1,005 thoughts on “Ending, Beginning”

  1. In response to a few comments on the last thread:

    To update Polar Express, I think I’d be inclined to keep an animated feel, just use today’s animation techniques, update the facial expressions and body movements so the characters aren’t such lifeless automatons.

    Ahsoka had some great moments, but overall was a goddamn mess, and was entirely hinged on idiotic decisions/actions to advance the plot.

    I had no idea Frank Langella was initially in that role on FotHoU. I wonder what got him fired? He’s generally pretty excellent. Bruce Greenwood hit it out of the park, though, so all ended well.

  2. And one more thing: I’d been hearing for literal decades about the greatness of the 70s Horror film, Suspiria. I know it’s a revered classic.

    I think I missed the window by a few decades. The bad acting and hokiness are so extreme, they kill any atmosphere the movie tried to build. I bailed after about an hour. Am I wrong? Is it worth finishing out?

    • Depends on whether or not you are a fan of the Giallo film style. Personally, I find it too slow. I’ve watched Suspiria and Deep Red. Neither was that good in my opinion. I did enjoy Deep Red though because it was on The Last Drive In with Joe Bob Briggs. That show if awesome and you will learn a ton watching it.

      Also, I still love Jessica Harper, despite Suspira.

      • Last night I finally activated a threads account.
        Seems like most of the people I follow are there. I may keep the Twitter account but probably won’t go by there much.
        Time for Twitter to go the way of “My Space” and Napster.

        • I’m fine with the public calling it Twitter. I just find it funny that X itself hasn’t embraced its own branding.

          I haven’t been on Twitter in years, I do have a threads account but don’t post very often.

  8. Today I will be mostly playing Galaxian.

    I’ve always preferred Space Invaders because those destructible bases really save your bacon from time to time.

  13. I spent New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day…riding almost 70 miles. I question my IQ sometimes. Legs and back are not appreciative of my efforts just now.

    Jack – hope everything turns out well for Tiffany.

  15. Thanks, everyone. Turns out to be the flu. So not good, but she’s home and medicated and resting – – and will med up some more tomorrow. Not feeling great.

    Our main hope now is that the little one and I don’t also get it.

  17. And. . . . we finished Picard season 2 last night. Truly, truly awful. The first one was fine. This one was a mess.

    But I hear the shouting about season 3. I’ll still watch that.

  20. Status report!
    Still sick, still not really on the mend. The college kid seems to have dodged it. So far, the little one is doing well.
    I’m starting to feel the tickle, but I’m fighting it.

    I hope you’re all doing well. I hope that shoulder is ok, TEB!

    • I have been telling myself since I was 12 that one day, I would own a pinball machine.
      Still waiting.
      You have to have a dream I guess.

  22. OK, so now she’s back to the advanced urgent care for a new chest x-ray.
    I’d have gone with her, but I gotta work, and gotta pick up the little one after school.

    All with fingers crossed for good results.

    • She’s home. All tests clear. Just gotta wait out the crap feeling.

      As for me, I’ll quote Traffic/Joe Cocker: “You feelin’ alright? I’m not feelin’ too good myself.”

    • Oh Jack. If it’s anything like what I had early December, expect to be in it for the long haul. I still have a lingering cough

      Hope you all feel better soon

        • Good grief.
          Is this supposed to be this years flu?
          Does the flu shot help mitigate the effects much.
          My mom got the Flu and had taken the vaccine but given that she is in her 80’s and only weighs 79lbs it is hard to judge anything from her results other than she survived.

          So from what I hear the flu seems to be going rampant around here as well but there was also a Covid flair up here at Thanksgiving.

          I have gotten the vaccine for both and now just knocking on wood.

          • This isn’t flu. Not what we’ve had. The doctors we talked to didn’t seem to know what it is, but I describe it as strep-like.

          • Yeah, when I went to the doctor’s in December, she told me there was something going around that was neither RSV or Covid that they hadn’t identified yet. Almost worse than the flu, but not pneumonia. She gave me an inhaler for my lungs and cough but said there wasn’t much else to do except the normal fluids and rest. I know I was in bed for days and, as I said, am still coughing.

          • There seems to be a varied crud going around this year. maybe half of everyone I interact with at work (100 plus people) have gotten something in the last month. I got an inner and outer ear infection, Mrs. Asshat got bronchitis, and my neighbors got something flu like. Not sure why it’s implementing in such varied ways, but it seems to start with nasal congestion that then leads to some other major thing from there.

          • The cough with this thing has been no joke. It’s been bad at times to the point of near-vomiting and suffocation. And it’s been lingering for both of us. The secondary infections are also problematic.

  25. Ooof.
    Just hearing that my mother-in-law has just gone to the hospital. She was staying with her daughter over Christmas and two days ago got sick. I don’t think they sought medical treatment until now.
    Apparently she can’t keep anything down.
    She is also in her 80’s and wouldn’t get the flu shot because she insists it gives her the flu.
    Narrator: “That’s not how it works.”

    Anyway. Good time to hunker down.

  27. So, Tiffany officially tested positive for the flu. That’s not a good thing at all, but maybe at best, a “devil you know” situation. I can only assume that’s what has taken us all out. I had a marathon sleep overnight (achy with weird dreams) and took a sick day from work. Dunno yet about tomorrow.

    She had been bouncing back while I tanked, but she’s now having a bad night. I feel meh.

    The worst news: the little one now has a low fever. Her mood is still OK, but we may be just getting started. I sure hope this all blows over and everyone is on the mend tomorrow, but we’ll have to rest and see.

  30. CW: 2010

    I like the film but it actually feels a lot of the tech is less futuristic than it looked in the 1968 film, especially the computer and screens.

  32. BTW- on our “sickness watch”
    Good friends of ours decided to take their college age kids to Los Vegas for New years. The kids are ok so far but both parents came back with Covid.
    They are convalescing at home but neither one is having a good time.
    I’m not sure if they got the vaccine but it wouldn’t surprise me if they hadn’t this time around.
    BTW – MIL is out of hospital

  35. I’ll get caught up on all the fun links above.

    Been a lot of sloth time in front of the TV these past few days. Currently the Disney animated Robin Hood. It’s like a warped blend of Excalibur, The Holy Grail, The Jungle Book, and The Dukes of Hazzard.

    • I love that movie. I watched that recently with my grand daughter. The next day we were constantly saying oodelally or doing that horrible clap that Prince John was doing where one hand is turned down and the other is lightly tapping it from above and doing his horrible laugh. Ahhhhh haaa.

  38. Crap joke for today:

    A guy walks into an Irish bar and there is only one other guy in the bar. He goes down and sits next to the guy. He orders a big beer. The other guy says, “I couldn’t help noticing by your accent you seem to be from Ireland.” The other guy says, “As a matter of fact I am. Let’s drink to Ireland.” And they do and tell the bartender to set them up again. Then one asks, “Where are you from in Ireland?” The other says,”I’m from Dublin.” The other exclaimed, “That’s amazing! I’m from Dublin! Let’s drink to Dublin!” So they drink up and order more. One asks, “By the way, where did you go to school in Dublin?” The other replies, “I went to St. Mary’s in ‘59.” The other speaks up and says, “That’s amazing! I went to St. Mary’s in ‘59!. Let’s drink to St. Mary’s!” The phone rings behind the bar. The bartender answers, “O’Toole’s.” The person on the phone says, “This is Eddie Shawnessey. I’m wonderin’ if there’s anything going on down there tonight?” The bartender replies, “ Not much. Just the O’Grady twins getting drunk again.”

  39. Status report:
    Tiffany is still sick, is taking yet another sick day today.
    I’m still sick, but I plan to work tomorrow.
    The little one has no temp and seems to be improving. Fingers crossed.

  40. Portal Revolution is out on Steam, a fan made mod for Portal 2 it adds new levels and a new scenario to the game. So far it runs nicely on a Steamdeck.

  43. And so, we did charge through S3 of Picard. (I know we’re late to the party).

    This is peak Trek. Very well done. Better than most of the movies.

    • While I don’t disagree with the hazard assessment … I think back to the equipment on playgrounds that I grew up on and wonder.
      Some of that equipment make this thing look super safe.
      Perhaps they were made as they were back then, to “cull out” the species.

  45. Had one of those “suggested for you” things show up in my Facebook feed that said yesterday was Erin Gray’s birthday. Turns out she’s the same age as my mom. Which means she was also the same age as my mom back in her Buck Rodgers days.

    That’s a bit of a weird thing to be confronted with.

  47. Speaking of very British things, we finished out the 4 Doctor Who specials.

    Some really strong points to all of them.

    But why, oh, why, did there need to be singing?

    • Think I would replace a couple of those with the conversions of Skykid and Dig Dug, which did a good job of replicating the arcade experience.

  50. So rewatched Dune tonight as it just dropped on Netflix in the UK.

    I only had the volume at 52% but the sub woofer was really get a workout by the thumping soundtrack.

  55. Crap joke for the day:

    An Irish woman of advanced age visited her physician to ask his help in reviving her husband’s libido.
    ‘What about trying Viagra?’, asked the doctor.
    “Not a chance,” she said. “He won’t even take an aspirin.”
    “Not a problem,” replied the doctor. “Give him an ‘Irish Viagra. It’s when you drop the Viagra tablet into his coffee. He won’t even taste it. Give it a try and call me in a week to let me know how things went.”
    It wasn’t a week later that she called the doctor, who directly inquired as to progress.
    The poor dear exclaimed, “Oh, faith, bejaysus and begorrah! T’was horrid! Just terrible, doctor!”
    “Really? What happened?” asked the doctor.
    “Well, I did as you advised and slipped it in his coffee, and the effect was almost immediate. He jumped straight up, with a twinkle in his eye, and with his pants a-bulging fiercely! With one swoop of his arm, he sent the cups and tablecloth flying, ripped me clothes to tatters, and took me then and there passionately on the tabletop! It was a nightmare, I tell you, an absolute nightmare!”
    “Why so terrible?” asked the doctor. “Do you mean the sex your husband provided wasn’t good?”
    “Twas the best sex I’ve had in 25 years! But sure as I’m sittin’ here, I’ll never be able to show me face in Starbucks again!”

  58. It’s finally winter in the Omaha area, too. Snowing outside as I write this. Going to have a high of -9F on Sunday – most extreme I’ve experienced so far. Good thing I’m allowed to WFH on Sat and Sun.

  67. JW: The Boys in the Boat

    At cinema.

    The spider sense was tingling as I watched and I was thinking “was this filmed in the UK?”

    Consulted Wikipedia and yes it was.

    • Kids can spoil anything.
      My eldest child’s take on TBITB –

      “A bunch of guys with white male privledge overcome the advantages of a bunch of guys with RICH white guy privledge to stick it to Hitler.
      OR MAYBE we could talk about what Jessie Owens did at that same Olympics.”

      While she is not wrong, I fear we have developed a generation that can’t find joy. “Generation Meh”

      Anyway… my wife says the book is great.

      • I mean. . . I don’t know the material, so I shouldn’t comment. . . .

        But wouldn’t that logic also apply to Schindler in Schindler’s List?

  69. I started reading Geddy Lee’s autobiography last night. I hope time and energy allow for me to keep going.

    It’s well-written so far. He dedicates a lot of ink in the early chapters to his parents’ and grandparents’ horrific experiences as Jews in Poland and Germany during WWII. Unexpected, but powerful.

  72. I *wish* I had an engine heating block right now. I’m most likely staying warm and safe at home tonight instead of going out to pose for costume photos at another Star Wars hockey night, because I’m so worried about my poor car.

    I did finally replace the Velcro pieces on that old Jedi tunic with new ones. They needed it, they’ll be eight years old in September.

  73. Oops, forgot something. The other reason to have one of those spandex bodysuits is to cosplay as a superhero. I have a custom screen-printed one I had made for Dragon Con 2022. Good times with a silly OC superhero group. 🙂

  84. Watching some coverage in passing on Iowa. Ignoring the fact your c election cycle is several years—They said the candidates spent over $100 million combined in Iowa alone. $100 mil I. Just one state!!!

    My question is, why? They keep going on about country deficits, can’t afford social programs, etc, but this can be spent just on campaigning.

    I find this very confusing

  89. Listening to a podcast about errors in Wikipedia when it started, this one made me laugh:

    The first law of thermodynamics is you don’t talk about thermodynamics..

  90. Post-birthday recap:
    Got to watch the eldest daughter’s aerial arts (Cirque du Soleil) class. Amazing.
    She also told me she’d listed me as writing inspiration for an assignment in her Creative Writing class.
    The garage door repair bill came out to $450.00. Fuck me.
    We binged Echo over a few nights. Excellent.
    We watched S3E1 of ST:D. What the hell? Eh, we’ll keep at it.

  95. Excitement builds as the temperature approaches the freezing mark for the first time in 4 days.
    Well… more accurately, the “not freezing” mark.

    • Oof. That’s a gut punch.
      A great man who did for Classical music what Weird Al does for Pop. Though his paradys are a hoot, often his funniest jokes came in the form of the music itself, with weird time signatures, incomplete phrases and just plain “wrong” key changes.
      I don’t know that there is anyone else out there doing this.
      Sadness.

    • Looks nice, although I’m not a big fan of platform puzzles that ape the Super Mario games. I’ve been playing Doom Eternal and the fights are great, but the “figure the right timed jump, grab, run, release” sequences drag the game to a halt when you are trying to clear a level. I hope the new Indy game doesn’t over do that aspect.

    • Re: “Daily Kos”
      I was very active there back when Bush launched his invasion of Iraq.
      One day I added a comment to a news item about the Isreal/Palestinian conflict and a someone with moderator permissions took it in a way I had not intended and had me locked out of my account.
      It was very frustraighting. I had been on there for years and never had so much as a warning or repremand or anything and I very much wanted to issue a public apology for how my post could have been misunderatood and underscore the importance of what the moderator was upset about. I didn’t want to argue with them, I agreed with their point.
      … but I was locked out of my account.
      So I walked away. Seemed a sorry way to run something.

    • That actually fits pretty well. I would have argued that it wasn’t time appropriate, but the song really did come out that year. Damn!

  104. Clawed its way up to 13F here in the Deep South. It is sunny though so maybe we get some melting anyway?

    Going to have to trek out today anyway. Need supplies.

    • The cat is super annoyed with me.
      No mater which door I let her out, it is still extremely unpleasant out.
      She is clearly displeased that I won’t let her into the “nice” outside.

    • We sell my wife’s wood burning crafts at a farmers market and here in Florida those run all year long. That’s great until you get a morning in the 40s. Not bad if you’re from up north. But also not fun to stand in for 6 hours straight when you don’t own a lot of winter gear.

  105. Watched the 1st two episodes of “One Piece” last night.
    It’s amusing. Will probably watch the rest.

    Finished this season’s Fargo.
    The usuall whacked out fun. Lots of characters to love or hate. Very topical this time as it takes place in 2019 (I think).
    I will say there seemed to be quite a bit of filler. Like maybe they only had enough show for 2/3 of their season and just need to stretch it out.

      • Van is referring to the Juno Temple who played Keeley in “Ted Lasso”.
        She is awesome in this, playing an entirely different character and showing her range!

    • I’m not going back to Hulu any time soon, but I do need to get in on this show. I’m told that each season is its own capsule, so I can start with any of them.

      Any consensus on favorite Fargo seasons?

      • I enjoyed them all, though the fourth was probably the weakest, but only by comparison.

        While each story is distinct, there are generally some Easter Egg type connections that I mostly miss myself.

      • One of the things they do with this show is cast really well known actors and put them next to actors I’ve never heard of. In all cases they seem to bring out the best in each other.
        Once I was able to get past the fact that I was seeing Chris Rock (season 4), I was blown away with his performance. I felt like casting him in that type role was a real gamble but he really pulled it off.

        • I’ve always always liked Chris Rock – – since he was a young standup comic in the 80s. Never understood the hate. (I don’t want to resurrect the Wil Smith debate) I’d definitely like to see him in a different kind of role, like this.

  109. Crap joke for the day;

    A man walks into a bar and tells the bartender, “Give me a double shot of whiskey NOW” even before he reaches the bar stool.

    “Everything OK?” the bartender asks the patron while preparing his drink.

    “Jesus! No,” says the patron. “I just found out my brother is gay and that he’s been secretly in love with my best friend for over 5 years!”

    “Oh man,” the tender says, “that’s messed up. So sorry about that.”

    A few days later, the same man enters the bar again, even more flustered than before. “Give me a double of what I had last time.” So the bartender places 2 glasses in front of him, each with 2 shots of whiskey.

    ”Man, you OK?” The bartender asks again. “Looks like you’re having a rough week!” he adds.

    “Oh, God! If you only knew,” replied the patron. “My nineteen year old son just came out as gay and he stole his sister’s boyfriend from right under her nose! The house is in complete turmoil.”

    During the weekend, the same patron entered and told the barman, “Man just bring the whole bottle of whiskey and a glass.”

    Shaking his head in disbelief, the tender asks, “Doesn’t anyone in your family prefer women?”

    Downing a glass and then another, the patron looks at the barman and says, “Yes. Apparently my wife does!”

  114. I’ve been watching Blue Eye Samurai on Netflix – – about halfway through. I was a little leery at first, thinking it was going to be a mess of juvenile cliches, but it won me over. The action sequences are actually fresh and exciting. I’m digging it.

    • I am through Ep4
      There are some very charming and fun things about it. But it also somehow feels awkward and I can’t really put my finger on what it is.
      I plan to watch all of it but can’t help but feel something is missing.

  117. It’s actually going to get above freezing today. The roads are going to be slushy heading into the city later this morning

  123. Well, we watched Blue Beetle today. It was actually pretty enjoyable. It wasn’t really a “superhero” movie so much as a “comic book” movie, in my worthless opinion. Taken in that context, I thought it was a nice change from all the grim-dark that is the usual DC and to an extent recent MCU movies.

    Shame that it’s a dead end and didn’t do well.

  124. Crap joke for the day:

    Daddy balloon, Mummy balloon and Baby balloon.

    Mum and dad have a problem, baby balloon keeps getting into their bed during the night, which they have told him to stop doing. Dad has a brainwave, secretly he buys a smaller double bed so baby can’t get in.

    Next night Baby balloon goes to get in their bed and he can’t fit, he has a think and comes up with a great idea, he takes some air out of Daddy balloon and some out of Mummy balloon but it’s still a bit tight. He takes a little bit of air out of himself and hey presto he is in.

    They wake up in the morning and can’t believe it. Daddy balloon tells him straight; we told you to stop doing this, you have let me down, you have let your mum down but worse still you have let yourself down.

  130. The husband said the staff are ordering Thai food for dinner tonight at the school. In solidarity, I told him I’d order Thai food for dinner myself. The difference; I actually like Thai food

  132. My goal is to finish System Shock by the end of the weekend so I can start Like a Dragon Infinite Wealth. Since I have no idea how much I have left to do in SS, we’ll see if it’s achievable.

  137. Read this crap joke yesterday. Definitely liked it:

    A mechanical engineer, an electrical engineer, and a computer scientist are traveling to a business meeting together. While driving down a hill, their car brake system fails and they panic as their car careens wildly. Luckily, they manage to get their car under control and use the safety brake to stop. Once they all calm down a bit, the mechanical engineer says that it they need to check the mechanics of the brakes to find the problem. The electrical engineer says that they need to check the electrical system to find the failure. The computer scientist says “we should push it back to the top of the hill and see if it happens again”.

  139. JW: All of Us Strangers.

    A mite disappointed that they didn’t follow the Japanese original that seeing his dead parents is actually killing him by draining his life force. However that aside, well worth a watch.

  141. Watched the first episode of Masters of the Air, enjoyed was a bit disturbed by the snippets of Brit stereotypes in the preview for the rest of the season.

  142. End of the music whirlwind week! (Still a busy AF weekend ahead)

    Saw G3 tonight (Satriani, Vai, Eric Johnson) and Sammy Hagar made a surprise appearance.

    Many more stories ahead.

    • As is my norm, I was most excited to link up with people whom most have never heard of. God, what a thrill to chat with Chris Poland! And Chris Impelliteri. And Becky Baldwin, the new bassist in Mercyful Fate! Wendy Dio. And Ripper Owens. To get caught up with David Eleffson. The guys from Hammerfall. Kings of Thrash. And to hang out with Jimmy Kay, Neil Turbin, and Eamonn O’Neill.

      I’m guessing you’ve never heard of any of those people, but each of those connections was a big deal to me.

      And that doesn’t even touch on all of the great music! Fun is a lot harder to come by these days, but I had a bunch of it this week.

  144. Crap joke for the day:

    A Jewish son tells his father he is moving out. The son returns a year later and tells his father that he has converted to Christianity. The father is upset and calls his friend who is also Jewish. “You won’t believe this, my son David moved out for a year and came back and told me he converted to Christianity.” His friend says, “you won’t believe this…my son Benjamin moved away for a year and when he came back HE converted to Christianity too”! Both upset, they call their rabbi and explain what happened. The rabbi says, “you won’t believe this, my son Joshua moved away and when HE came back he told me he converted to Christianity too”! The rabbi suggests they call God and tell him. The rabbi tells God that all three men had sons who moved away and converted to Christianity and don’t know what to do. God says to them, “you won’t believe this…

  146. Well, now that it’s out on Paramount+, finally got around to watching the latest Mission Impossible. I had generally enjoyed the earlier iterations of the franchise, though even with the last one that featured Henry Cavil struck me as too long and too much.

    This one takes that and ramps it up more, unfortunately. It kinda felt like the latest John Wick in that sense – particular sequences would go on for so long as to wear out their novelty and impact. And so, by the time later set pieces come along, you’re just fatigued. Unfortunately, I don’t see Hollywood recovering from this trend.

    And, really, aside from the next Dune movie, I don’t really see anything coming along that’s going to get me into a theater vs waiting for the eventual home release.

    • I have long been interested in reading Necroscope, but haven’t got a round to it. Haven’t read any of his stuff, actually, but I know he was widely revered. RIP.

  151. Crap joke for the day:

    A woman from New York was driving through a remote part of Arizona when her car broke down. An American Indian on horseback came along and offered her a ride to a nearby town.
    She climbed up behind him on the horse and they rode off. The ride was uneventful, except that every few minutes the Indian would let out a Ye-e-e-e-h-a-a-a-a!’ so loud that it echoed from the surrounding hills and canyon walls.
    When they arrived in town, he let her off at the local service station, yelled one final ‘Ye-e-e-e-h-a-a-a-a!’ and rode off.
    “What did you do to get that Indian so excited?” asked the service-station attendant. “Nothing,” the woman answered “I merely sat behind him on the horse, put my arms around his waist, and held onto the saddle horn so I wouldn’t fall off.”
    “Lady,” the attendant said, “Indians don’t use saddles.

  153. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/music/artists/wish-pink-floyd-reunion-never/

    A few assumptions in the article, but there are also a bunch of points I didn’t know. I’d always assumed that one-off reunion was privately for Richard Wright, but (it would seem) no one knew then that he had so little time left.

    I also assumed their continued acrimony was mainly Roger, but this article makes it seem like Gilmour at least equally unwilling to let the bad feelings go.

  155. I just learned today that Dee Snider made a lot of money having wrote “The Magic of Christmas Day (God Bless Us Everyone)” which was sung by Celine Dione.

  158. What I learnt this week after watching the pilot of The Rockford Files:

    The actor playing Rocky, Rockford’s Dad is different in the pilot that it was in the tv series.

  159. And tonight’s episode of “empty nester theater” was finally getting around to the new Ghostbusters: Afterlife movie. Now that’s how to you reboot a franchise. Some respectful fan service, not shitting all over your legacy characters, and introducing new characters to the world in a natural and meaningful way.

    I can only imagine what The Force Awakens and the rest of the new Sequel Trilogy could have been if they hand been put in the hand of folks that actually cared about the franchise the way Dan Akroyd and crew did with this one.

  164. And in other news: I believe today is the last day for The Terminator (the original) on HBO. I mean, MAX. I hadn’t seen it in forever, but I really enjoyed rewatching it last night.

    The F/X shots are dated, for sure, but really well done within their limitations. Mostly.

    Linda Hamilton was good enough when she needed to be, but any time she had to speak, she was kinda wooden and awkward. I can’t imagine James Cameron would have accepted that performance in his later perfectionist years (or maybe he was just misty-eyed for his future wife). It’s been awhile since I’ve watched T2, but IIRC, she was pretty good in that.

    The concept of the unstoppable killing machine also feels dated now because it’s been copied and redone to death, but I recall how cool and terrifying it was in the 80s. No matter what you did, it just kept coming. Arnold has never been better onscreen – – not even in Conan or True Lies.

    I’ll have to revisit T2 in the near future.

      • I never felt that it was obvious – – in any of the cuts that I’ve seen, or even in 2049er. In fact, if not for all of the internet speculation, it would never have occurred to me that Rick was anything but human.

        Definitely a fun and worthwhile exercise, but I don’t think anyone can definitively call it.

        IMHO, the story works best if he is human. . . I think his initial cold-blooded approach to his job contrasts with his own humanity, and also against the self-aware inner sentience and varying sympathetic mortality of the replicants (well, except for Brion James. He’s just a psycho).

    • Their arguments are meh and miss much of the point (IMHO). Their take is that the message is “life is life, and all life is precious”. In my mind, the point was always more of “what constitutes life”. The questions around whether replicants constitute life partly revolve around a concept of thresholds. Well, Roy and the gang think they are alive, but may not be because they know themselves to be machines. Rachel represents the next level in that she doesn’t (at first) realize she is a machine and has “memories”. Deckard represents another layer in which even we don’t know if he is a machine or not. So if he is, is he something that finally constitutes life (if we haven’t already bought in at the previous levels)? The author of the article thinks the movie does not make sense with Deckard as a replicant because he doesn’t (essentially) have the same features. I feel like that is a short sighted concept of the movie (why create a replicant that couldn’t physically compete with the other replicants) and misses the bigger picture of making him have different features as an examination of what makes humanity human.

    • So I will just say that this film will always be at the top of my list because –
      (Apart from spectacular visuals, performances and drama) It made me think about all those philosophical things. I was 18 and that film had me thinking about some pretty heady stuff.

  170. Got the PTSD-triggering “hey, can we talk today?” message from my manager, but it turns out to be a nice conversation. They made an offer for an internal move to a different role.

    I don’t know yet if it would be a lateral move or what, but I definitely need to consider it.

  172. Nothing says “out of shape” like when you hold the pad for your kid’s sensei to kick, and you feel like you got clocked by a troll who rolled a natural 20.

    I didn’t fall down, I toughed it out, but man, my dreams of becoming the next Liam Neeson old guy action hero were shattered, along with a few ribs.

  173. At the weekend, whilst going for a walk, I tripped and fell over. Luckily I landed in the grass and on my side. Hurt my neck and back and haven’t been able to sleep all week as the muscles in my back painfully spasm when I lie down.

    So for the foreseeable future I’m the bum who sleeps in his armchair, at least there is no over flowing ashtray and mountain of empty beer bottles…

    • Our modern times and the massive fascination with the word “creepy”. Ug.

      “Besides Something Wicked, The Watcher in the Woods, The Black Cauldron, Return to Oz, and Dragonslayer were produced within a five-year period…”

      I can’t speak to the Watcher in the Woods and Return to Oz, but Black Cauldron and Dragonslayer were both phenomenal.

    • Watched the film tonight. The SFX haven’t aged that well but Jonathan Pryce is very creepy as Mr Dark.

      I wonder if this was some inspiration for Stephen King’s Needful Things.

  184. https://www.reddit.com/r/TikTokCringe/comments/1ad5ard/its_tax_season_if_you_owe_money_this_year_this_is/

    It’s a 5 minute rant, but it struck me because I was floored by this hit right at that time. I had no idea that Paul Ryan was a direct cause. And I get her point about where to direct blame, but I’d say that Biden’s admin should be fighting like hell to repeal this shit.

    This is my last cranky post for the week, barring disaster (all bets are off next week!)

  187. Tonight’s movie was “Maestro”
    It was all that. Accolades are well deserved.
    Great performances and I loved the way the film itself was put together.
    Academy nominations well deserved.

  188. Oh… and last night was “Ghostbusters: Afterlife”
    I really can’t add anything beyond what Ed said. If you’re going to reboot a franchise I don’t think you could do much better than they did with this.
    A lot of fun!

  191. Things I learned this week while listening to NPR.

    In 2023 The US had the lowest rate of violent crime in 50 years.

    The rate of illegal immigration along the southern US border is in a 10 year DOWNWARD trend.

    If you, like me, had the exact opposite impression of things … it was not by accident.
    Marketing is everything.

  192. In a moment of insanity, we bought a carton of quail eggs at a farmer’s market today. They seemed trustworthy, and they were decently priced.

    So that was lunch. They tasted exactly like chicken eggs, just tiny. And no one sprouted a feathery doink on top of their heads, so it was a success.

    • I had had a quail egg once before at a Korean restaurant in NYC (with David Muldawer, to conjure a name from the distant past!), but I think I was too overwhelmed by the spicy noodles to remember anything about it.

    • Not had quail but had ducks eggs. Tasted similar to chicken eggs but were more rubbery when fried. Did make better Yorkshire puddings than chicken eggs though.

  193. In other news, we’ve been plodding through ST: D s3, and so far, I’m not really having a good time. I loved s1 and s2, it this one just feels pointless and uninteresting. I’ll ride it out.

      • Yes, after the big jump. There have been some decent episodes, but it’s lost the magic of the first 2 seasons. That’s not very encouraging, but we’ll still finish it out.

      • This looks like the seed for an interesting discussion. . . but also a clickbait article. Based on some of this things in the article, I don’t know if the author even believes it.

        (Full disclosure: I didn’t read it cover to cover)

  197. Crap joke for the day:

    As a trucker stops at a red light, a blonde catches up. She jumps out of her car, runs up to his truck, and knocks on the door. The trucker lowers the window, and she says “Hi, my name is Heather and you’re losing some of your load.”
    The trucker ignores her and proceeds down the street. When the truck stops for another red light, the girl catches up again. She jumps out of her car, runs up and knocks on the door. Again, the trucker lowers the window. As if they’ve never spoken, the blonde says brightly, “Hi my name is Heather, and you are losing some of your load!”
    Shaking his head, the trucker ignores her again and continues down the street. At the third red light, the same thing happens again. All out of breath, the blonde gets out of her car, runs up, knocks on the truck door. The trucker lowers the window. Again she says “Hi, my name is Heather, and you are losing some of your load!”
    When the light turns green the trucker revs up and races to the next light. When he stops this time, he hurriedly gets out of the truck, and runs back to the blonde’s car. He knocks on her window, and as she lowers it, he says “Hi, my name is Kevin, it’s Winter in Michigan and I’m driving the SALT TRUCK!”

  199. 1. Anything that is in the world when you’re born is normal and ordinary and is just a natural part of the way the world works.

    2. Anything that’s invented between when you’re fifteen and thirty-five is new and exciting and revolutionary and you can probably get a career in it.

    3. Anything invented after you’re thirty-five is against the natural order of things.

    -Douglas Adams

    • This brought to you by a group I’m in that some people post that the 80s were wonderful tech wise and it’s all gone horribly wrong.

      /eye roll

      • I’ve joined a Gen X group on the FB, and it seems like people are constantly posting crap about how the good old days were so much better.

        • The GenX subreddit is generally a lot more chill. It’s also one place on the internet that I regularly hang out in that at least feels like a majority of the members are women. Makes for some interesting conversations.

          Although, there are occasionally thread that remind you that back in high school we were all in different clicks and weren’t ever necessarily friends, even if we’re of the same age group. I think most of that has faded over time, but it’s still there.

    • I guess I don’t get out enough – I had never heard that song before in my life. Can’t say that I feel like I’ve been deprived in anyway, though.

      • I’ve love loved this song and its eerie atmosphere since the 90s. But yeah, it’s in so many movies and shows, it’s gotten ridiculous.

        Hard Times gets full marks for mentioning Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah” at the end.

      • I have the X-Files soundtrack “Songs in the key of X” so I have been familiare with that for years.
        Pretty perfect fit for Peaky Blinders

        BTW- there are some other pretty good tracks on the CD as well.

  204. And just because I’d never seen it. . .
    Re-Animator was a lot more well-made than I expected. Pure 80s schlock, replete with Barbara Crampton and Jeffrey Coombs – – but it leans into the comedy. I don’t know why I’d never seen it.
    What I assume is the most famous scene is truly yucky, even moreso in our more-aware times, but the perpetrator is the worst of the movie’s bad guys. It’s not titillating and it’s not excusing him at all. It’s just mean to gross you out.

    Do I recommend it? If you haven’t seen it, then this is fun for the right frame of mind.

  207. The a key on my keyboard keeps multi-tapping. I’ve tried taking it apart and cleaning it but I still get more A’s in words than I should. I might have to invest in a new keyboard. The problem is, good gaming keyboards are rather pricey.

    • I must confess, I was only barely aware of the original Elmo tweet that kicked off the big response and hadn’t heard about the Larry David thing at all. While I do think as a society we’ve lost a good bit of our sense of humor, Larry’s response doesn’t strike me as the comedy gold he probably thought it was.

  209. Well last night I watched The Last Flight of Noah’s Ark, so I can cross that one off the list of Elliot Gould films I still have not seen.

  210. Headed to the optometrist in just a few moments. Going to see if I need eye surgery. The vision in my left eye has gotten noticeably worse in just the last few months.
    What a drag it is getting old.

  211. That’s me.
    As well as a “visual field” test.
    On on 3 different eye drops to try and relieve pressure. Seems that over time my body gets used to medication and overcomes it.
    Today he put me on the last eye drop modern medicine has to offer. They’ll check again in 4 weeks and if it isn’t working then it’s off the “surgical consult”.

  216. So last night I watched Who? from 1974. starring Elliot Gould as an FBI man trying to see if the Soviets have sent back an impostor after a top scientist has to be rebuilt after a car accident.

    Not too bad at all. Although if the rumour that it was called Robotman when it was released in the US makes me want to travel back in time to slap whoever decided to do that with a wet fish.

    • Had I been 10 years old in 1974, I’d have spent all my paper route money to see a movie called Robotman.

      Had I been 11 years old, I would have realized that was a godawful name for a movie.

  221. Ticket booked to see Zone of Interest at the cinema this weekend.

    I’ve heard it’s best to see it with an audience and a cinema with a good sound system.

  223. Tonight we’re going to watch the Jeremy Irons D&D movie. Tomorrow we’ll watch D&D Wrath of the Dragon God. Unfortunately we can’t find The Book of Vile Darkness or we’d watch that one too

  224. Superb Owl verdict:

    Game – excellent. Probably one of the best actual games in a while.
    Halftime – didn’t like is as much as I wanted to. Lots of good bits, typical technical gremlins
    Commercials – Mostly decent, nothing that I’m going to remember after a few days.

      • Well, since I’m not yet cynical enough to assume she was just acting, we rather enjoyed the enthusiasm of her reactions when they cut to her after a big Kansas City play.

        • The last time the Devils were in the Stanley Cup finals, it was against the LA Kings. Alyssa Milano attended every game in LA, and the cameras cut to her after every single play.
          It’s almost as if people are eager to find things to complain about.

    • Superb Owl verdict:

      The grocery stores were way too crowded.
      I took my mom to try Ramen (she did not care for it).
      Mrs. Asshat and I watched the 1979 Nosferatu the Vampyre with Klaus Kinski on the recommendation of a really good friend (We did not care for it)
      Mrs. Asshat and I watched the Billy Joel segment of the Grammys on the recommendation of my Son (it was meh, but good that he is writing again)
      I think there might have been a football game on somewhere

    • Agreed on the game.
      That the outcome was unclear right until that last pass in overtime kept the suspense unbearable.
      Think it has to be a win for the NFL. I wonder how many Swifties tuned in for the novelty and because of the excitement of the game, became actually fans.

      I liked the apocalyptic Reese’s ad and the car ad where everyone was impersonating Christopher Walken TO Christopher Walken.

      I forgot about the halftime show as soon as it was over. It was fine I guess but certainly I still would have enjoyed Weird Al more 🙂

  226. Crap joke alert:

    Bartender in the old west is busy cleaning glasses when a guy comes bursting thru the swinging doors gasping “Big Earl’s a-commin into town”. Immediately, all the drinkers drop whatever they’re doing, run out the door and down the street. The bartender thinks this is a little odd (he’s new in town), but whatever. He steps away from the bar and starts cleaning up tables.

    Pretty soon, he hears loud foot steps coming towards the saloon. Then the biggest guy he’s ever seen rips the doors off, tosses them aside, bends down a little to get thru the doorway. He sees the bartender cowering behind a table, picks him up, tosses him behind the bar, walks over and says “whiskey”.

    Terrified, the bartender gets a glass and a bottle and brings them over. The guy grabs the bottle, breaks the top off with his teeth, and drinks it down, dashing the bottle into shards on the floor. The bartender says “can I get you anything else, sir”?

    “Nope. Gotta run. Big Earl’s coming.”

    • I feel like the average consumer of music will want the human connection of a live composer. I’m sure jingles and perhaps soundtracks could be taken over by A.I., but I don’t think there will be a viable market for albums of A.I. music. Time will tell.

  229. Morning Pan
    Had a dusting of snow last night. It’s been such a dry winter, we really need more or farming will be affected come spring

  232. So I bought the core book for the Starforged RPG a year ago and only just recently got to try it out. It is mostly for people who want t to try solo rpgs. https://www.ironswornrpg.com/product-ironsworn-starforged

    Think of it as sort of Nanowrimo plus rolling on random charts. So far the charts have generated a character, Juro Barbosa and he is headed to the desert planet Nax to find clues to a lost people who might help him end a galactic war.

  235. So….. You may recall that the HOA had been trying to con us with bogus legal fees? And we debunked it and their lawyers dropped the case?

    Two days ago, we received a letter telling us we needed to paint our entire house by 2/15 to comply with somesuch bullshit. And there’s an email address on the letter to ask questions and request more time, but here’s the best part – – messages to that email address bounce. It’s not a real email address.

    I’m with Agent Smith about the Earth. I hate it here.

    • I knew nothing about HOAs apart from mention in an episode of the X-files until John Oliver covered them in Last Week Tonight. They sound like a bloody nightmare.

      • They are the WORST thing in the world… until the guy next to you starts leaving cars up on cinder locks in his front yard, burns trash in the back yard, and puts a 40’ trump flag on a pole lit up all night with Kleg lights that force you to have to paper over your windows to get any sleep and your property value drops to somewhere to that of a low end trailer park.

        People can’t just play nice anymore.

        • I live in a neighborhood with no home owners association. The people next door to us have had a truck up on cinderblocks, slowly being eaten by a large bush/tree for 15 years. The original owner was an aging Florida Cracker (actual term that means someone born and raised in Florida, not just derogatory, although I mean it with every ounce of derogatory I can get out of that word) who had been in a wheelchair since he was 18 because he got shot in the ass when caught sleeping with someone else’s wife and (when I knew him) made his living off of selling pain prescription medications. The owners after he passes are his daughter-in-law, someone who is not his son, but apparently is married to his daughter-in-law and lives in a trailer in the back yard while she lives in the house. He is someone who builds fences for a living and yet doesn’t have the money or materials to rebuild his dilapidating fence. Their dog now wanders the neighborhood waiting to get hit by a car because he isn’t fenced in at all.

          The punchline… my house/property is officially worth 3 times what I paid for it 15 years ago.

          • Moving isn’t an option – – and OMFG, I’m so sick of moving – – but the harassment will likely only increase. Certainly if we take a stand against the HOA, and probably even if we comply.
            We can’t afford painters right now, and I’m too old and uncoordinated to be crawling around on the narrow garage roof with a paintbrush, so it looks like we’ll be draining more from the dusty well to hire professionals.

            (And by the way, the house looks fine).

            If money were no object (ha!!), I’d be out of here tomorrow. If I ever do move again, it will be to a no-HOA place.

  238. I hope everyone had a nice VD. Or at least a nice Wednesday.

    You may recall that 2/14 is Leeloo’s birthday, so the date has kinda been co-opted around here, in a delightful way. She had a nice, quiet day. The big noisy kid day is Saturday.

    • I’m sorry, but we’re going to have to have a duel now. That one is a favorite of my wife and I. Yes, the story makes not a damn bit of sense, but it is a swashbuckling adventure with a bangin score and I’ll not have it spoken ill of!

      It’s unfortunate it was so poorly received and put an entire movie studio out of business.

      • I’m not going to throw shade based solely on its bad reputation – – but that’s honestly the first review I’ve heard heard that went beyond, “eh, it’s OK.”

    • I was just wondering how Otto could be a young man in 2024 if this is a sequel, and then I realized my error.

      I’ll probably watch out of morbid curiosity, with less than zero expectations.

      • I’m not sure I follow what your error was. Otto flies off in the car to outer space, but there isn’t any indication that he dies. He could still be an old man in 2024 and would definitely not be a young man in 2024.

        • The new Otto actor is going to be a young man, but it seems to be set in the 2020s.

          But yes, I suppose after his trippy car ride, he could just be transported 40 years into the future.

          My error was in thinking too hard about these kinds of details in a Repo Man movie.

    • Sequels are not on my rage list with remakes, re-imaginings, etc. But I am doubtful of this one. I love the original for sure. But, that movie was definitely of its time. Yes it’s by the same artistic mind, but artists tend to grow and fans tend to grow. The directions they grow into don’t always match. Where this artist’s writing has grown to will not likely match where my expectations are and the chance of that same lightning in a bottle is pretty slim.

    • It’s good. I never disliked sitting through Solo, but I’d still have preferred that its events had remained Star Wars lore, not set pieces depicted onscreen. The movie was fine, but not good enough to improve on that.
      I see squabbling about whether movies are “necessary,” but this is the epitome to me of unnecessary.

      • I think Solo’s biggest “crime” for me anyway – is that every legend about Han Solo was crammed into one movie set over essentially a long weekend. I thought the actor playing Han did a pretty fine job.

  249. Pan’s Labyrinth is every bit as heartbreaking on the second viewing.

    Also gotta be Guillermo Del Toro’s best. I mean, I love me some Pacific Rim, but ithis is another level.

  253. Crap joke for the day:

    A drunk stumbles along a baptismal service on Sunday afternoon down by the river.

    He proceeds to walk down into the water and stand next to the preacher. The minister turns and notices the old drunk and says, “Mister, are you ready to find Jesus?”

    The drunk looks back and says, “Yes, Preacher, I sure am.”

    The

    minister then dunks the fellow under the water and pulls him right back up. “Have you found Jesus?” the preacher asked.

    “Nooo, I didn’t!” said the drunk.

    The preacher then dunks him under for quite a bit longer, brings him up and says, “Now, brother, have you found Jesus?”

    “Noooo, I have not, Reverend.”

    The preacher in disgust holds the man under for at least 30 seconds this time, brings him out of the water and says in a harsh tone, “My God, man, have you found Jesus yet?”

    The old drunk wipes his eyes and says to the preacher, “Are you sure this is where he fell in?”

  255. Going to see Styx tomorrow.
    I keep thinking of that Simpsons bit where Homer goes to the underworld and Styx is playing, and he says, “Oh, this IS hell!”

    I’m kidding. I’m a neutral Styx fan. According to setlist, they’re doing most of the songs I’d hope to hear. Including Mr. Roboto (which they apparently refused to play live for years??)

    • The last time I saw Styx was in 1983, the Mr. Roboto tour. Not sure what kind of energy the guys can bring to a show 41 years later, but I would rank that concert as one of the five best I’ve ever seen.

    • The Grand Illusion and Paradise Theater are two of the best albums ever made. The rest of Styx is hit or miss for me. Mr. Roboto was a huge miss.

  260. A few days ago he was talking to his superintendent and told him he’d buy him some. Yesterday the husband asked me to get some Rush beer. I picked up eight cans, six to give away and two for the husband. Somehow, through some fuzzy logic I admit I don’t understand, the husband took four to work at his morning and kept four for himself.
    *sigh*

  263. Styx delivered! I was there for the hits, and they played them all, plus a few decent deep cuts. Most importantly, Mr. Roboto was the first song of the encore.
    These aging “Classic Rock” bands tend to be extremely tight.* No tapes or backing tracks anywhere and their vocal harmonies were perfect.

    * (not all…. looking at you, Pat Benatar…)

    • I saw Pat Benatar at a free downtown concert series. She spent most of the show trying to hype her husband Neil Geraldo. It was a perfectly OK show. Not something I would have paid money to see.

      • I paid money to see Pat Benatar about 7-8 years ago. She was having an off-night vocally (no big deal), but instead of being a pro, she diva’ed. She cut “Hell is For Children” in the middle, because she couldn’t hit the notes in the climax. Then she blamed AZ’s dry heat for it. Many of the boomers in the crowd walked out.
        I’ve seen many singers who weren’t at 100%; I’ve been there. There are ways to push through. I’d have expected someone who’s been performing for 4 decades to do that.

        Funny – – Toto was her opening act, and they were a precision machine.

    • Only read a couple of books on that list (Slade House and The Terror) although seen a few adaptions of some of the books (The Richard Mathesons ones).

      Slade House was more a scifi book wrapped in horror.

      Sometimes a spider is just a spider and not a metaphor for female genitalia.

      Never read any of his fiction but Paul Tremblay seemed quite a nice chap when he was GOH at Fantasycon. I did get to ask a panel he was on what they thought of tv/film adaptions that butcher their work. His reply was although it would bother him his wife just advised him to take the money.

      • I remember a great interview with Max Brooks about the film adaptation of World War Z. He said he knew it was going to be butchered but that hid dad (Mel Brooks) had advised him long ago that that would happen no matter what so he should just take the money and ignore what they do to it.

    • I should add that only a few of those were on my radar, and I’ve also only read The Terror, The Haunting of Hill House, and Turn of the Screw.

      Fuck Dan Simmons, but damn, he has a couple of great books under his belt.

  271. So Tiffany fell asleep with Avengers: Endgame on. I walked in about 30 minutes(?) in, and goddamn, if I didn’t sit down and watch the rest.

    Someone said recently that almost all of the Marvel movies are good, but none of them are great, except maybe Endgame. Fair enough, but yeah, I’d say that Infinity War and Endgame are great movies.

  273. Crap joke for the day:

    An upper-class Englishman is going through his household accounts. After a moment he looks up and says to his wife: “you know, darling, if you learnt how to prepare meals properly, we could get rid of the cook.” She answers: “And if you learnt how to screw, we could get rid of the chauffeur.”

  276. Last month I was listening to a lot of songs by Blackbriar and my brain noticed that one could replace the lyrics to their song “Cry of the Banshee” with the lyrics of Bryan Adam’s “Summer of 69”. Okay, that’s cute. Nope, I’ve got an imaginary earworm song on repeat three weeks later. Thanks Zora Cock.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kJ92qocMXlI

  285. It’s official. Mom’s coming out to visit in the spring. She hasn’t given an exact date yet, but that may be deliberate. I can’t conveniently be out of town on that day if I don’t know when it is

      • My mother is a woman of contradictions
        She’s an ardent PETA supporter (don’t get me started on this) but loves rodeos
        Her partner is trans, but the Black Lives Matter movement is all thugs
        She had her name legally changed to phonetic spelling because she didn’t like when people mispronounced it but gave me my name.
        I’m pretty sure all blond jokes you’ve heard were written with her in mind.

  292. I’m curious to get Rhett’s take on the new Bruce Dickinson album that released today.

    And yours too, if you’re planning to listen! He’s the singer from Iron Maiden, but this only sounds a little bit like Maiden. In fact, one of the complaints I’ve seen is that it “isn’t a Metal album.”

    • I didn’t know it was out today! I’ve only heard the Ragnorak song, which I really liked. I hold the “Accident of Birth” and “Chemical Wedding” albums in high esteem, the follow-up, “Tyranny of Souls” was a disappointment in comparison. I don’t know if Adrian is involved with his latest effort, buy I hope he is.

      • So I gave “Mandrake” a full listen and it is a good album, better than “Tyranny of Souls”, but it still falls short of AOB or CW. One of my criteria for how good an album is if I can recall the melody and/or chorus of a few songs, I can do this readily with AOB and CW, with Mandrake, while the songs seem well formed, they aren’t very memorable. I’ll have to relisten a few times to see if that changes.

  296. Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell was an excellent book, so I started in on Piranesi by the same author. Anyone else read this? I’m 25% in, and so far, nothing has happened. It’s fairly short, so I will probably finish it out, but I’m kinda eyeing the door.

    • /raises hand

      It’s worth reading till the end to get the reveal what’s been happening.

      The audio book was read by the actor Chiwetel Ejiofor who did an excellent job.

  297. Dune, Part 2 – definitely worth seeing on the big screen. Just heard that it only cost $190 million. Compared to the 200-300 million some of the recent mega budget movies have been running – it’s an incredible achievement.

  300. I will go ahead and agree with the hype for Dune 2. I highly recommend a theater viewing, if possible. I won’t say too much, just:

    ~The visuals are incredible in almost every frame. I feel like you could switch off all dialogue and just have audio FX and music, and you’d enjoy the film almost as much. (The dialogue is really well-written).

    ~If I stretched to find a complaint, I’d say that it’s almost a little too packed. Important things are constantly happening.

  301. On the weekend the husband picked up a dk visual dictionary of Drizzt. He then pulled out a bunch of figurines and made a shrine to Drizzt in front of our tv. *shrug* sure, why not

    • People have deep attachments to this movie, in spite of its supercheese factor. I remember it fondly, but I’m down to see it riffed.

      • Riffing just seems to up the level of something for me. If I liked the original, I enjoy seeing it riffed and it adds something to it. If there is something I really don’t want to watch but feel like I should because it’s so in the public zeitgeist (like Twilight), I can bear it by watching it being riffed.

    • Enjoyed it, did wish I could wipe out the memory of seeing 1984 version as plot wise they were no
      surprises, which probably will please fans of the book.

        • There are a few changes in the plot. I’m seeing some ubergeeks losing their cool about them. . . I was only aware of a few, and I wasn’t bothered by any of them.

          • I respect what Villeneuve chose to focus on with his iteration of the Dune story. Much like Peter Jackson with the LOTR trilogy, the most hard core of book fans will be dissatisfied with the things that have been cut/deemphasized.

            I would have made a few different choices, but no one gave me $300 million to make movies, so I’m rolling with what we’ve got.

  310. I watched that Spaceman movie too. Definitely a bunch of flaws (first question – – – why was it that??), but it’s still pretty good. Not amazing, but it definitely doesn’t deserve the hate that it’s getting.

    Is it because of the star? I am pretty anti-Sandler, but he’s been good in dramatic roles before. A better actor would have made this more powerful, but he’s perfectly fine here.

    100% agreement with Van’s comment (on FB?) that it’s more Solaris than 2001.

    • OMG, I am so hopelessly out of touch with modern sci-fi movies and pop culture in general. I saw Van’s post about “Perfect Days” followed by Jack’s post about “Spaceman” and knew nothing about either of them. I grew hopelessly confused trying to figure out why Jack was talking about Adam Sander in a movie that was obviously a movie with an all Japanese cast. Please don’t try to connect these movies in your head. It just leads to drinking (although drinking isn’t necessarily a bad thing to be drive to).

    • I’ve actually looked into lucid dreaming quite a little bit. I doubt they will get what they want out of it. First, it’s really, really, really, really, hard to control or induce lucid dreaming (despite the claims of anyone having a product or process they claim will accomplish that goal). There are a lot of factors down to the genetic level that contribute to whether or not someone will be remotely able to lucid dream. Second, lucid dreaming is still massively controlled by your subconscious. Although the article seems to think that’s a good thing because creativity comes from odd thinking, the reality is that what comes out of your subconscious and dreams is rarely anything you can actually use.

      The article is not incorrect in that a company is making a claim and that businesses will want to cash in on that claim. I’m just skeptical of the claim.

      • Yeah, feasibility is another thing. I think we all automatically got to dystopian thoughts of company mandated sleep-development.

        “Johnson, it seems you were dreaming about bikini babes again overnight instead of doing the rebase.”

  312. I’ve never thought “wouldn’t it be great if I could work while dreaming,” though I have thought “it’d be great if I could sleep while working.”

    • As soon as you said “Wallace and Gromit” I knew, deep in my heart, that it was going to be “The Wrong Trousers”. I 1000% concur with that as one of the best movie chase scenes of all time.

  317. Crap joke for the day:

    After 35 years of marriage, a husband and wife came for counseling.
    When asked what the problem was, the wife went into a tirade listing every problem they had ever had in the years they had been married.
    On and on and on: neglect, lack of intimacy, emptiness, loneliness, feeling unloved and unlovable, an entire laundry list of unmet needs she had endured.
    Finally, after allowing this for a sufficient length of time, the therapist got up, walked around the desk and after asking the wife to stand, he embraced and kissed her long and passionately as her husband watched – with a raised eyebrow.
    The woman shut up and quietly sat down in a daze.
    The therapist turned to the husband and said, “This is what your wife needs at least 3 times a week. Can you do this?”
    “Well, I can drop her off here on Mondays and Wednesdays…but I fish on Fridays.

  319. It’s been a pretty relaxing week. Yeah I went into the city today, but what else is new. Mostly it’s been a week of gaming and reading. I could get used to this

  321. I haven’t watched Children of Men since Netflix mailed me the DVD, but I rewatched it tonight.

    Good lord. Such an intense 2 hours. What a brilliant movie, in the details, the story, the world-building, the characters.

    • I always feel like the skeleton to the party when this film is discussed as the story feels hopelessly derivative to me. Some of the set pieces are well done but the plot is a case of been there, done that, bought the hat.

      I watched Starship Troopers last night, still amazed that some people don’t get the satire and think it’s an advert for fascism. The CGI still holds up,

      • Now I’m going to seem petty for disagreeing with you about Starship Troopers.

        I don’t think it’s the sly social commentary people say it is. I think it’s a dumb B-grade action movie with terrible acting, terrible dialogue, and a ridiculous non-story And whether you agree or disagree about the point of the book, this movie completely missed the point of the book. But yes, while the CGI is pretty dated now, it’s really impressive for its time.

        I do recall seeing this in the theater.

        • Missing the point of you book you say.

          Now what does that remind me of.

          It’s on the tip of my tongue.

          Oh yeah, Bladerunner…

  322. Your crap joke for the day:

    A man walks into a dentist’s office as it about to close. The dentist says to him “I’m just leaving, can I help you?” The man replies “doc you’ve gotta help me, please!” The dentist says “what’s the trouble?” The man says “I think I’m a moth!” “A moth?” says the shocked dentist, “you don’t need me, you need a psychiatrist!” “I see a psychiatrist” the man says. “Well, why’d you come in here then?” asks the dentist. The man replies “Your light was on.”

  325. World record for surviving a fall in an elevator???

    That is Betty Lou Oliver, who fell 75 floors in an elevator.

    – In 1945, a B-25 Mitchel bomber flew into the Empire State Building. Elevator operator Betty Lou Oliver was thrown from her elevator car on the 80th floor and suffered severe burns. First aid workers placed her on another elevator car to transport her to the ground floor, but the cables supporting that elevator had been damaged in the incident, and it fell 75 stories, ending up in the basement.

    https://rarehistoricalphotos.com/empire-state-building-plane-crash/

  328. Because the Oscars are tonight, the CBC did a show. Apparently there’s been a push over the last 30 years to acknowledge stuntmen in the Academy Awards. There’s been a petition out to include stunt people that include signatories of such people as Stephen Spielberg.
    First they were told no because it would take the magic from the main actors. So stunt people said then just do the stunt coordinators, similar to how you do heads of makeup or costuming. They were then told no because it would add extra time to the already long awards program.
    Next the stunt people said, ok, give it to us during the technical awards that are given out a few days before the actual show. Again, they were told no.
    I think it’s stupid. Of course stunt people should be acknowledged for their work.

    • Right. I had no idea stunt people were being shut out.

      The big awards shows have long considered action movies, ie, the films that require stunts, to be lesser art, so I wonder if that was also a factor.

  332. Major work changes coming for me, starting this week. I don’t know yet what it will mean. I do know it will mean a LOT more time in meetings.

  338. I knew it was coming. . . . knew I wasn’t going to be in the crosshairs. . . . but the time period after a layoff always sucks.

  349. CW: Manhunt E1

    Other that Lincoln being assassinated and John Wilkes Booth being the killer, I know little about the manhunt. Of course this being a drama somethings will need to be taken with a pinch of salt.

  352. Crap joke for the day:

    A chap I know really well who is a Bookmaker has just rang me and told me to back these horses today for the Cheltenham Gold Cup:

    Sunshine 4/1
    Moonlight 10/1
    Good Times 6/1

    Please only gamble what you can afford to lose

    However, if they lose…

    Don’t blame it on the Sunshine, don’t blame it on the Moonlight, don’t blame it on the Good Times, blame it on the Bookie..

  354. After years of hearing about it, I finally watched Harold and Maude. Odd, funny little old movie. I get why it’s such a cult classic.

  359. Crap joke for the day:

    A bloke goes to a psychiatrist. He says “Doc I have been having really strange dreams for the last month”. Doc asks “Ok. What are the dreams?”. Bloke says “It’s like there is a football World Cup going on. Every night I see a football match but with donkeys! It’s driving me crazy! That’s all I think about all day”. Doc smiles, thinks for a while, and says “Ok. Here is a prescription. Take 2 pills tonight before sleeping and you won’t have any of those dreams any longer.” Bloke thanks the doctor profusely, gets up and walks to the door. He pauses, turns around and asks the doc “Doc if it is ok, can I start the medicine from tomorrow night?”. Doc looks puzzled and asks him “Why? Why not tonight?”. Bloke looks down and whispers “Tonight is the final”

  361. My anker battery pack, which has charged up multiple releases of iPhones over the years will not charge an iPhone 15.

    Which means I had to order a new one for an upcoming international flight.

    /gnashes teeth

    • Well that is annoying, turns out it was the cable and not the battery pack, used another cable and voila the phone was charging.

  366. The husband texted me and said he is taking Wednesday off (the day of my root canal) and I should prepare for cuddles.
    I don’t know what he’s talking about. I’m always prepared for cuddles.

  368. So I’m listening to a podcast that is covering episodes of Tales from the Dark Side. What I didn’t know till this week is the introductions by Patrick Macnee (who played John Steed in The Avengers tv series) were for the UK market only and were not shown in the USA.

  369. Crap joke for the day:

    A man took his chicken to a movie weekly by hiding it in his pants & unzipping his fly so the chicken could see the movie when lights go out.

    Two older women sat next to him & when Lena saw the chicken come out she says to Mabel “Did you see what that guy just pulled out from between his legs”— Mabel not even looking answers “Who cares, you’ve seen one of those things you’ve seen them all”

    Lena answers “Yes, but THIS ONE is eating my popcorn!”

  373. After 50 years of being a devoted Charles Schulz fan, I finally got around to watching the 1939 Beau Geste, which is apparently the only version to watch.

    You kinda have to have a tolerance for old movies, but it’s pretty good. A modern remake would be problematic, but it would be interesting to see a Tarantino-esque take on the story.

    • I never actually read any of his books. Just added Rainbow’s End to my Audible list. A Fire Upon The Deep is the one that everyone raves about, but it’s military SF and I’ve burned myself out on that stuff for a while. Maybe some day.

      • No, I wouldn’t classify any of his books as military SF. They are hard SF, however. I’ve read most of his books and he’s one of my favorite authors.

        • Good to hear that. I say the description that had “when the warring Straumli realm use an ancient Transcendent artifact as a weapon, they unwittingly unleash an awesome power that destroys thousands of worlds and enslaves all natural and artificial intelligence.” and assumed military. But rereading the whole description now, I can see that it really isn’t.

          • I liked A Fire Upon the Deep. I still recall its sections with intergalactic message boards as being particularly prescient.

            I’ll always remember it as the book I was reading while in the middle of the first draft of Spherical Tomi.

            I tried A Fire Upon the Deep, but didn’t click with it.

            No denying his importance in Sci-Fi history, especially for his Singularity ideas. RIP.

  377. Welp, I finally ordered a new keyboard. I also go a vacuum at the same time. On Tuesday I’ll be able to clean my house and post about it. Oh, joy.

  378. Although I have yet to watch the finale I have been enjoying Masters of the Air on AppleTV+ so bought the book it’s based on.

    25 hours in audio, this one is going to take a while to finish.

  380. Crap joke for the day:

    A tourist wanders into a back-alley antique shop in San Francisco’s Chinatown. Picking through the objects on display he discovers a detailed, life-sized bronze sculpture of a rat. The sculpture is so interesting and unique that he picks it up and asks the shop owner what it costs.

    “Twelve dollars for the rat, sir,” says the shop owner, “and a thousand dollars more for the legend behind it.”

    “You can keep the legend, old man,” he replies, “but I’ll take the rat.”

    The transaction complete, the tourist leaves the store with the bronze rat under his arm. As he crosses the street in front of the store, two live rats emerge from a sewer drain and fall into step behind him. Nervously looking over his shoulder, he begins to walk faster, but every time he passes another sewer drain, more rats come out and follow him. By the time he’s walked two blocks, at least a hundred rats are at his heels, and people begin to point and shout. He walks even faster, and soon breaks into a trot as multitudes of rats swarm from sewers, basements, vacant lots, and abandoned cars. Rats by the thousands are at his heels, and as he sees the waterfront at the bottom of the hill, he panics and starts to run full tilt.

    No matter how fast he runs, the rats keep up, squealing hideously, now not just thousands but millions, so that by the time he comes rushing up to the water’s edge a trail of rats twelve city blocks long is behind him. Making a mighty leap, he jumps up onto a light post, grasping it with one arm while he hurls the bronze rat into San Francisco Bay with the other, as far as he can heave it. Pulling his legs up and clinging to the light post, he watches in amazement as the seething tide of rats surges over the breakwater into the sea, where they drown.

    Shaken and mumbling, he makes his way back to the antique shop.

    “Ah, so you’ve come back to hear the legend of the rat,” says the owner.

    “No,” says the tourist, “I was wondering if you have a bronze lawyer.”

  381. Dates for the ticket sales for the next Star Wars Celebration just dropped. I’ll be camping out in front of my computer Thursday night, May 2. Then I have a whole bunch of events to run back and forth between the following Saturday, May the 4th.

  383. The new Ghostbusters film was ok, nothing fantastic but watchable.

    It’s been getting a lot of flak in reviews that is rather undeserved in my view.

    • Seems like in this day and age, many reviews begin with the reviewer;s predetermined agenda. i.e., they could have it 95% written before watching the movie.

  385. I started watching the original Fargo movie last night, intending to just watch a few minutes. Ended up watching the entire thing. It’s amazing how such a slow-mover can be so riveting.

        • I recall seeing Fargo in the theater and thinking it was fine, kinda slow but darkly amusing. Some others loved it. And two guys in our group were absolutely outraged. They talked for years about how much they hated it. It was funny watching them meltdown as it garnered all kinds of awards and nominations.

  387. So the game Sifu was one of the monthly games on PlayStation Plus. It’s a kung fu battler where you are out to avenge the death of your father.

    Now this is a game I’m always going to have to play on the easy setting, as there are so many button joystick combinations to pull off some of the moves and you have to time them just right that I end up just button mashing.

    A case of “I’m getting too old for this shit”.

  388. Crap joke for the day:

    Jimmy has a cat called Edgar. He loves his cat and takes him everywhere. But one day, he has to go overseas and Edgar can’t travel with him, so he leaves him with his Mum and brother, Steve. Overseas, Jimmy rings every day to check on Edgar’s welfare. One morning, he rings Steve. ‘How’s Edgar?’ ‘He’s dead, Jimmy.’ Jimmy is shocked. “Steve, you know I loved Edgar. A thoughtful, compassionate brother would have broken the news gently. The 1st time I rang, you would have said Edgar is on the roof. The 2nd time, you would have told me the fire brigade had been called. The next time I called, you would have said the firemen got Edgar off the roof but he had to be taken to the Vet. Then, when I called again, you would have gently told me that despite the Vet’s best efforts, Edgar unfortunately passed away. That is how a considerate brother would have broken the news.’ ‘I’m sorry Jimmy,’ says Steve. ‘Good, I’m glad.. by the way, how is Mum? Steve is silent for a moment. ‘Ah, she’s on the roof.’

  390. JW: Pain and Glory

    I know it was raved about at the time but I missed seeing this film at the cinema back in 2019.

    Anyway it’s a fantastic film. Y

  391. We just went to the local library Sci-Fi con. The little one was a hit in her Rapunzel costume.

    There was an honest-to-goodness life size remote control Dalek there, which was really impressive.

    It was also nice to chat with Janeen O’Kerry for a minute. She and I go way back to the old days of local Phoenix Cons.

  392. Crap joke for a Sunday evening:

    Travelling salesman walks up the driveway and knocks on the door.

    After a while the door opens and a little boy, about 9, stands with a glass of whisky in one hand and a cigar in the other.

    salesman says “Oh, hi. is your mummy or daddy home?”

    Little boy looks at his whisky and his cigar and says, “Does it look like it?”

  395. Finally watched Kubo and the Two Strings with the young un. First time for both of us.
    Man, the stop-motion animation is incredible. And the story and movie overall is pretty excellent too.

    Well, I saw most of it. I’m apparently now at the age where I doze off during movies, at certain times of day.

  398. Hmmm:

    There’s a saying that the difference between Europeans and Americans is that Americans think 100 years is a long time, and Europeans think 100 miles is a long distance. It’s a saying, because it’s true.

    • Yeah, this seems like a horrifying story. And when the dust settles, it’s going to literally change the lives of everyone who lives nearby.

  406. Yeah, this seems like a horrifying story. And when the dust settles, it’s going to literally change the lives of everyone who lives nearby.

  408. Crap joke for the evening:

    Two brothers immigrate from Ireland to the U.S.A. bringing with them a bottle of fine Irish Whiskey. They keep the bottle for years and somehow never find an occasion special enough to open this special bottle of fine Irish Whiskey.

    Finally one of brothers is on his death bed and he asks his bother :

    “Micheal, remember that bottle of fine Irish Whiskey we carried over from the Old County?”

    His brother answered:

    “Yes Patrick, I still have it put away in my cupboard’’

    Patrick says:

    “When I go would you have the heart to pour that bottle of fine Irish Whiskey over my grave’’

    Micheal says:

    “ Of course I would my brother but one question. Would you mind terribly if I pass it though me kidneys first? ‘’

  410. Off to the bottle depot today. With the husband home for spring break, he’s learning just how exciting my days are

  412. On the weekend, the husband and I decided to watch the Taylor Swift concert over two days. I think he’s now become a total Swiftie. It’s been non-stop Taylor Swift music for the last few days.

  413. Your crap joke for this morning:

    A bounty hunter rides into a small wild-west town one day, and heads straight for the Sheriff’s office to see if there are any bad guys that need rounding up.

    “Well”’ said the Sheriff. “There’s only the one at the moment: The Brown Paper Kid”.

    “The Brown Papoer Kid?, Ain’t never heard of him. What does he look like?”

    “He wears a brown paper hat, a brown paper coat, brown paper pants and brown paper boots. And…” added the sheriff. “He rides a brown paper horse”.

    What’s he wanted for?”

    “Rustling”

  414. The new documentary on the Cold War on Netflix is rather good. It isn’t shy about calling out the dodgy tactics of USA intelligence services.

  416. After juggling and rearranging and jumping through hoops, I attempted to get Gary Numan tix last night: “No tickets are available right now.”

    …..sigh…..

    I am aware of the importance of a Gary Numan concert in the grand scheme of things but still.

  422. Your crap joke for a Good Friday:

    A head without a body floats into a bar.

    Hovering above a seat, the head orders a whiskey.

    The bartender obliges, and the head slurps it up.

    Poof! The head suddenly sprouts a torso!

    The head (now a guy with a torso) orders another, “and make it a double!”

    The bartender pours a stiff one and the head-guy slurps it up.

    Poof! The torso now has two arms!

    Again, the head (now more of a person) asks for another drink.

    The bartender pour the drink, and the guy tosses it back.

    Poof! The former head sprouts two legs!

    He asks the barkeep for one last whiskey, and drinks it down.

    As soon as he’s finished the drink, poof! He disappears entirely.

    The bartender remarks to those who have now gathered around, “he should have quit when he was a head.”

  424. TIL about Watchmen:
    Terry Gilliam attempted an adaptation in the early 90s but could only conceive the story being so epic that the time it would take could only be accomplished on television rather than film. Gilliam’s vision went into pre-production with HBO & cast Robin Williams as Rorschach, Jamie Lee Curtis as Silk Spectre, Gary Busey as The Comedian, & Kevin Costner as Nite Owl. The project ultimately dissolved after HBO failed to provide a large enough budget for Gilliam’s vision. Gilliam himself later claimed afterwards that an adaptation would’ve been “unfilmable” anyway.

  429. I finally finished the Green Knight movie. It took me 5 nights, almost like reading a short novel. It’s not a painful experience, but it would have been painful to sit through in a theater.
    Odd, artsy, memorable, with great direction, I guess, but not really entertaining. Meh.

  431. Your crap joke for the day:

    a gentleman walks into a bar sits down and orders a beer as he listens to the music coming from the blind piano player in the corner. As the man played the piano a monkey danced around for tips for the piano player. Suddenly the monkey scampers up to his seat and sticks his ass in the beer. The gentleman annoyed orders another beer and the monkey comes back and does it again. A third beer and the monkeys done it again and this gentleman had enough. He stormed over to the piano player and screams “do you know your monkey keeps sticking its ass in my beer?!” The piano player responds “no but if you hum a few bars ill wing it”

  432. Watched the live action versionKnights of the Zodiac last night. It was an eh movie. I never watched the anime but it’s wrongly named. It should be Knights of the Constellation. Pegasus and phoenix are not zodiac symbols

  433. Happy Easter, Deadpan.

    We celebrated by finishing the binge of 3 Body Problem last night. Haven’t read the books yet, though my daughter has decided to start reading them now.

    Overall, we enjoyed it. Felt like a fresh take on the alien invasion scenario. Not know what comes yet in the books, I’m assuming we’ll be dealing with some casting changes in a coming season if it gets the renewal.

  435. JW – The 7th episode of season 2 of Invincible.

    The in joke about how costs and time are saved by animators was a LOL moment.

  438. The husband and I are going to the zoo today. They just brought in polar bears a couple of months ago which we haven’t seen yet

  440. The quiet! :-/

    L.A. Guns and Tom Keifer (Cinderella) last night. Day of nonstop gahhh today. Heading out early to bring the little to the circus.

    I’m getting too old for this shit.

  444. Took the little one to the circus yesterday. Not Ringling Bros or any of the famous ones – – this was Garden Bros. Nuclear Circus. It’s amazing what literally death-defying stunts these hyper-talented people do multiple times per day for small crowds in tents in the middle of nowhere.

    We’d done Cirque before, but this was her first legit circus.

    Interesting though, that other than a few trick dogs, it was all humans. I wonder if all circuses have done away with the exotic animals parts of their shows.

  447. So I should have been on my way to the USA today but Delta cancelled the flight.

    Rebooked for tomorrow but with Storm Kathleen hitting the UK on Saturday looks like I’m screwed for seeing the eclipse.

  452. Your crap joke for the day:

    So this guy goes into a bar and there’s a man sitting at the bar looking morose. The guy asks the man why he’s so sad. The man says: “See this bar? I built it all by myself using my tools in my own hands. But do they call me Kelly the Bar Builder? No. See that stone wall out there? I built that wall all by myself using my tools in my own hands. But do they call me Kelly the Wall Maker? No. See that pier going into the lake? I made that pier all by my self, driving the piles down to the bedrock. But do they call me Kelly the Pier Constructor? No. But shag just one sheep….”

  453. What has been a pain this trip, entirely self inflicted, was paying for stuff with Apple Pay or contactless credit credit. I decided this year not to bring cash and try and pay for food and stuff with my phone.

    Big chains like Aldi or Wendy’s no problemo, diners that are not big chains..no way. The staff even look at me as if I’m talking Chinese. The server didn’t even know how to operate the card machine in the diner me and a friend went too.

  460. There was some cloud cover in Ohio but it was thin enough to see Totality. Great experience.

    Deadpan meetup in Spain in 2026?

  462. I forgot to mention that I was a panelist at a local Con through Phoenix Public Library this past weekend. I’d forgotten how fun that can be.

  465. I’ve got nothing but complaints this week, so I’m keeping quiet. I feel like I vent too much in this space, which I’d still like to be a happy, safe alternative to social media.

  466. Only the second time I used laundromat.

    They almost went extinct in the UK, making a bit of a comeback. This one was nice and clean.

  470. A big part of my recent changes: after 21 years in software Quality, I’ve transitioned over to a software Product Owner role.

    And I got my first recruiter cold-message for a PO job today in LinkedIn. I wonder if I’m now going to get spammed for both kinds of roles.

    • You might even get spammed for roles you have nothing to do with. I am a Human Factors researcher. Can’t tell you the number of spams I get looking for a human resources specialist. The actual roles are insanely different. But most people just don’t know or understand what I do so I just get lumped in with anything that sounds the same.

  476. I often comment on how our local paper’s front page picture and headline never match. Sometimes I think it’s funny and deliberate. And then there’s today, where somebody was obviously not thinking.
    The picture is of a man and woman, wearing proper glasses, watching the partial eclipse.
    The head line was: Man and another arrested in Airdrie for Calgary homicide.
    That was just wrong.

  478. I have a question. I recently saw a commercial for a hearing aid on a US channel. It said the hearing test was free if you try the aid. Does this mean you pay for hearing tests?
    I suppose it shouldn’t surprise me since you pay for pretty much every other health care relate thing.

    • Until pretty recently, hearing aids in the US could only be purchased with a prescription from an audiologist. So, you definitely did needed to get a hearing test. Now that the market has opened up and you can get a hearing aid “over the counter” I’m not sure how that impacts the hearing test. I have seen my own workplace provide free hearing tests for it’s employees that are done online with you in an un-standardized natural environment wearing a very un-standardized set of headphones. Not really the best conditions for a hearing test. I would recommend seeing if that free hearing test is from an audiologist. If it isn’t I would advise not using their free test and going to an audiologist to get a professional hearing test. It’s crazy how much standardized settings matter when it comes to telling your hearing aid exactly what settings you need on the device.

      • Hearing tests, done with an audiologist at a proper clinic, are covered by our government health care (socialism?). I’m not sure about hearing aids themselves, though.

  480. We are having friends over for gaming this afternoon. The husband is still on his TS kick so that’s what we’re listening to tonight

  481. Watched the first episode of Fallout and even though I have never played ANY of the games, I still enjoyed it.

    What’s that all about?

    • I’ve played most of the games. Will probably start on the series later this week. Just finishing Sisyphus: The Myth on Netflix first.

    • I’ve played the demo for Fallout 1, all of Fallout 3, Most of Fallout New Vegas, and Most of Fallout 4. We are about half way through the series and it is really good. As a player, my only quibble is the series has to lay a lot of background down to explain what is going on, so they spend a lot of time in the Vaults, but most of the interesting things that happen are on the surface. As such I think season 2 will be even better.

  482. Well, we made it to the end of The Last Kingdom. I couldn’t really get into the more famous Vikings series a few years back, but this one held me from start to finish. Truly excellent. Great characters, great storytelling, great action.

    The final movie was clearly a rushed version of what was intended to be season 6, so it’s way too rushed, and therefore kind of a letdown – – but still a fairly satisfying series finale.

    Highly recommended.

  484. One last thing for the night. . . .

    I’m planning to dip my toe into KDP this week, which is basically Kindle self-publishing. I’ve made a few minor revisions to an old short story called “Creature of God,” which first appeared as an audio drama on the Variant Frequencies podcast. I intend to upload the to the platform as my KDP debut.

    I still think it’s a damn good story, so I’m hoping it finds a few happy readers, but TBH, I don’t really care if it makes any money. This is my test drive of that platform. If I like the KDP experience, then I may use it, and other similar avenues, to try and sell actual books and stories for real money and new audiences.

    • For the eBook, you might also want to look at draft2digital. I know we’d put stuff on both Amazon and there as there are some places d2d would hit that Amazon didn’t

  489. Your crap joke for the day:

    A man met a beautiful lady and he decided he wanted to marry her right away. She protested, “But we don’t know anything about each other.” He replied, “That’s all right; we’ll learn about each other as we go along.” So she consented, and they were married, and went on a honeymoon to a very nice resort. One morning, they were lying by the pool when he got up off his towel, climbed up to the 10-meter board and did a two and a half tuck gainer, entering the water perfectly, almost without a ripple.
    This was followed by three rotations in jack-knife position before he again straightened out and cut the water like a knife. After a few more demonstrations, he came back and lay down on his towel.
    She said, ‘That was incredible!” He said, “I used to be an Olympic diving champion. You see, I told you we’d learn more about ourselves as we went along.” So, she got up, jumped in the pool and started doing laps.
    She was moving so fast that the froth from her pushing off at one end of the pool would hardly be gone before she was already touching the other end of the pool.
    She did laps in freestyle, breaststroke, even butterfly! After about thirty laps, completed in mere minutes, she climbed back out and lay down on her towel, barely breathing hard. He said, “That was incredible! Were you an Olympic endurance swimmer?” “No,” she said, “I was a hooker in Venice and I worked both sides of the canal.”

  491. Bonus crap joke:

    A man boarded an airplane and took his seat. As he settled in, he glanced up and saw the most beautiful woman boarding the plane. He soon realized She was heading straight towards his seat. As fate would have it, she took the seat right beside his:

    Eager to strike up a conversation he blurted out. “Business trip or pleasure?”

    She turned, smiled and said. “Business. I’m going to the Annual Nymphomaniacs of America Convention in Boston.”

    He swallowed hard. Here was the most gorgeous woman he had ever seen Sitting next to him and she was going to a meeting of nymphomaniacs!

    Struggling to maintain his composure, he calmly asked. “What’s your Business at this convention?”

    “Lecturer.” She responded. “I use information that I have learned from my Personal experiences to debunk some of the popular myths about sexuality.”

    “Really?” He said. “And what kind of myths are there?”

    “Well.” She explained. “One popular myth is that African-American men are The most well-endowed of all men, when in fact it is the Native American Indian who is most likely to possess that trait. Another popular myth is That Frenchmen are the best lovers, when actually it is men of Mexican Descent who are the best. I have also discovered that the lover with Absolutely the best stamina is the Southern Redneck.”

    Suddenly the woman became a little uncomfortable and blushed.. “I’m Sorry.” She said, “I shouldn’t really be discussing all of this with you. I don’t even know your name.”

    “Tonto.” The man said. “Tonto Gonzales, but my friends call me Bubba.”

  493. These new Zoom Avatars are beyond uncanny valley. It’s like Pixar created a horror movie, and populated my meeting with its characters.

  494. My Facebook post about “Creature of God”

    I’m going to be dipping my toe into the self-publishing waters soon, starting with a short story called, “Creature of God.”
    You may have heard Rick Stringer’s amazing 2009 full-cast audio drama of it for Variant Frequencies – – but it’s never been released in print or ebook format.
    The new version will include a new ending and a few scene rewrites, but it’s still the same creepy, atmospheric story from 2009. I love the original – – especially what Rick and his cast did with it – – but I feel like the new version is even better.
    Coming soon through KDP.
    Link to the VF podcast episode in the comments, which featured the voice talents of Heather Welliver, Scott Sigler, Seth Harwood, Chris Lester, John Cmar, Kreg Steppe, Matt Wallace, and others.

    http://www.variantfrequencies.com/2009/01/24/creature-of-god/

  496. Another bonus crap joke:

    I hadn’t seen my best buddy for a while and decided to call at his house to see how he was doing. He invited me in and I asked how things were

    “Not good to be honest,” he told me. “My wife went out, supposedly to get some milk, and then sent me a text saying she’s left me and isn’t coming back”.

    I was devastated for him and tried to sympathise… “ How are you coping?, I asked.

    He shrugged his shoulders and said “Well, ok I suppose… I’ve been using that powdered stuff.”

  497. I watched most of Bill Burr’s Red Rocks comedy special. I know posting this would cause a few to unfriend me on the Facebook, but I found this special hilarious.

    Just like NWA and Slayer can make songs about grisly murders, he can make jokes about controversial topics.

  498. You know, Shogun is just making Game of Thrones and everything else look like community theater.

    We just caught up on episode 9. Damn.

    • It’s crap. Their ticket prices in the past 2 seasons have priced me out from attending in person, but it’s still every bit as heartbreaking.

      Some have pointed out that a move from the Phoenix metro area with 6.5 million people to a city with 1.5 doesn’t make much sense. But then, billionaires can kinda do whatever they want, no matter who gets hurt. It doesn’t have to make sense.

      Weirdly, the current owner recently opened a bid on some land to build an arena in the north valley. The thought is that he’s willing to sell off the Coyotes now and then bring a new “expansion” team here, after that arena is built.

      TBH, I’d be happy to get affordable minor league hockey back here.

      • “The NHL says Arizona will receive an expansion team if a new state-of-the-art arena can be built in the Valley within five years.”

  504. “Creature of God” is still In Review status at KDP.

    A Goodreads page hadn’t occurred to me. I’m intentionally going small scale for this, as it’s just a short story – – and also an intro to KDP for me.

    • A Goodreads page would be a good idea. It would help to get the work out. Plus, I like to use it to track my reading. 😉

      But no worries: I understand that it would be extra work for you that you probably don’t want right now.

  511. We’re on episode 5/6 of True Detective S4. The Jodie Foster one. Holy grim dark.

    I don’t see how the final episode resolves anything, but we’ll find out tomorrow.

  513. Not seeing much of each other this week. The husband is working late Tuesday and Thursday this week. I have an evening Zoom meeting on Wednesday. I miss him already.

  517. Crap joke for the day:

    A lawyer is talking to an elderly couple seated in his office. “You’ve been married for over 70 years! Why on earth do you want to get divorced now??” The old lady responds “We wanted to wait until the kids were dead.”

  519. Every organization involved International air travel – “Get to the airport 3 hours befor your flight in order to start the long lines for checking in and passing through security and customs.”

    KLM counter- “Pffft. Go away. We won’t even open our counter until 2 hours before your flight.”

  520. 7:30 meetings!

    When your wife works nights, so you’re sitting at the breakfast table with your kindergartener listening to a meeting!

    • Definitely looking forward to this. Madly hoping that Disney doesn’t crack down on my use of my Son’s account before it hits on May 31st. I know they said they are going to start shutting down account sharing sometime in May.

  523. Last night’s meeting was a lot like banging your head against a wall: pointless, gave me a headache, and felt good when it was done.
    Today, no husband until late
    Blech

  528. So Hades on iOS is pretty good port, but even though the touch controls work you are better off with a controller.

    Yeah I know..obviously!

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *