Octopus Overlords

hepcat wrote:Any chance Keith Urban will reprise his role for this?

Im not even a fan of his singing.

Given that it's a tv series, I consider it unlikely.

I dont know. Karl got his start on tv. I remember him in Xena and Hercules.

He's a pretty hot commodity today.

Wow. I haven't thought of the Hollywood Stock Exchange in a long, long time. Your last post was like a Liv Moore visionary flashback moment.

I still play HSX daily. In fact, I just got access to my second account restored today after they upgraded their site to https and broke logins. The account is so old that it was under an obsolete email address and I couldn't reset my password.

Sweetarts softbites. OMG. These things are great! My wife picked them up . Bless her...I would have passed them up. I figured they were the same old same old of super sour coating that wore off instantly and left you with a sweet jelly. NOPE. These are reversed. The coating is actually just sugar and the jelly itself is sour. Yum. Not super sour but just right. I could go for a more sour one too but these are great anyways. Glad they made them like this. Tasty.

One of my wife's favorites. When she got it, I had to "share" by buying my own bag.

Daehawk wrote:

hepcat wrote:Any chance Keith Urban will reprise his role for this?

Im not even a fan of his singing.

Oh crap, Karl. I meant Karl.

As for tv, it wasn't that long ago he was starring in Almost Human on Fox. So it's not like he's above tv.

But I agree, it's a pipe dream on my part. I suspect the budget for this will be too low for the man.

Oh, Energy Saver Mode. I set you at 72 and you keep the house cooled to 80.

hepcat wrote:

Daehawk wrote:

hepcat wrote:Any chance Keith Urban will reprise his role for this?

Im not even a fan of his singing.

Oh crap, Karl. I meant Karl.

As for tv, it wasn't that long ago he was starring in Almost Human on Fox. So it's not like he's above tv.

But I agree, it's a pipe dream on my part. I suspect the budget for this will be too low for the man.

He is one of my favorite actors. Not seen him do a bad role yet.

Also a heads up....you said Keith in the dedicated thread too

Someone has a Keith Urban fetish.

Don't we all.

Daehawk wrote:

hepcat wrote:

Daehawk wrote:

hepcat wrote:Any chance Keith Urban will reprise his role for this?

Im not even a fan of his singing.

Oh crap, Karl. I meant Karl.

As for tv, it wasn't that long ago he was starring in Almost Human on Fox. So it's not like he's above tv.

But I agree, it's a pipe dream on my part. I suspect the budget for this will be too low for the man.

He is one of my favorite actors. Not seen him do a bad role yet.

Also a heads up....you said Keith in the dedicated thread too

psst: Check the time of the post. I was poking fun of myself for this mistake.

Oh..sorry lol.

Wish me luck, everyone! I'm off to a meeting to try and not get talked into becoming Scoutmaster of my son's Boy Scout troop!

GL. Saw today where Mormons will be pulling out all Scouts above age 14 or 15 I think it was. They are creating their own club.

hentzau wrote:Wish me luck, everyone! I'm off to a meeting to try and not get talked into becoming Scoutmaster of my son's Boy Scout troop!

All a matter of wearing the right dress.

Daehawk wrote:GL. Saw today where Mormons will be pulling out all Scouts above age 14 or 15 I think it was. They are creating their own club.

Each scout can have more than one scout master!


....I know, I'm sorry for that one.

Notice from Microsoft.
We're getting ready to fuck up your computer with a new update. We would also like to gather every bit of information off of it and use it for our own nefarious purpose and maybe sell it for a profit.

hepcat wrote:

Daehawk wrote:GL. Saw today where Mormons will be pulling out all Scouts above age 14 or 15 I think it was. They are creating their own club.

Each scout can have more than one scout master!


....I know, I'm sorry for that one.

Every Mormon run troop in Philly was an uncontrolled mess, from what I saw. The Scouts are pretty much "damned if you do, damned if you don't". If you try to be inclusive, the church-based sponsoring organizations walk, if you try to be conservative, the secular base dries up. Eventually, it's going to be an organization with no members or money, but a lot of land with no-development clauses.

hentzau wrote:Wish me luck, everyone! I'm off to a meeting to try and not get talked into becoming Scoutmaster of my son's Boy Scout troop!

Hope it went well.

Out 8 year old is wishing he could be a Cub Scout or Boy Scout. I handed off my old manual from when I was his age for him to thumb through and he loves it. Problem is there's absolutely no Scout troop anywhere near us, and the closest ones have strong ties to church organizations that we don't really want anywhere near our kids.

We'll probably just fake it - follow the book, do the activities, and leave the rest out.

When I was in Scouts, things were run out of a church, but there was no indoctrination or anything. From my youthful perspective, it was just a place to meet, and Scouts were pretty secular beyond the shout outs to God in the manuals (which were pretty tame for this Catholic boy). Can you reach out to other parents of the kids in your organization to get a feel for how "churchy" things really are? It'd be fun for you to do the activities together, but your son would be missing out on the social element of things.

My experiences match LawBoy's. My sons have been in two different Scout groups sponsored by two different churches (neither church is one we attend). Absolutely no religious pressure or connection outside of the generic "duty to god" statements. Of course while I'm an agnostic I am a very moderate one; I have no problem being a member of a church myself. I understand that this tolerance is not universal.

When I was growing up the Cub Scouts were run out of a scout hut owned by the city and on a city park. I suppose they received sponsorship from Rotary or something like that.

ImLawBoy wrote:When I was in Scouts, things were run out of a church, but there was no indoctrination or anything. From my youthful perspective, it was just a place to meet, and Scouts were pretty secular beyond the shout outs to God in the manuals (which were pretty tame for this Catholic boy). Can you reach out to other parents of the kids in your organization to get a feel for how "churchy" things really are? It'd be fun for you to do the activities together, but your son would be missing out on the social element of things.

Our troop was run out of a Methodist church. We had no issues at all, outside of the adults having to get additional background checks mandated by the Methodists. I did hear from the Scoutmaster of a local Catholic troop that the parish priests did not like Scouting, so he had to be careful to fly under the radar. The possibility of a gay leader anywhere in the country is an problem for the Mormons, Southern Baptists and Catholics, typically above the troop level. United States, of course. I enjoyed doing Scouts, I just could not get to camping much, do to the impossibility of getting Saturdays off.

Paingod wrote:Out 8 year old is wishing he could be a Cub Scout or Boy Scout. I handed off my old manual from when I was his age for him to thumb through and he loves it. Problem is there's absolutely no Scout troop anywhere near us, and the closest ones have strong ties to church organizations that we don't really want anywhere near our kids.

We'll probably just fake it - follow the book, do the activities, and leave the rest out.

You could check this out. It's for non-traditional Scouting. It's not an official BSA page, but it aggregates BSA information in an easier to read format.
http://www.lonescouting.org/

I'll look into that. Thank you.

There's a lot of stuff that came to light recently about the scouts that I don't support, and some of it is still being pushed behind closed doors, even if openly denied. I just can't get behind that. I can't imagine dedicating your life to a certain ideal provided by an organization, and then having to cope with the fact that the organization doesn't live up to the ideal.

Oct 2016 Article wrote:As Eagle Scout and former assistant Scoutmaster Nathan Greenberg has recently written, the history and current practice of the Boy Scouts "leaves me in the unfortunate position of telling my son that ... he cannot enjoy the camaraderie, outdoor adventure, or life skills I enjoyed as a Boy Scout. I cannot hypocritically look my son in the eye and tell him I believe discrimination is wrong yet pay for him to participate in an organization that discriminates.”

It's a no-win situation. I've had kids in my troop that were (ime) gay, but that is really none of my business. As far as I know, most of the leaders in 251 were straight, but that again is none of my business. Honestly, nobody wants to have anything to do with sexual orientation at the troop level. we had enough issues getting the trips off and running, frankly.
This was all being fought out so far above my pay grade that I was powerless to influence anything.
As far as religion goes, You can believe whatever you want, and that does not sit well with the organizations I mentioned.

FWIW, there is no religious doctrine in Scouting. There is "God and Me", but that is done with the youth and his religious leader, not anybody in the troop/pack.

Scouts, Weebles(weebalos? whatever), and Indian Guides all did their thing after hours or on weekends at the local elementary school. Brownies did their thing at the 4H which was on county fair property. This was the 70s. I have no idea what it's like now.

Default wrote:FWIW, there is no religious doctrine in Scouting. There is "God and Me", but that is done with the youth and his religious leader, not anybody in the troop/pack.

This Article kind of contradicts you, basically stating "Hey, you wanna be a Scout? You gotta accept a God" - calling is a massive failing of Scouting if someone doesn't accept a faith of some sort, since it's a cornerstone of the Scouting agenda. It horrifies them to discover someone lied about believing in God in order to pass from one level to the next, because you're not supposed to be able to.

These transitions aren't done in the privacy of your home, by my understanding, but in formal and organized manners with larger groups. It's not something that can be bypassed or overlooked.

Why is there no mainstream alternative to Scouts?

Daehawk wrote:Why is there no mainstream alternative to Scouts?

Atheists don't get together in large groups to discuss our communal objectives as a matter of practice. We're all out enjoying the beach on Sundays.

Joking aside, I think it's probably something that's flared up now and then, but is impossible to gain traction without some kind of large-scale sponsorship behind it - which is where religious organizations work with Scouts. I don't see Pizza Hut offering a new "Scout Clone" group free usage of their facilities every third Saturday.

I think the BSA is behind the times and should simply drop all religious pretext. Their membership seems to be in decline, and more and more you see people willing to boycott things that promote intolerance or push a specific agenda. If they just reworded everything to be open and fair and admit that you can be a good, upstanding citizen without faith then they might discover a surge in interest and membership.

This is all getting a little R&P, though. I'm sorry if this has offended anyone.

I support the BSA due to my good experiences locally even as I shake my head at their national organization. I often wish there had been a similar organization without some of the baggage but all I ever found was even more conservation groups who had been founded when the BSA seemed to progressive.

Madmarcus wrote: I often wish there had been a similar organization without some of the baggage but all I ever found was even more conservation groups who had been founded when the BSA seemed to progressive.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/YMCA#Pare ... programmes

Though it wasn't as para-military as BSA.

LordMortis wrote:

Madmarcus wrote: I often wish there had been a similar organization without some of the baggage but all I ever found was even more conservation groups who had been founded when the BSA seemed to progressive.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/YMCA#Pare ... programmes

Though it wasn't as para-military as BSA.

See, our kid has learned that achievements are good thing from games. He tries to collect them in Steam. When he saw that BSA sash with achievement badges on it, his eyes lit up. I don't think the 'Y' does that.

You know what that C stands for, right?

Paingod wrote:

LordMortis wrote:

Madmarcus wrote: I often wish there had been a similar organization without some of the baggage but all I ever found was even more conservation groups who had been founded when the BSA seemed to progressive.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/YMCA#Pare ... programmes

Though it wasn't as para-military as BSA.

See, our kid has learned that achievements are good thing from games. He tries to collect them in Steam. When he saw that BSA sash with achievement badges on it, his eyes lit up. I don't think the 'Y' does that.

I haven't seen them in nearly 40 years but patches were around then, though it is sounds like they are a localized thing and and not some sort of nationally recognized achievement.

n some programmes, children earn patches for achieving various goals, such as completing a designated nature hike or participating in Y-sponsored events

Isgrimnur wrote:You know what that C stands for, right?

It never entered the equation (locally) even if expressed in a part of the name (they never went by). I find nothing wrong with Christians and support efforts to build community and community inclusion. I applaud it.

I also have a vague memory of group of Ranger something or something Rangers as a group but it's to vague and conflates itself with the Ranger Rick magazine.