Random randomness

[Madmarcus]

Let's face it. There is no country in the world that want's US immigrants. And about 6 that want US tourists. And 330 that want US money.

Truth.

[Blackhawk]

And no country in the world wants immigrants from anywhere that aren't going to contribute. As a disabled person, I take more than I give (as far as the bookkeepers can see, at least.) That makes allowing me to move into their country a net loss. Hell, even the US wouldn't take me if I was coming from somewhere else.

It doesn't make one feel all that great to know that their mere existence is considered a negative at some level, but it is what it is.

[Blackhawk]

It seems that YouTube has made some change to their system, and now about 3/4 of all comments I make vanish instantly. Not even the creators are able to see them, so they're not getting caught in the spam filters or being held for review, they're just... vanishing within seconds of being posted.

[Jaymann]

It seems that YouTube has made some change to their system, and now about 3/4 of all comments I make vanish instantly. Not even the creators are able to see them, so they're not getting caught in the spam filters or being held for review, they're just... vanishing within seconds of being posted.

Are you sure they are not just getting shoved down to where you can't see them anymore?

[Blackhawk]

It seems that YouTube has made some change to their system, and now about 3/4 of all comments I make vanish instantly. Not even the creators are able to see them, so they're not getting caught in the spam filters or being held for review, they're just... vanishing within seconds of being posted.

Are you sure they are not just getting shoved down to where you can't see them anymore?

Sort by Newest - nada.

Post on videos with five comments, it is now six comments - five plus my vanished one.

That, plus all of the other people reporting the same issue.

[Jaymann]

It seems that YouTube has made some change to their system, and now about 3/4 of all comments I make vanish instantly. Not even the creators are able to see them, so they're not getting caught in the spam filters or being held for review, they're just... vanishing within seconds of being posted.

Are you sure they are not just getting shoved down to where you can't see them anymore?

Sort by Newest - nada.

Post on videos with five comments, it is now six comments - five plus my vanished one.

That, plus all of the other people reporting the same issue.

Sounds like they have a new, fucked up algorithm. Maybe they will sort it out.

[Sudy]

I don't understand how a company with that level of resources releases such horrible updates and fails to do adequate testing. I mean, I do understand how it happens to an extent... but it's ridiculous. Still waiting waiting to get "tap to adjust playback slider" back on Android.

[Skinypupy]

Watched "Rise of Skywalker" with the kids today, so they have now (finally) seen all of the main Star Wars movies. This was the first time I'd seen it since the theater, and I actually thought it was quite a bit better than my initial impressions.

It's weird though, the ending of that movie gets me really emotional for some reason. Like, tears streaming down my face emotional...which is something that almost never occurs. It happened when we left the theater, and again this afternoon. It's not that it is a particularly moving or incredible film (it's merely ok), but I think it's a combination of two things:

1. That final shot hits me with a ton of nostalgia for my dad, who passed 4 years ago. He must have watched the original Star Wars with me a hundred times growing up, played with me and my SW action figures for countless hours, had the patience to listen to me ramble on about SW nonsense, put up with me playing the soundtrack non-stop from the record player in my room, etc., etc. I don't even know if he was really that much of a fan, but he knew it was something that I loved and something we could enjoy together. So that ending - especially the final shot - makes me think "Dad would have loved this". I'm generally not a particularly nostalgic person, but man that hits me hard.

2. A combination of the finality and the sheer breadth of it all. Look, I know that Star Wars will continue. I know there will be more movies, more shows, more books, more action figures. But having the chapter that has been such a huge part of my geeky life for literally as long as I can remember come to a final close just kinda hits me like a ton of bricks...regardless of how good/bad the actual movie itself was.

It also makes me wonder what the Star Wars equivalent will be for my kids. What will be the thing that - when they are 47 years old - they think "Wow, I can't believe this is something I've been enjoying for my entire life". Or "This gives me such great memories of dad".

Star Wars unexpectedly inspiring some weighty thoughts on the nature of mortality today, I suppose.

[Holman]

I was sitting next to my dad (76 at the time) in the theater the first time we saw Han Solo confront Kylo Ren in Ep VII.

We were both crying, but I think for different reasons.

[Jaymann]

I don't understand how a company with that level of resources releases such horrible updates and fails to do adequate testing. I mean, I do understand how it happens to an extent... but it's ridiculous. Still waiting waiting to get "tap to adjust playback slider" back on Android.

I may have a clue. My uBlock stopped blocking ads.

[Daehawk]

I didn't hate the movies. Didn't love them either. Liked the effects and such and the characters weren't completely awful. But looking back the stories for all 3 were just fucking horrible. Horrible. I really despised what they did to the original trilogy characters. Might as well not even had them. Probably would have been best if they hadn't.

[Rumpy]

I think my main issue with the movies is that there's absolutely no buildup, no sense of story arc like the original movies, and no sense that they're actually fighting for something.

[Sudy]

I think there are major structural and planning problems with the final trilogy that have been well documented. But as something you can watch and appreciate purely emotionally it has its merits.

[Brian]

I don't hate the new trilogy but it pretty much killed my enthusiasm for the franchise as a whole. I used to consider myself a fairly robust fan of (nearly) all things Star Wars but about halfway through The Last Jedi I realized I no longer cared. All of my passion for the SW universe just drained away and for that I can never forgive Rian Johnson.

The thing is, I no longer even care enough to get upset about just how bad the new trilogy was.

[Anonymous Bosch]

I don't hate the new trilogy but it pretty much killed my enthusiasm for the franchise as a whole. I used to consider myself a fairly robust fan of (nearly) all things Star Wars but about halfway through The Last Jedi I realized I no longer cared. All of my passion for the SW universe just drained away and for that I can never forgive Rian Johnson.

The thing is, I no longer even care enough to get upset about just how bad the new trilogy was.

Amen, the new trilogy left me feeling precisely the same way about the franchise as a whole, and nowadays I sincerely couldn't care less about it at all.

[Zarathud]

After the prequels, I realized that just having more Star Wars was enough.

The prequels weren’t the story I wanted. I wanted the Clone Wars instead, but the technology wasn’t there yet. The story of Anakin’s fall was better in theory, but there were quite a few awesome moments.

A lot went right with editing for the original trilogy to have that spark of genius. Looking back, it’s amazing that so much worked out. And frankly Lucas got lucky with his collaborators.

The sequels were too cautious and too reckless. I wanted more Luke and Leia and Han and company. The technology was there but the execution was even more problematic, because they were boxed in by expectations, Lucas’ failure, JJ’s excessive fan service, Riann’s risk-taking that ignored the Luke’s soul, then Carrie Fischer’s untimely death. I think the ending could have been epic with Leia and Luke both able to pass the Skywalker legacy over to Rey…then the final temptation of her and her friends by her father.

Missed opportunity at the end:
Emperor: “Skywalker defeated me only because his father was weak and rejected the Power of the Dark Side. I AM YOUR FATHER AND I EMBRACE THE POWER. Bow to your destiny, and I will rule again.”
Rey: “No. All the Jedi before me live through me.”
Emperor: “Foolish girl. I defeated those Jedi. I foresaw the end of my Empire and planned ahead. Do you think you can resist? You were always my tool, just like the Skywalker child, Kylo Ren.”
Rey: “You are not my father, I reject your madness, your hate. Your Empire. The Dark Side.”
Kylo: “I am not your tool….and I am Ben Solo.”

[Sudy]

Amen, the new trilogy left me feeling precisely the same way about the franchise as a whole, and nowadays I sincerely couldn't care less about it at all.

But I mean, most of us were already crushed by the prequels. There was just this slim glimmer of hope that fresh hands could redeem the original franchise, and Abrams actually seemed like he might be the right one to do it. Instead, he took far too few risks and Johnson took way too many. When Abrams was brought back to take over the third film the nail was firmly in the coffin. The new trilogy introduced some decent characters, it just didn't use them properly. And it did some grotesque things with the canon.

That said, I'm still OK with Johnson and his take. Part of me wishes they'd done more/different with Luke, but it was never meant to be his tale and I actually really like story's message. At least Johnson tried to do something unexpected and memorable. The problem is that it tore apart the middle of a trilogy that seemed to have had little planning.

[Skinypupy]

I don't hate the new trilogy but it pretty much killed my enthusiasm for the franchise as a whole. I used to consider myself a fairly robust fan of (nearly) all things Star Wars but about halfway through The Last Jedi I realized I no longer cared. All of my passion for the SW universe just drained away and for that I can never forgive Rian Johnson.

The thing is, I no longer even care enough to get upset about just how bad the new trilogy was.

I had the thought as I was watching Episode IX today of “I should really look up who plays that character”. Then I realized I had no idea what that character’s name even was. This from someone who could name nearly every major and minor character in both the originals and the prequels. That was a pretty good indicator to me that the sequels didn’t have nearly the impact of the originals (obviously).

My emotional reaction to the ending had very little to do with the movies themselves (although it seems I liked them more than most here), and more with the closing of both a personal and a collective entertainment era. While I’m sure there will be a franchise at some point that casts such a huge geeky shadow over multiple decades, I certainly don't think it’s on the radar now,

[LordMortis]

I don't hate the new trilogy but it pretty much killed my enthusiasm for the franchise as a whole. I used to consider myself a fairly robust fan of (nearly) all things Star Wars but about halfway through The Last Jedi I realized I no longer cared. All of my passion for the SW universe just drained away and for that I can never forgive Rian Johnson.

The thing is, I no longer even care enough to get upset about just how bad the new trilogy was.

That happened to me in Ep II, I think. I've yet to see the IX or a Han Solo story or get Disney+ and I'm in no hurry. No biggie. I'm getting older. I don't doubt it's as much due to becoming both jaded and generally disinterested in movies as I age as it is to having been turned off by the prequels. I do remember Ep VII and walking away just thinking MotS and ultimately, meh. But it did drive me to the theater, something I was rarely doing. After that it's been rent/stream or nothing.

[hepcat]

All of my passion for the SW universe just drained away and for that I can never forgive Rian Johnson.

I blame Rian Johnson for making a decent Star Wars entry. It made me look forward to the third one...which then sucked.

[Daehawk]

This is a link to behind the scenes pics of famous old movies.

https://www.esquire.com/entertainment/m ... lm-photos/

[jztemple2]

[dbt1949]

I'm pretty sure I could fit in that thing.

[Zarathud]

All of my passion for the SW universe just drained away and for that I can never forgive Rian Johnson.

I blame Rian Johnson for making a decent Star Wars entry. It made me look forward to the third one...which then sucked.

Admit that you just loved angry Luke and his green milk, hepcat. A little lactation goes well with the ultraviolence.

[hepcat]

The technical name is “gilk”.

[Archinerd]

I admit, gilk is funny.

The thing is, I no longer even care enough to get upset about just how bad the new trilogy was.

[Rumpy]

My emotional reaction to the ending had very little to do with the movies themselves (although it seems I liked them more than most here), and more with the closing of both a personal and a collective entertainment era. While I’m sure there will be a franchise at some point that casts such a huge geeky shadow over multiple decades, I certainly don't think it’s on the radar now,

Yep, that's just it. The best moments of the trilogy were the closing out of both the sequel trilogy and the saga as a whole, but at the same time a lot of it had precious little to do with any of the new characters. The sequel trilogy failed to really create any compelling new characters with story arcs of their own within the narrative, aside from Rey. They're underdeveloped.

And I'll never forgive them for bringing back Palpatine. The sequel trilogy desperately needed a great villain of its own that they could use through the 3 movies, but instead they brought him back to basically redo the same scene he'd done with Luke. The dialogue is almost the same too. Made the whole trilogy feel like such a waste.

[Jaymann]

They should have used his evil brother Jalapine:

[Sudy]

My dad has a severe pocket dial issue with his Iphone. He carries it in his chest pocket, and every time he mows the lawn and often while he's driving, he dials half his contacts and sometimes 911. I'd say my dad is intermediate with tech. He's not great at troubleshooting, but he's been desktop computing for work since probably the late 80s. But he just can't find the right combination of settings and doesn't want to lock the whole thing down.

Well, he's mowing the lawn this morning and has dialed my mom and I multiple times. She's freaking out of course, convinced he's bleeding out in the rose bushes or something since he's not answering her calls back. (She's not mobile enough to go out to check on him.) I tried to convince her he just has irregularly located nipples and swipes to dismiss her call every time he drives the tractor over a hump. I felt the need to reinforce this explanation with a claim that one of their church friends from my childhood also had high nipples. I said we prayed over him once at a men's breakfast. They wouldn't let me lay on hands with the others though, as they were concerned about the optics of a 10-year-old boy touching a grown man's bare chest in the middle of a Perkins. Perhaps you can get away with that shit in an airport Denny's, but this was rural Ontario in the early 90s. Thank goodness they didn't anoint him with oil.


I think my cannabis experiment might be becoming a problem. I'm frequently forgetting things. Just now I rushed into the kitchen and checked the microwave. But it was OK--the cat's still there.

[hepcat]

Welp, that's it then. I would like to subscribe to your newsletter if this is the content you're providing the world.

[dbt1949]

ditto

[Daehawk]

I think Im going to put a paid up hold on my life insurance at this point. Im paying in money Ill never get myself and hoping who does get it does what I want. Right now if I choose that option and not have to make any more payments at all it will pay $2500. Im going to be cremated so so total is like $600 and a plot is $300 and a headstone would run $1000. So thats enough.

I may even completely cash value it out in the near future IF i can acquire the plot and headstone myself over the next few years. If I cashed out now Id get back $700. But I wont do that until I can get stuff myself.

Decisions decisions. The paid hold seems fully doable though. Theres enough in there as is and I could save that $25 a month to have and use for things I need badly now. Im just sitting here without stuff every month like this month. Im sitting here with no money for 2 more weeks.

[Jaymon]

Our local Pizza place has something they call the "Knight"
It was put together one day by a high schooler on shift, and the rest of the staff liked it so much, it became a regular menu item.


Knight
With a sweet Hawaiian sauce base, this pizza is topped with pepperoni, Italian sausage, bacon, black olives, jalapeno, and pineapple

[Daehawk]

Had me until pineapple.

[Blackhawk]

I'm fine with the pineapple, but you lost me on the sausage and bacon.

[Madmarcus]

I'm going to sound uncaring but why do you want to buy a plot and headstone? Do you have relatives who would visit it? I'd drop the insurance ASAP and get any money out of it you can. If you have close relatives then perhaps you could put aside a just enough money to pay for cremation if it would make you feel better to not be even a slight burden on them when you die. However I'd really suggest that you not really worry about that.

We have recently had this discussion with both my MIL and my parents. All three will be cremated and scattered on private property. Perhaps we aren't a very emotional family but neither side has any sort of historical homestead to be buried at or family that is clustered enough to make a grave meaningful.

[hepcat]

My father purchased plots and headstones for all of us years ago. I always found it a bit odd. But it seems to give him comfort, so I don't say anything about it.

...I just hope he never finds out I want to be cremated and then have my ashes shot out of a canon during a Cleveland Indians game. Preferably while the canon is pointed at the opposing team's dugout.

[Jaymann]

I have specified to my children that I want my ashes solemnly poured into the ocean, from a Ralph's coffee can.

[Isgrimnur]

My father purchased plots and headstones for all of us years ago. I always found it a bit odd. But it seems to give him comfort, so I don't say anything about it.

...I just hope he never finds out I want to be cremated and then have my ashes shot out of a canon during a Cleveland Indians game. Preferably while the canon is pointed at the opposing team's dugout.

Would you settle for AA affiliates?

[hepcat]

Are the Bad News Bears an AA team?