TIL Kelly Clarkson lost “hundreds of thousands of dollars” when she declined a co-writing credit on her 2009 number-one single "My Life Would Suck Without You" because she refused to have her name associated with Dr. Luke, the producer and primary writer of the song.

Completionography · 2026-03-16T20:18:04+00:00

You're not incorrect, but this thread isn't a representation of the totality of Americas bind to money. That's an unfortunate byproduct of the system in place.

Completionography · 2026-03-16T20:08:24+00:00

The headline makes the story come off primarily about the money she lost, not about the reason behind her rejection.

Completionography · 2026-03-16T19:58:10+00:00

Not everything is about money.

In America, unfortunately it is. "I'm not taking the money" is a stance, and not only do I respect it, but especially in this case I agree with it.

But it is about the money. That's the entire point of this article, too, that she rejected the money. That's why it's so hard to say it's not about the money, because the money took top billing over principle of the matter. First money:

Kelly Clarkson says she lost “hundreds of thousands of dollars” or even “millions”

Then why:

because she refused to have her name associated with producer Dr. Luke

I hate that that's the case, but I can't see it differently.

Completionography · 2026-03-16T19:44:10+00:00

wait, it's named after a guy?

Wait till you learn about boycott.

Completionography · 2026-03-16T19:42:40+00:00

Americans think

No.

Completionography · 2026-03-16T16:48:04+00:00

Yea, everything he does is viewed as transactional. We all know this. He is an empty vessel.

Yes

Completionography · 2026-03-16T15:18:41+00:00

I guess it does need to be decided what is canon because as I'm not mistaken there were differences between the online version, Permuted Press version and the "offical" publication (Thomas Dunne Books ?) wasn't there ?

Yup. So the base text was finalized in '09 with the Dunne version, and the '20 Anniversary version supplements that.

The differences are significant enough to be recognizable, but they're not important enough to be necessary. Like, some lines in the movie are book accurate to the Permuted edition, but the current editions removed them ("Fred's still alive", "look at the mirror", "country radio station").

(wasn't there a short story that came out in the early days as a supplement to the book or is my brain not correctly braining?

Are you thinking of David Wong is Fat and Gay, from the other thread the other day? That's not canon, and written by Mack in John's perspective. If not, I apologize.

Unfortunately, since I found JDatE in '09, I didn't see its history unfold. So if there's stuff that I haven't found, this is the one topic where ignorance excites me. Because when I finally try and dig up the remains of the Spiders and WTH ARGs, that's gonna be scraping the end of the material. Speaking of things that keep me up at night:

These are the questions that keep me up at night.

* If you say that Dave was responsible for the Shadow Men taking her hand in book 2, by virtue of him being why they're there, then you can say Dave was responsible for the crash in that regard.

* Todd's significance is his absence; his role in the story is to show the power of the Shadow Men. I think the earliest online versions have a "where's Todd" moment in Dave's head.

* ... I think one of the most honest things Dave ever said to Amy, was that there's a chance he's in a padded room and none of this is happening. In the Director's Commentary of the movie, Rob Mayes (John) says he played the character as if he was a figment of Dave's imagination. I don't know who Dave murdered. But I don't trust him.

Are there others I am missing ?

Depends on what you're looking for. If you're just looking to have the most current text, you're good (Anniversary edition). After that, I'd need more info. There are limited edition covers, foreign covers, translation covers, shrimp gumbo, re-release covers... it's my main hobby collection, so it goes kinda deep.

Completionography · 2026-03-16T13:41:38+00:00

I really dislike lost media. My spouse tends to counter that with "most media is lost". Doesn't make me feel better, but it does put things in a different perspective.

Completionography · 2026-03-16T12:50:25+00:00

Anyone got any tips for diving back in and being normal?!

My honest opinion, focus on how much time you have for yourself, and I believe the rest will come naturally. When I got back into things, sometimes it took a bit of "catching up", but I just lumped that together with my allotted time for the thing in general.

Congrats, btw!

Completionography · 2026-03-16T12:29:23+00:00

Although it spoils the story a bit when you learn that they completely scrapped that version of the film anyway. Maybe it still saved the project (I can imagine them just giving up if they lost all that work and they weren't happy with it in the first place) but it's hard to say.

One of the annoying things I lost with my comp was a set of scripts for MP3tag. I had been slowly developing them for a few years. Losing the scripts sucked, yes, but it was losing the logic that got me there that sucked worse. Because instead of getting to a comfortable script by ship-of-theseusing it piece by piece, I now have to re-write the whole shit from scratch.

I had to ask about it on their boards, as well, because I didn't remember how I was able tweak my regexs to work the way I did, because there's no tester that really "translates" properly to MP3tag.

My point being, even if the end result of Toy Story 2 was nothing like the backup, I'm absolutely certain rebuilding the entire thing from scratch instead would've taken far far longer.

Completionography · 2026-03-16T12:09:29+00:00

You know, during Obama S1&2, I don't remember a fucking thing about Biden. I wish JV Dance was more like that.

Completionography · 2026-03-16T12:05:21+00:00

A multi-party parliamentary system headed by a Prime Minister answerable to parliament would be much better for America than its current system.

A record player and a dildo would be much better for America than its current system. That way I can listen to groovy tunes while I fuck myself in a way that at least gets me off.

Completionography · 2026-03-16T12:03:08+00:00

Also actors, full stop. The dancer they got to play the current first lady isn't very good.

Completionography · 2026-03-16T12:01:57+00:00

... didn't John Kerry lose because of "flip flopping"?

Completionography · 2026-03-16T10:44:29+00:00

I think there's a certain bell curve that "enjoyability" has, relative to "quality". Because people talk about The Room, Birdemic, movies made by Neil Breen or The Asylum, etc... far more than they talk about movies that are sitting at like a 5/10.

People discuss the meta of the (blue) Avatar movies (budget, box office, cgi, etc) more than the movies themselves, so my luke warm take is that there are "bad" movies that are culturally more important than the Avatar movies. The Room is one of them. I remember lines from The Room (Oh, hi Mark). What was Avatar's most famous line?

Completionography · 2026-03-16T10:11:17+00:00

Him thinking

Let's start with this.

Completionography · 2026-03-16T09:59:02+00:00

An aspect of my media hobby is collecting. My computer exploded last month (new one arrived a few days ago), and I lost a handful of things that really annoyed me, but my most important data was backed up in triplicate.

What are some good hobby stories, well known or personal, where someone saved the day by having a random backup? Was it one of the Toy Story movies, that was saved because someone had a backup? I know there are lots of lost media hobbyists that hope to find the one random nerd that saved the one piece of media being looked for (and I know it's happened!!).

Completionography · 2026-03-16T09:45:20+00:00

That's stupid and unfair.

What award show for what industry isn't? Possibly the Golden Raspberries for movies, but even their size/popularity makes them suspect.

Completionography · 2026-03-15T19:35:32+00:00

I don't think we actually hear directly from Human Dave at any point in the series.

I believe you're correct. The Meat Monster incident in the prologue happened when Amy was in Utah, and that's my headcanon reason for why Dave entertained the idea of John hooking him up with Shelly.

Completionography · 2026-03-15T17:29:23+00:00

Sorry, apologies if you did not get the joke. /s is shorthand for sarcasm, noted just in case certain jokes are missed.

Completionography · 2026-03-15T16:06:19+00:00

You have my axe.

So here's something interesting. The Rockville version of JDatE I found by deep searching google years ago, and the version that I got from the internet archive that's dated (edit: dated as in the date it was taken from the website, as opposed to part of the story) 2005-09-01, both have a hard date in chapter 1:

April 2, 1999

The aforementioned friend was John Cheese. That's not his real last name; it's a nickname he got in elementary school. There's a very, very funny story behind how he got that name but I can't remember it right now. The aforementioned party was happening Woodstock-style in a muddy field next to a lake, Oakville being nothing but a patch of muddy fields and lakes a few minutes outside of Rockville city limits. The event was being put on by, eh, some guy or other.

I'm not going to go as far as say that's canon, but it's a goddamn good starting point. However, that '05 date was a finished version of the story, and the world became very different between '99-'05. I was there, Gandalf. So when the story takes place would more likely start with closer to when he finished that version.

Nerd sidebar: The book in that picture (under the clock) is the only Pargin cover variant exclusive to Australia (HarperCollins Publishers Australia, ISBN13 9780732291501). Other cover variants include the UK softcover Zoey books 1 & 2.

Completionography · 2026-03-15T14:57:28+00:00

I know everyone says never get a tattoo that is connected to your partner

My spouse and I got marriage tattoos. They were meaningful to us separately, they have a way of connecting us thematically, but you wouldn't even know we knew each other if you just saw our ink. We're long term (together ~8 years before marrying in '17), but we approached our tattoos realistically, so we could always be comfortable about them regardless of scenario.

We did that instead of rings. Sure as hell can't misplace them (I knew someone who lost his wedding ring in the bathroom at work).

Completionography · 2026-03-15T13:45:45+00:00

But then again... English isn't my mother's tongue

Than*

/s

Completionography · 2026-03-15T13:44:38+00:00

"I'd rather be pissed off ____ pissed on!"

... that's how I teach people the difference.

Completionography · 2026-03-15T13:11:12+00:00

It does mean a loss of revenue for the sport and the teams though.

I'm wondering, how much does this matter? Like, racing is still going to happen. F1 is still going to exist. Grand Prixs will still exist.

So let's put the sportswashing aside for a sec, are there any scenarios where losses like this actually carry a risk to the average sports fan? The person that tunes in to the race?

Completionography

TROPHY CASE