’s bring it back stateside, because the ones made to actual American voters haven’t fared much better.

Remember “Day One”? As in, “When I win, I will immediately bring prices down, starting on Day One,” delivered while standing behind a table of eggs, flour, and milk like a grocery store hostage negotiation. It’s been well over a year of Day Ones now, and grocery prices haven’t come down, they’ve kept climbing. Beef alone is up roughly 15% year-over-year — and about 59% since January 2021, for anyone still doing the math at checkout. PolitiFact rates the promise “Stalled”, noting groceries, electricity, housing, and medical care are all higher than when he took office. A Senate Banking Committee analysis found the average household paid about $2,120 more in 2025 because of inflation, including roughly $150 more on groceries and $123 more on electricity alone. At this rate, “Day One” might just be a brand name at this point, like New Coke.

Health insurance isn’t faring any better. The enhanced ACA subsidies that had been keeping premiums manageable for millions of people expired at the start of this year, after a 43-day government shutdown fight over exactly that issue. The result: the average total premium for subsidized ACA enrollees is projected to jump from $888 in 2025 to $1,904 in 2026 — more than double, practically overnight, like your insurance company found a coupon code and decided to charge you double for using it. Trump has floated a “Great Healthcare Plan” promising lower premiums, capped drug prices, and money sent “directly to the people,” but so far it’s a fact sheet, not a law, and the subsidies that actually kept costs down are already gone. That’s not a healthcare plan. That’s a healthcare pamphlet.

Put it all together and the pattern isn’t subtle: promise something specific and dramatic — Day One prices, cheaper insurance, a Ukraine missile deal — bank the applause line, and then quietly let it slide once the cameras move on. I don’t need a politician who nails every promise. I need one who doesn’t treat “promise” like a rough draft.

And here’s the part I actually find funny: watching people whose entire personality used to be “character and your words matter” discover, overnight, that apparently they don’t — as long as the letter next to the name doesn’t change. Deny it. Defend it. Or my personal favorite, pivot straight to whataboutism, like pointing at someone else’s mess from twelve years ago ever fixed your own. If whataboutism is the strongest card in your hand, you don’t have a hand. It’s genuinely wild watching how far some people will follow the bit before the tribalism hits a wall. I’d love to know where that line actually is. Somebody wave when we get there.

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Big Waste of Time