844 thoughts on “Hold On To 18”

  8. So on that long trip to Kansas in 2017, Lo Pan alerted me to the existence of the WTF podcast.

    In the latest episode, Tim Blake Nelson was getting interviewed and he name drops Mark Wing Davey…the original Zaphod Beeblebrox!!

    I’m feeling the warm glow of nerdism or I may have just peed myself..

  10. Yay, I get to get in on the ground floor of one of these for once! 🙂

    FYI, I’m participating in the Dog Days of Advent challenge. There’s a “Podcast Feeds” page at ameliabowen.com to subscribe to just me, or, I’m included in the master feed at dogdaysofpodcasting DOT com if you want to hear everybody.

  18. I walked into the break room, one of the TVs was tuned to ESPN, where the headline was “10 HS Football Players Suspended for Running onto Field Nude with Oreos in their Butts.”

    Completely changed my coffee experience.

  21. For the next 10 hours, Udemy are having a sale on their classes. Most of them are $199, but these are $10 on sale today. They have everything from web development to learning an instrument to making spitlballs in their course catalog (doublecheck on that last one). I’ve heard positive feedback. I signed up for one on Selenium through the dayjob today.

    https://www.udemy.com/

    • Udemy is new2me.
      Soooo many interesting courses!
      How does this work? (the web page seems to be short on explanation)

      How long do you have to take the course after you purchase? I can’t possibly study everything I am interested in, anytime soon. 🙁

      • You may have missed the big sale – – but they have them pretty frequently.

        I’ve never done a Udemy course, but I’ll be taking one next month. It won’t be anything fun, like Wire Kung Fu or Irish Riverdancing, but I can give some feedback then.

      • JustaJoe,

        You have the course available to you indefinitely after you purchase. I have a couple sitting on my account I’ve been meaning to finish.

  26. RE: a strange phenomenon on the Deadpan Facebook page:

    Tiffany posted a link, but only 2 people saw it. Anybody understand the algorithm? It was a fun image about ballsacks!

      • Ah, the “Privatize Everything” crowd. They’re back at work on the USPS again too.

        My best guess: the idea trickles down from mechaneurozillionaires who want every human activity to be exploitable for more massive profits to add to their zillions.

        • Without doubt that is the driving force. Unfortunately they enlist lots of misguided people that think they can reason about unfamiliar things using “common sense”. Common sense is a crappy reasoning tool for almost all situations.

  39. So.. my daughter saw Space Jam and is now overly obsessed with Marvin the Martian. Makes Christmas shopping easy for at least one of my kids.

    Why are teenage boys so difficult to shop for? *sigh*

    • I had a cat named Marvin the Martian. He was the most awesome cat ever!

      He played fetch with his little furry fluff ball toy. He would leap into the air and catch it, then bring it to you and sit and wait for you to toss it in the air again. He was a tuxedo cat and he was an amazing pet.

      Unfortunately, he got diabetes at the age of 3 and died within six months. It was devastating.

      Okay.. enough of that blubbery nonsense. The point is, Marvin the Martian is one cool dude.

    • Maybe. This question led me to the following train of thought: “Who am I supporting on Patreon? Let me go see. … Patreon still has my old CC number. Whoops! Fixed now.”

      Anyway. I am already paying for access to bonus episodes of a couple of podcasts via Patreon.

    • That is an interesting philosophical question for me.
      Probably not. I definitely am trying to eliminate any more “monthly payments” from my life.
      Caveat – if it was a spectacularly good podcast that had someone or some info that I couldn’t hear anywhere else … maybe.

      ON THE OTHER HAND – I do a yearly donation to Escape Artists because I regularly consume and enjoy their episodes.
      I also throw some coin at DeadAir.net because I listen the heck out of them every October.
      Some would say these count as a subscription … but I had to listen for free for quite some time before I decided that I REALLY valued what they were providing enough to pitch in.

  45. I think the comment filter ate my first attempt at this comment. Let me rephrase: Your comment made me go and actually check my Patreon user account for the first time in quite a while. I am using it to pay for bonus episodes of a couple of podcasts created by people I care about.

  46. Your post made me go check Patreon for the first time in a while. I did use it to sign up to support a couple of creators I care about, which gets me access to bonus episodes of their podcasts.

    (Jack/Tony, please disregard my first two attempts at this comment. I had ‘Amelia Bowen’ autofilled in the ‘Name’ field, forgetting that I only ever use ‘Amy Bowen’ on here, and the comment filter ate them.)

  48. Morning Pan
    Amazon says my sis recipient will get their gift on Saturday.
    I don’t get Saturday mail service. I don’t even get door to door service.

  53. If I go by my community facebook page, I think the world ended when the power went out. Not sure if life was revived when it came back on an hour later.

  57. Mine is still pending shipping. Get out of the warehouse! It’s right there on the shelf, next to those other things. Put it in a box and ship it!

  65. Thank you, Santa From Texas for the super fun Princess Bride Playing Cards and collector’s coin!

    I love playing cards & have a few different fun decks!

    • I finally found those and knew I’d struck something. You’re actually lucky that they shipped directly without getting “lost” at my house 🙂

  70. Stupid postal labour dispute. I ordered something on Monday with two day expedited shipping. I wanted it for a Christmas exchange on Saturday. It’s still not here so we had to scramble Saturday morning and find something locally.

    (Yeah I know, first world problems. Right to strike. etc. but it’s all about ME, you know)

  72. Dear DP SS recipient,

    I know you don’t know that you’re you, but I couldn’t directly ship the gift to you. I have to be my own middleman and therefore I’m not even revieng it til the end of this week and therefore LATENESS ABOUNDS!!!!!

    Me. Lo Pan. Apologize

  74. Oh my.
    The “special report” I just got from Wired Magazine, on this past few day’s court filings, seem to indicate that things are going to be going down for realz.

    “The investigation is now entering the worst-case scenario: Russia intelligence definitely targeted and penetrated the Trump campaign. In fact, contacts between Trump associates and Russia began earlier, and were more extensive, than we have long believed.”

    http://links.newsletters.wired.com/servlet/MailView?ms=MTQ3Njc4NTcS1&r=MjM5NjgxMjU5MjgzS0&j=MTU0MDgyODkyMgS2&mt=1&rt=0

    Trump could best be described as “unhinged” when he thought all was going well. Now? Best fasten your seat belts.

    • The real question, though: no matter how egregious his crimes are proven to be, will he face any real consequences? It was reported last month that he’d committed tax fraud amounting to millions, and that news was met with a shrug.

  79. Sitting I. A restaurant after seeing Mortal Engines at the cinema.

    It was a pleasant surprise, heavily influenced by Star Wars/ Dam Busters

  80. I admit I squeed when I found out that Liz Fair is playing a small show here next year. Problem is, which part of her career will show up? I’m hoping it’ll be very Exile in Guyville friendly as it was just reissued.

  86. Watching a “Frontline” about Facebook.
    Becoming more convinced that the strange ad Pixie got WAS due to that one sentence she had in a FB post she had made some weeks before.

  90. In less cranky news, it was nice to get a shoutout from Mottow Soundz on their FB page for my MetalAsylum.net review of My Diligence.

    “High praise for the My Diligence upcoming release Sun Rose. Journalists who can listen, analyse and write are going the way of the Dodo bird, which makes this review even more enjoyable. Thank you MetalAsylum.net”

    • “The data also found films that passed the Bechdel test, meaning two women characters had a conversation about something other than a man”

      Wow, what a concept. Most entertainment that really tries to break the mold seems to be on the small screen these days.

      • Interesting that the latest Star Wars films – – along the highest-grossing of all-time – – didn’t count, because the geezers were billed above Daisy Ridley.

        This is encouraging. I still believe that social progress is slowly erasing the small-minded types. That’s just not the news that sells.

  97. Speaking of intrigued …
    My progeny are all home for the Holiday and they, being “hip” and “tuned in” and what ever – they had me watch “Stranger Sings” with them.
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ep2d2WzdmVI

    It is the backing track that would go with episode 1 of Stranger Things … if Stranger Things were actually a musical. You turn the TV audio off – then go to Netflix and start the show at the same time you start the youtube track.

    Some very funny moments but impressive for the sheer amount of work that had to have gone into it. Has a MST3K feel to it.

  100. News is saying semi trucks are toppling over from the wind.
    The amusing piece is how it’s even too windy for the wind turbines and they had to be shut down. Who knew?

  104. Had a huge scare yesterday. Tried playing the iPod in the car, but it kept crapping out. I looked at it, and the battery was on the brink of death. But I’d just charged it the night before! :O

    I charged it again last night, and it worked OK this morning – – but I’m still nervous. Thoughts and prayers accepted at this time.

  109. This week I’ve watched some episodes of two new sci-fi tv series, Nightflyers and Origin.

    The first episode of NF I found very offputting, Origin is better even though it’s trying to be ‘Lost’ set in Space.

  111. So Into the Spiderverse sounds goddamn amazing. And at 97% fresh after a whopping 232 reviews it’s most def one of the best reviewed films of the year. Think I’ll give this one my cash over Aquaman

  124. Me: I need a new monitor.

    Old Monitor: But I still work well with this new PC.

    Me: Hmmm

    Old Monitor: Also, spin me around and you can play old arcade games in portrait mode? Can new monitors do that?

    Me: Damn it!

    Old Monitor: hahahaha

  126. I made the mistake of watching the first episode of Carnivale.

    So now I want to watch the two series again.

    Also that scene where Ben cures the little girl and kills the crops ..that is creepy as fuck.

  132. On less cranky notes. . . .the best and the worst thing about working with IT folks is that a 2-minute question can lead into a 20-minute discussion of Star Wars video games and tabletop games from 80s til today.

  135. Crap joke for the day:

    You are driving in a car at a constant speed.
    On your left side is a ‘drop off’ , (The ground is 18-24 inches below the level you are travelling on), and on your right side is a fire engine travelling at the same speed as you …
    In front of you is a galloping horse , which is the same size as your car and you cannot overtake it .
    Behind you is a galloping zebra . Both the horse and zebra are also travelling at the same speed as you .
    What must you do to safely get out of this highly dangerous situation ?
    …
    …
    …
    …
    Get off the merry-go-round, you’re drunk!

    • Today’s thought to ponder.
      What are the chances that Russia HASN’T been manipulating the anti-vaxer movement with the same sort of false, social media campaign that they’ve used to divide us politically and socially.

      Weakening a nation by getting a percentage of them kill themslves and infect others is much cheaper then using missiles and troops.

      • Sadly, the antivaxxer movement goes all the way back to the first use of vaccines. It’s just that mainstream media is finally now paying attention to this dangerous corner of the internet noise after recent outbreaks in the US.

        • Oh yes. I don’t mean to imply that they started it … but it really seem take off and get a LOTS of exposure in the last 5 years … almost all of that being internet based and focused around a proliferation of vacuous memes and fwded Blog Posts that all seem to reference each other as sources (if they referenced any sources at all).

  150. My good deed for the day: drove a panicking high schooler to school, rather than send her on the bus, so she can chill out a bit about finals week.

  204. I’d like Lucasfilm or Disney to make some kind of official comment on the quote being circulated today about them “reconsidering the brand” and “giving fans time to heal.”

    Call me skeptical.

      • No…. I saw a link on FB to an article claiming that Disney said those things, and that they’ve cancelled all Star Wars films and events after Episode IX.

        If you Google for it, you find a bunch of sites repeating this claim – – but I haven’t seen anything like that from the major entertainment sites, EW, E!, etc.

  205. So the figure skater chose “Christmas at Ground Zero” by Weird Al – – 100% on her own with no influence from Dad – – for her Christmas program routine. The Ice Show was tonight, and it went great!

    #prouddad

  208. I wrote that above thingie as a reply to the ice skating post. I don’t know why it didn’t thread unless I didn’t do it right which is entirely possible.

    It’s so Friday that I’m Fridaying like a Fridayer on Friday.

  214. Just got basck from seeing Venom. You can tell it’s mos def not a Marvel Studios film but a pretty good first film in what could end up being a nice little franchise. It did feel extremely rushed but hey, what superhero films that arent Marvel Studios dont anymore?

  218. I’m afraid I have no options left. I’m going to have to clean off my desk.
    That means making a lot of small decisions about “stuff”.
    A lot.
    🙁

    the horror
    the horror
    the horror

    • Good read on that film. So much of it rings true – – all year, not just at Xmas

      If there’d ever been a follow up , though, it would have shown Potter eventually winning, and George still broke and never seeing anything outside of Bedford Falls. Sprry — Pottersville.

  228. Speaking of great films, Hulu ruins “A Charlie Brown Christmas” with frequent commercial breaks in the middle running 5+ minutes. And we already pay Hulu for this privilege.

    Maybe they didn’t get the message in the show about rampant commercialism?

    Bah humbug.

  230. Your crap joke for Xmas day:

    Today I bought myself some sensible walking boots and a little rucksack and went up to the lake district, walked for about 5 miles stopped and sat on a stone wall and had a flask of coffee. Then I walked another 5 miles and had a biscuit and then I……….

    Sorry, I’m rambling

    • Now that is a cool story. My first exposure to Sim City was the SNES version, and I remember playing it quite a bit back in the day.

      Though, the callout to Raid on Bungeling Bay for the Commodore 64 really brought back some memories. I had no idea those game had such close family history.

  237. Well, the first Die Hard still holds up. It had been a bunch of years.

    I hate to be a killjoy, but I don’t care at all about the Christmas movie debate. Enjoy it as a Christmas movie or just as an action movie. It’s all good.

  238. Well, what a whirlwind of a Christmas for me this year. It was great fun to see the smiles on all of my Loves’ faces over the past two days.

    I hope everyone here in DPLand had some joy.

  240. Opening Pan

    Had a good Christmas Day. It was the firs time in a long time both girls and their significant others together with us for dinner

  248. Okay it’s almost New Year and I guess we should start talking about whether a meet-up will be possible in 2020.

    I ask (as usual) because I need to put in for holidays early.

  251. Good morning, Pan.

    Y’all are awesome.

    I’m thinking of shutting my Facebook down for the new year until I get back from my cruise. I wonder if I could handle it…

  252. Facebook is so evil. And it’s filtering is annoying. And it’s full of aggressive cretins.
    For me, it’s only good for jokes, keeping in touch with people, and the occasional big announcement.

    This will always be the place for my brain dumps, as long as someone’s reading.

    • A short story, by JustaJoe.

      Facebook is lost to the dark side.

      It’s creators had the best of intentions but when the first reports of their child exhibiting “anti-social, psycopathic behavior” started coming in- they refused to believe it.
      “It’s still young. It will grow out of it. The community will police its behavior.”

      Then the developers started feeling pressure to have their child start bringing home some income. “We just need to buy some time for our child to become better adjusted.” So they decided to sell their child’s less savory activities to anybody willing to pay. “Just till we get through the IPO “.
      But once the money starts rolling in, it became easier and easier to overlook how their child was embracing the dark side. How it was being used to harm society. How it was being so effectively used to spread evil.
      “It’s not our fault” they told themselves, and the stock holders smiled.

      Now here we are.

    • I’m not a fan of travel documentaries but I enjoyed this one.

      It’s a dictatorship, so I know he was only shown what they wanted home to see, but the humanity of the North Korean people showed through.

      • Oh im not sure about that… Spiderman had been a strong set of films minus the Andrew Garfield ones. And those were just unessesadt. Still tho this one does sound like belongs at the top

      • To be more detailed in my review …
        I found it to have a good, solid, well thought out story line that had much more complexity in it than I was expecting. IMHO – Above the average for action films. But didn’t cross into the land of “a mess to hard to follow”,

        I also really liked the dialogue. Given the dramatic visuals in this film they could have gotten lazy and just let the dialogue be background filler … or gone the other way and made it schmaltzy platitudes and cliches’. I feel like they didn’t. There was some good dramatic dialogue and a lot of clever repartee.

        I enjoyed this film.

  257. Pinch hit crap joke:

    A truck driver stopped at a roadside diner for lunch and ordered a cheeseburger, coffee and a slice of apple pie. As he was about to eat, three bikers walked in.

    One grabbed the trucker’s cheeseburger and took a huge bite from it. The second one drank the trucker’s coffee, and the third wolfed down his apple pie. The truck driver didn’t say a word as he paid the waitress and left.

    As the waitress walked up, one of the motorcyclists growled, “He ain’t much of a man, is he?”

    “He’s not much of a driver, either,” the waitress replied. “He just backed his 18-wheeler over three motorcycles.”

  259. Spending the day leveling my new 3D printer and trying to figure out the correct configuration settings.
    Oh … and there is sports on in the background.

      • I have the CR10S.

        I am using “Tinkercad” to make my 3D models. It seems pretty capable but also … pretty cumbersome/clunky to use. It is also free.

        I am using “Slic3r” to create my gcode. So many setting options. So many.

        Finally thought I had the settings optimized then my daughter tried a print that kept falling over. I tried to import it into the 3D program to add supports … and found that it was too large to do so.

        At an impasse with that.

    • Based on the review … I searched for them and found what I guess to be their first CD, just titled “Shumaun”. Gave it a listen.
      I really liked how clean their sound was. When your schtick is precision licks and complicated rhythms, it’s nice to be able to hear all the parts.

      Over all though … can’t really say I enjoyed it.
      I found it moody and depressing. I would describe it as “RUSH gets together with YES … forms a band and then for some reason, they lose all hope and decided to suck all the joy from life.”

  264. An. Archon is October 4-6. I notice the hotel is already sold out. They haven’t opened up the Con registration yet

    Right now, I’d say it’s 50/50 on whether I can make that date

  271. A crap joke for NYE:

    A Mom visits her son for dinner who lives with a girl roommate.
    During the course of the meal, his mother couldn’t help but notice how pretty his roommate was.She had long been suspicious of a
    relationship between the two, and this had only made her more curious….

    Over the course of the evening, while watching the two interact, she started to wonder if there was more between him and
    his roommate than met the eye.
    Reading his mom’s thoughts, his son volunteered,
    “I know what you must be thinking, but I assure you,we are just
    roommates.”

    About a week later, his roommate came to him saying,
    “Ever since your mother came to dinner, I’ve been unable to find the silver plate. You don’t suppose she took it, do you?”

    He said ,”Well, I doubt it, but I’ll email her, just
    to be sure.” He sat down and wrote :

    Dear Mother:
    I’m not saying that you ‘did’ take the silver plate from my house, I’m not saying that you ‘did not’ take the silver plate But the fact
    remains that it has been missing ever since you were here for dinner.

    Love,
    your son.

    Several days later, he received an email from
    his Mother which read:

    Dear Son:
    I’m not saying that you ‘do’ sleep with your roommate, and
    I’m not saying that you ‘do not’ sleep with her.
    But the fact remains that if she was sleeping in her OWN bed, she
    would have found the silver plate by now, under her pillow…
    Love,
    Mom.

    • My iPhone wanted me to install something. Strangely, the PC worked.

      Fuck him. This must be how wrestling fans felt when Hulk Hogan turned into the evil Hollywood Hogan.

      • Honest question. If he wasn’t a disgusting human being and still just the cutting edge comic that we once knew him as, would we be reacting like this? Would there be this outrage and disgust would it be more, “Well that’s Louis being Louis!”

        • A fair question. The whole schtick on that video isn’t that far off from his “look how edgy I am” bits of the past, but I say “fuck him” for jokes about scared kids in a school shooting.

          To me, that’s him embracing the trump crowd after he got outed as a creep. They elected a molester as President, so they’d obviously have no issue going to see a (White) molester comedian.

          • I ask because I’ve been called out before for calling out non creepy entertainers on thier comedy pertaining to similar stuff. And I’ve been called out by folks I like and trust. So I dunno

          • I did used to be a fan.

            Interesting that people gave you shit for drawing the on questionable jokes from “good” comics. Hypothetically, if edgy but non-creepy Lewis Black had made these same asshole jokes, I’d have said “way uncool,” but I wouldn’t have given up on him.

            This shit coming from creep LCK, however: this pretty much kills any chance of acceptance in time from me.

            YMMV

  277. Well, we were going to visit friends for gaming, but baby’s upset tummy kept us home. A quiet NYE in the Mangan house is fine too. I hope yours is/was fun.

  279. Hooray! No Y2019 Bug! We all live.

    I do half-expect some sort of dystopian apocolypse to happen at some point. Fiction or non-fiction.

    Along the same vein, Winter has arrived. WT..brrrrr

  284. You know, I knew that the JJverse version of the Enterprise was scaled up from the original series and Kirk era movie size versions. I hadn’t appreciated just how much bigger they made it. Cool little video I stumbled on showing the different Enterprises compared to one another.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x4837lp6Rg8&list=LLPLIRRW3m_x_6PN0r9mCXUw&index=4&t=0s

    Though, I understand that the model makers designed the ship to be comparable to the original TOS and Movie era Enterprises. So, instead of the Kelvin timeline Enterprise having twice as many decks, at least from the outsize, the decks are just twice as tall – you can see it in things like the sizes of the windows in the saucer sections.

    • I’ve always been a Trek fan, but never on this level. Pretty impressive dedication.

      I was always under the impression these were supposed to be like space-faring cities. All of the bridge characters had quarters the size of nice apartments. Does that mean the redshirts are all cramped into coffin rooms, like those Japanese hotels?

  291. One more thing: I’ve created a separate Facebook events page. If it’s possible to post in the main Deadpan page to a select audience, then I don’t know how to do that.

  297. So … day 2, 2019 comes to an end.
    It rained all day with temps in the upper 40’s.
    My eldest flew back to Colorado :/

    Come on 2019. Step it up.

    • This is huge news. Granted, I don’t watch the news daily, but shouldn’t this be the biggest story on every news outlet today? To be fair, it’s less important to human history than Kanye and Kim being pregnant with another child.

  307. So let’s look at the main points in just the first two weeks of the shutdown so far shall we? National Park infrastructure is crumbling, it has become increasingly less safe to fly, and 800000 people are about to file for unemployment and food stamps. This self-proclaimed genius in chief is about to find that he’s going to have no country left to protect with his beloved wall.

      • Here’s the fun bit.
        When he finally stops screwing around with … well, everything – things will start to get better.
        He will undoubtably take credit for those improvements … improvements from dumpster fires he started to begin with.
        It’s a great plan really.
        It is HARD to solve real problems. So create a bunch of problems and then solve them by NOT DOING what you did to cause them to begin with.
        Clearly half the population will hail him as a savior.

        • Im not ony convinced he has zero plan but I’m convinced he in no way has the intelligence to even conceive of this notion. He’s treating the country like a company he can just declare bankruptcy in if shit doesn’t go his way.

  317. Last Saturday of holidays. I wish I could stay on holiday’s permanently. But then, don’t we all?
    It was a gaming holiday for us. Hubby and I both got computer games. We also got two board games (Ascension & Formula D) as well as two expansions to Terraforming Mars. Today was spent trying them out before we introduce them to the masses next weekend.

      • You obviously don’t live with someone who watches the Formula One races. He’s already talking about getting some of the other track boards.
        There’s also an advanced mode where you micro manage your gearbox, engine, and tires. We haven’t played that yet.
        I look at it as either a game that can be played with a large group of people, or, since it’s a quick game, as a filler when you’re either between longer games or have a little bit of time after a long game

  318. Booked a ticket to see ‘The Favourite’ tomorrow.

    I’m not a fan of periods dramas, buf this one has been getting good reviews.

  323. I can’t believe how tired I am today. I must not be completely rid of this stupid thing. Fish n Chips last night probably didn’t help.

  327. RE: the shutdown: . . . . the people in that cult have a built-in blame target already (“The Left, “the Libtards,” “etc.)

    If you bother to read nutjob responses to reasonable frustration, you see such fine comments as:

    “Well if the Democrats would just do their jobs”
    “Everyone is getting paid”
    “Everyone will get paid back”
    “The wall is is more important than their paychecks”

    • I’ve stopped trying to argue with anyone. I just come back with “You’re right. Me not getting paid currently has no bearing on my current bills that are due.”

      Yeah I will hopefully get back pay. It’s not a guarantee. But also the contractors in my office will get nothing. No back pay. Nothing.

      It doesn’t help the idiot local news did a story about a fed that was dying about how bow she can’t take her fam to Sweden and now she has to cut into her savings account with 15k in it! What a detriment that piece was to the actual 99% of fed employees that are the antithesis off her. /furious

  328. Ugh. Apple is killing me with its handling of podcasts. It just deleted thousands of episodes that I had just re-downloaded because they weren’t sync’d properly the nth previous time I got them. :rage:

    What do you guys use for listening to podcasts, especially if it is across multiple devices?

      • I use Overcast as well. I was surprised at how little I wanted out of a player and how hard it was to find what I wanted.