1,001 thoughts on “Deadpan Sea Scrolls”

    • I agree with his assessment, but I would also counter that in a democracy, if we want to know who is responsible for the oppressive system we have, one needs only to look in the mirror. If we want change, there is a system in place to create it.

  6. Look I’m not kidding… those of you who stopped watching SHIELD S4 due to the Ghost Rider storyline NEED to pick it up at the LMD storyline. It’s a miracle of TV storytelling.

  8. Crap joke for the day:

    A fifteen-year-old came home with a Porsche and his parents began to yell and scream, “Where did you get that car?”

    He calmly told them, “I bought it today.”

    “With what money!?” demanded his parents. “We know what a Porsche costs.”

    “Well,” said the boy, “this one cost me fifteen dollars.”

    The parents began to yell even louder. “Who would sell a car like that for fifteen dollars!?” they asked.

    “It was the lady up the street,” said the boy. “Don’t know her name — they just moved in. She saw me ride past on my bike and asked me if I wanted to buy a Porsche for fifteen dollars.”

    “Oh my goodness!” moaned the mother, “she must be a child abuser. Who knows what she will do next? John, you go right up there and see what’s going on.”

    So the boy’s father walked up the street to the house where the lady lived and found her out in the yard calmly planting flowers. He introduced himself as the father of the boy to whom she has sold a Porsche for fifteen dollars and demanded to know why she did it.

    “Well,” she said, “this morning I got a phone call from my husband. I thought he was on a business trip, but I learned from a friend he has run off to Hawaii with his secretary and really doesn’t intend to come back. He claimed he was stranded and asked me to sell his new Porsche and send him the money. So I did.”

  21. While Google gives me lots of Easter themed horror movies, the only thing I can find on Netflix is the remake for the movie Cabin Fever. Apparently the original had someone who would dress up in a bunny suit. Can’t figure out if the remake has the same thing.
    Rotten Tomatoes give it 0% though so I’m going to watch it :silly:

  22. I present, for your reading pleasure, Cabin Fever

    The Netflix write up: as a flesh eating virus rips its way through a remote woodland cabin, the terrified teens vacationing inside wonder who’ll fall victim next

  107. Unintentional John Carpenter kick – – Assault on Precinct 13 last night (I’d never seen it before), Escape From NY tonight.

    He advanced quite a bit as a filmmaker between these two.

  111. Crap joke for the day:

    Woman calls her nerdy boyfriend:

    “”Come over”, she begged. “I need you right now!”

    “Just turn it off and on again’, he sighed. “He hated these late night rebooty calls”

  113. From Anchorage, my iPad then went to Louisville, KY,, then to Sioux Falls, SD, and is now in Calgary

    The iPads are more well travelled than I am

  119. I am a rifle. I am this blockade.
    I’m banners and violence and car-bombs and riots.
    I am a rifle. I am this blockade.
    I am the fire of a thousand murdered sons.

    • I went through something similar at my workplace. Went from a place 10 minutes away with no real traffic to a trendy office park near the University of Central Florida (UCF) that tripled my commute. Fortunately for me I like the place I work enough that I’m still there.

    • I like the comic book ending that actually reflected life in the 1980s. However, I feel like we already have a comic book version, movie version, and motion graphic version of the comic. In addition to an animated version of Tales of the Black Freighter. I feel like an animated version is just more of the same at this point. Then again, I’m in the camp that has been a bit overwhelmed with all the comic book film/tv lately.

  128. Good morning, Deadpan! I just spent the morning at a Denny’s with cool con people, while wearing my Jedi outfit. I’m sorry I didn’t stop to get a picture. I’ve been posting some of my con adventures on Twitter (@amybowen). I am having an amazing time at Star Wars Celebration! 🙂

  135. “Shall we go out onto the street, Easter my dear, and repeat the exercise? Find out how many passers-by know that their Easter festival takes its name from Eostre of the Dawn? ”

    I’m really looking forward to American Gods.

    Happy Easter!

  138. Crapjoke for the day:

    Nixon, Carter, Clinton are on a boat. The boat’s going down. Carter says, ‘Women and children first.’ Nixon says, ‘Screw them.’ Clinton says, ‘Do you think we have time?’

  143. My nieces 9 month old baby boy caught foot and mouth disease.

    Well if you must catch something make it a rare disease..well in humans.

  149. I’m seriously loving the new new MST3K. Loving it. From Kinga Forrester and Patton Oswalt to the new Servo and Crow. . . and yes, even Jonah. It’s such a joy to have this show back.

    It’s also really nice to have an actual woman voicing Gypsy now. Her drop-ins are odd, but I’m hoping they expand on them.

  152. Wow.

    Since 2014, I’d been saving a list of the books I’ve read and was planning to read in a draft gmail email. I looked for it today, and it appears to have just vanished. Gone. Searches for solutions have been no help at all.

    Takeaway: Do not trust gmail drafts.

    I’ve started a new document. . . . Am I a fool for entrusting Google Docs with it?

    • I’ve been entrusting google drive with my lists of bottles/cans, movies, and bills for years. At first (as trust was low) I always changed the date on each document when I altered it and kept 2 old dates as recent backups. Lately I’ve gotten away from doing that and just edit the documents as I go. Then again, keeping one document on the cloud is just as stupid (on my part) as having only on file on a drive. Any system is likely to fail sooner or later. I need to make more frequent backups of what I have on Google Drive to hard drive backups.

  156. So I do have one of those “Hive Mind” questions. I think I’d like to share my mashups out there for general consumption. What’s a good outlet? Soundcloud?

    I’d post ’em for free, and probably semi-anonymously, since most of the music samples were taken without permission.

    I’ll probably ask the Facebooks too, but I wanted to ask here first.

  161. Amy talking about being at the Star Wars celebration was making me reminisce about the very first celebration in 1999 in Denver. That was an amazing weekend. It rained nonstop and it was kind of hastily put together, but man the excitement and joy that was Celebration I was palpable. So great. I hope Amy brings back some great stories!

  163. I was listening to a podcast and they were discussing heroism. The question they asked was, is Superman really heroic? They postulate he isn’t. The reason being, there is no actual risk to him. He can stop a robbery because bullets won’t hurt him. He can run into a burning building for the same reason. Is Superman a hero because there is no actual risk to him? Altruistic yes, but heroic?

    • I haven’t read the book, but I’m not surprised. There’s just too much information to cover and they need a good storyline for a movie.

  176. I see that the X-files is coming back for another 10 ep “event”. Good. They can fix the bullshit of the first “event”. I do realize there are folks who very much liked the first event, and that’s fine. I just found it wholly unnecessary. .

    • Yes there were problems with the first event. Does not prevent me from getting excited about seeing this group together again. Some of my favorites from the last event were the stand alone creature features. (especially Darby). We’re all used to revisionist history at this point, even if it can be upsetting at times.

  188. What a day. Started in Flagstaff for a strings field trip for my daughter– on her birthday, no less. We gave her the option to ride home with her friends on the bus, which she took.
    We used our sudden stretch of unexpected free time to visit Dan Shaurette. He’s not having fun, but enjoyed the visit. Then home for cake, cleaning, and party prep for a house full of giddy teenage girls tomorrow.

  194. So I’ve started Prince Lestat, expecting the worst.

    Actually gosh darn good, so far. No preachiness. And while she references all of the other books in the series, she does a good job of filling in the blanks.

  195. Our garage door doesn’t close when it’s sunny. I was going to put a cover on the sensor to shade it (but not cover in a way it breaks the beam). The problem is, it’s covered on cobwebs. This may be a hubby kind of job.

  209. Crap joke for the day:

    The Police have found a large number of dead crows on the A1081 just outside Harpenden early this morning, and there was concern that they may have died from Avian Flu.
    A Pathologist examined the remains of all the crows, and, to everyone’s relief, confirmed the problem was NOT Avian Flu.
    The cause of death appeared to be from vehicular impacts. However, during analysis it was noted that varying colours of paints appeared on the bird’s beaks and claws.
    By analysing these paint residues it was found that 98% of the crows had been killed by impact with motorbikes, while only 2% were killed by cars.
    The investigators then hired an Ornithological Behaviourist to determine if there was a cause for the disproportionate percentages of motorbike kills versus car kills. The Ornithological Behaviourist quickly concluded that when crows eat road kill, they always have a look-out crow to warn of danger.
    They discovered that while all the lookout crows could shout “Cah”, not a single one could shout “bike”

  214. ditto posted this on FB and it’s important. Truly DC film is so out of touch with their heros that it’s beyond irritating… it’s borderline insulting. When WW flops (and it’s not “if” it’s “when”) this will lead right into Justice League. If Justice League fails then you can mark my words that the end on the DC film universe won’t be far behind. I shouldn’t be surprised tho. What else to expect from a company that revels in Superman breaking necks and Batman killing baddies left and right?

    http://www.blastr.com/2017-4-25/wonder-woman-movie-advertising

    • I do recall the tidal wave of Suicide Squad advertising, leading up to that pile of shit.
      I don’t think I’m in the Madison Ave crosshairs enough to confirm or contest the article’s claim, and she throws out some figures, but doesn’t really cite any sources. That said – – I don’t want to be THAT guy, because I believe 100% that the studio powers that be would give WW short shrift, that they’d view this film/character as a necessary evil to complete the franchise and get to the “really good stuff.”
      The real big box office movies are violent men being manly! Fuck yeah!

  217. First time I am travelling via plane to a city, just for 12 hours and then I will be flying right back home later tonight.

    If walking 0.53 miles just from my car to the gate, then today should be an adventure!

    • Vice is kind of a trolly news source, but I assume this is at least semi-legit. If so, this is the 2nd-scariest news story of the year.

      (I’d say that our toddler president waving his nukes at another toddler with nukes would be #1.)

  227. Crap joke for the day:

    My wife asked me, “How many women have you slept with?”

    I proudly replied, “Only you, darling. With all the others, I was awake”.

    Hospitals visiting hours are 10am to 4pm…

  228. Well today I signed up with kickstarter and pledged towards book 2 of Strong Female Protagonist.

    Fingers crossed it comes off.

    • Not to belittle this in any way, but it makes me curious. Are they invisible normally? Because that would be a cool side effect super power.

      • I’m about 25 hours in. Just finished terra-formming my second world. While I like the storyline, I’m pretty unhappy with a bunch of the game design. It’s not a great gaming experience after coming off HZD. Still, I’m going to keep going to see how this sets up for the next game.

  252. Beer festival was good, several tasty sweet ciders.

    Almost passing out in the pub not so good, activated the heart monitor just in case.

    Kept my head down for half an hour till the nausea passed.

    • It looks cool, and the article says that it will eventually be available retail in the States for $140 US. I was going to say that is a lot of money to spend on a game, but I have to sheepishly admit that I am close to a $1200 investment in my X-Wing collection. At least I’ve sworn off Warhammer, *cough* I’m wondering once you’ve completed a 100 hour game, would you be like “Hey, let’s play another!” On a related note, I spend $19 on the card version of Car Wars and it was a hit with the family this weekend.

        • Consider yourself invited! I see that Amazon also sells an updated board game version of Car Wars, but I think the card game had more positive reviews.

          • I’d love to revisit the full Car Wars game, but I’m pretty sure it will not live up to my memories of it as a teen.

  256. Admission time:

    I’ve never see the first Bill and Ted film all the way through.

    I hope to rectify that tomorrow at the cinema.

  257. Anyone have any opinion of Dr. Axe?

    He reeks of old-people infomercial quackery, but he also seems to have some valid health improvement tips. The internet isn’t as harsh on him as other hacks like Dr. Oz. What do you think?

    After posting this, I feel like I should drive 14 MPH in the fastlane on the highway and take 20 minutes at the Walgreen’s cashier writing a check for my $1.63 purchase of sugar-free hard candies.

    • I’m not familiar with Dr. Axe, but here is a dissenting voice:

      http://www.overcomeobesity.org/overcome-obesity/research/josh-axe-d-c-spewing-a-bunch-of-nonsense-on-the-dr-oz-show/

      I’m not an expert on these things, but I have a generally skeptical outlook for people selling supplements or some form of nutrition advise that seems a bit gimmicky. For example, Brandon Routh was on a podcast extolling the virtues of “Bulletproof Coffee” see https://blog.bulletproof.com/how-to-make-your-coffee-bulletproof-and-your-morning-too/. The idea is that by using special coffee beans that have less fungus on them and brewing with butter, the fat of the butter encapsulates the caffeine and delivers a more “measured” delivery of caffeine to your brain all day long. Problem is there aren’t any biochemists handy to explain if that is even possible. There’s some research that extols the virtue of some types of fats for brain function and there are some studies that extol the virtues of moderate caffeine consumption. Most people are probably remember hearing of these studies, but the supplement sellers, in my opinion, use this general knowledge as marketing, without any real science to back it up.

      • Thanks. I’d seen a couple of slams against him, but also some grudging validations of some of his claims.

        His overall problem seems to be the same as Dr. Oz: “The solution to your issues is in these expensive supplements that I’m invisibly connected to.”_

  258. Crap joke nicked from twitter:

    He was a surprising sort of a person to be a mormon: he smoke, he drank, he took drugs, he womanised and he gambled.

    He was an oxymormon.

  263. Van it looks like I may be going on a tour of Ireland next April. Not sure if there’s a possibility to meet up yet.

  264. Happy First of May, Deadpan! I started my day with a scone and a large house blend, like every year. 🙂

    Real life and responsibilities are such that I really can’t afford to to take the time away from Omaha to go to the KC lightsaber battle. If any of the KC people are going or know anyone who is, feel free to post pictures or links. I will see you all in August, though. 🙂

    Today will be spent seeing the sights in Lincoln, NE.

  268. So, first off, I really enjoyed Rogue One and thought it was a fantastic addition to the Star Wars canon.

    That said, the score sucked. I know Michael Giacchino only had like 4.5 weeks to come up with the score, so I have to give hims props for that. I’ve also enjoyed a lot of his other work, especially The Incredibles. Even his new theme for Star Trek has grown on me, though a lot of the other music in those movies doesn’t work as well.

    Anyway, here’s a fan project to replace the music in part of the big battle from Rogue One with William’s Star Wars score. It suffers some from being a work in progress and having a rather poor sample source for the Star Wars music, but it is still a massive improvement:

    http://movieweb.com/rogue-one-battle-john-williams-star-wars-score-video/

    I can somewhat appreciate wanting to give Rogue One a different sound from the “main” Star Wars movies (though, given its use through the Clone Wars and Rebels series, I do question the need). Still, what we ended up with was a souless and generic sounding collection of noise.

  269. I finished the second of Dennis Taylor’s “Bobiverse” trilogy today. Third book is supposed to be coming in August.

    Based on this writing, Dennis would fit right in with Deadpan and if Jack was still podcasting, I’d push to get this guy on for an interview.

  270. Guy I’ve never heard of from Comedy Central absolutely kills it at the WH Correspondents Dinner.

    Yes, it’s political jokes. . . . . . but it’s also the funniest stand-up you’ll hear all year. It’s long, but if you start watching, you’ll probably watch all the way through.

  273. So I tweeted at Blattaria the War Princess asking if she is working on a new Stolen Babies’ album, she tweeted back “Indubitably 🙂 “

    • And even with due credit to the “You are not so smart” podcast. I also learned about the “Change My View” subreddit from the podcast…though, I must confess I’ve found it’s quality to have dropped some since it became internet famous and folks like myself started wandering it’s halls.

      Still, some of the older discussions in CMV have some useful discussions.

      • One of the more interesting points from the YANSS podcast on this topic was that providing more information–better information–would fail due to this effect. And that’s exactly what we see. Trying to “educate” people about climate change or other BE issues only causes the deniers to entrench themselves.

        • Reading through it I didn’t feel shock so much as disappointment in Washington. I had known that he was a slave owner as were many powerful men back in the day. I feel that there is a concept that is tangentially related to all this and that is Hero Worship. Our culture desperately wants heroes and we want to elevate them as perfections of virtue. But the true is that we are all flawed in some way. I think if people keep that in mind it is much easier to view all things with greater objectivity.

    • I’ve enjoyed what I’ve watched and listened to. I downloaded the album just in case Disney decides this must go.

    • On the other hand, while your reasons for doing this are probably shitty, thank you for not overhyping it so hard that I’m sick to death of it before even seeing it.

      • This will be the only DCU film I ever see all the way thru if only to help it make as much cash as possible so that those idiots at Warner don’t bury it. I will never watch the entirety of Suicide Shit or Shitman vs. Shittermna and I refuse to show up at all to Justshit League. Fuck Warner and fuck DC for letting Warner turn icons into laughing stocks.

  317. From last night’s double feature as spoiler free as possible: it is worth seeing GotG 1 before you see 2. There are some references you might get better with a refresh. I want one of the weapons. And some of the appearances are quite funny.
    I enjoyed myself. Personally I think I liked 2 more, but some say it lacked the urgency of 1.