#everyone always talks about how The Simpsons predicts things

[bratz-kitten]

uranus through the houses 

uranus in the 1st house: eccentricity and uniqueness practically run in your blood. impeccable style, you express yourself through your clothing and self-presentation and if your parents have mocked your style in the past, it deeply affected you. you don't care for rules, you're a natural rebel. thinking very ahead of your time; you remind me of the simpsons because you're the type to predict something and then it happens and everyone goes like WHAT?! attraction to astrology + psychology. you get bored extremely fast - of jobs, of people, of situations - and you need constant change. the best friends in the world, you're so caring. you rely on your instincts and impulses, which can have you being very inconsistent. very humanitarian and independent, but you should work on your lack of dedication due to the way you lose your interest in things so fast. 

uranus in the 2nd house: constant disruption in your sense of worth and self-confidence, sense of security and material possession that floats from one extreme to the other. there’s a tendency for carelessness about your material possessions and surroundings, unlike many other planets in the 2nd house; you express your freedom through not wanting to feel tied down to any material object. you’re likely to choose an eccentric job and to make money in the most creative of ways, and also by showing your special talents in unconventional ways that make you gain notoriety. you tend to experience many unusual things while at work, so your work life is always interesting. you’re constantly outgrowing your past methods, ways of thinking, all that’s no longer useful nor serves you. you truly live the way you want. there’s a tendency for you to feel disconnected with other’s physicality - for example, during sex, where you might be interested in voyerism because it allows you to participate in sex while still being detached. this is not to say that you’re not caring and generous towards other people, because you absolutely are - but there might have been traumatic experiences in the past that prompted that. also, even if you tend to get fired a lot, there’s a lot of change for success because you’re so hard working. 

uranus in the 3rd house: you have a very intelligent mind that works in unique, different ways that might seem strange to others, and they have a hard time comprehending or appreciating the way you think or conversate. that doesn’t take away from your top-tier sense of humour, though. a free-thinker who learns to learn new things, you’re a natural rebel with your words. very witty. you need constant stimulation due to your hatred of feeling bored. you want to constantly evolve your mind with learning new subjects and satiating your curiosity. you express yourself through writing, poetry and storytelling - this placement is great if you’re an aspiring writer. incredibly creative. you also always have a story to tell because the craziest shit keeps happening to you out of nowhere. very curious of what others have to say, even if you could talk about your interests for hours on end. you have a tendency to interrupt others, though. so excitable, whenever you talk about your interests there’s a dreamy glint in your eyes and it’s absolutely contageous. 

uranus in the 4th house: very chaotic childhood + family dynamic! your parents might’ve done ridiculous shit as a way of punishing you like taking all your eletronics or imposing absurd rules. you show you care in very unconventional ways, so you might not be seen as a dependable person. very emotional, you care for those closest to you with all your heart. there’s a tendency to be inconsistent. one of the parents might’ve been absent or you might’ve moved houses a lot when you were younger, and travelled a lot too. you might be considered different from the rest of the family; in the worst case scenario, you’re the black sheep who they place all blame on for the family problems. very quick at making decisions. you constantly feel like you have no control over your life due to the unexpected things that keep happening. if your family conditions your sense of self + tries to restrict the freedom you crave, that’ll only result in you estranging yourself from them. constant need to run away. you feel weird when having to show someone you care through direct, traditional ways due to a lack of emotional support from the family. 

uranus in the 5th house: so so so creative and artistic! you love expressing your uniqueness through creating art + showing your tastes, interests, etc. huge need to live your most authentic life and staying true to yourself, because if you don’t, your self-worth suffers greatly. even those closest to you find you unpredictable. you love change, and when you’re not being forced to submit to a routine, that’s when your creativity can flow in the best way possible. there’s a tendency to constantly enter and leave relationships. you feel attracted to the most unusual types of people, those who are unapologetically themselves, because that’s who you crave to be. there’s a need for a lot of freedom when it comes to romance. very charming and enthusiastic, so many people develop crushes on you - good for you because you love being the center of attention. extreme risktaker, you’re drawn to activities that put your life in danger so you can scratch your need for adrenaline. spontaneous and playful. you love to get involved in controversial relationships, and in extreme, shocking situations just to get a rise out of others. 

uranus in the 6th house: you absolutely hate routine, it limits you and your creativity; you need to do all sorts of unusual and stimulating things in your daily life. very rebellious when in positions of submission. you need an environment where you can express yourself, so the typical nine to five job might not be for you. working in teams, if you’re not accepted for your uniqueness, can be a challenge too. you prefer to do things on your own. issues dealing with routine, job and even wealth, since you don’t want to feel confined. very unconventional methods of caring for others, of working, etc, that might confuse the hell out of others. both seen as someone with crazy ideas and a genius. others might have a hard time dealing with your unconventionality. perfectionists at heart, focuses a whole lot on the smallest details. it’s very easy to tell when you’re going through something or feeling chaotic because it shows in how you deal with your surroundings. however, when you’re feeling better, it’ll show in how you act more carefree, enthusiastic in your daily life. 

uranus in the 7th house: you’re very attracted to eccentric people and you need constant change in your relationships so you won’t feel “stuck”. you don’t let yourself be limited by traditionalist views when it comes to relationships, so the idea of a long-distance relationship or open relationship intrigues you; because the truth is that you’re terrified of having your freedom taken away, so you don’t want to feel tied down. you’re very intuitive, artistic, a lowkey genius, so eccentric people feel as attracted to you as you do them. you hate taking orders. overly needy people make you want to run away on sight. good luck to whoever manages to make you settle, it’ll be one hell of a hard thing to do. you’re not just looking for someone to love, you also need that person to be your best friend through and through. others might view you as very irritating at first, until they actually get to know you and find out just how kind and loving you truly are. a tendency to feel rejected and to seek validation in others to lift your self-confidence.

uranus in the 8th house: there’s a tendency to fluctuate between the two extremes: one second you’re feeling like a god amongst mere mortals, the next you’re hitting rock bottom with a shovel and ready to start digging. you’ll go through many unpredictable and intense transformations throughout your life, constantly looking to scratch the itch of boredom eating away at you by changing and evolving yourself. you should be careful with changing just out of boredom and for the sake of it, because it can do more harm than good - you might destroy some good things that you were building/nurturing. you’re absolutely fascinating and witty. a deep interest in life after death. a craving to experiment a lot in the bedroom, sex is a way to rebel. one word: voyerism LMFAO, seriously, others might get scared with your sexual tastes. although, you can be very detached during sex sometimes due to your fear of establishing an emotional connection. your wealth fluctuates very inconsistently. tendency to have dark thoughts. more than just on a physical sense, you want to experience a love that is transcendental.

uranus in the 9th house: your unconventional beliefs make you incredibly open-minded! you’re attracted to people who also have non-traditional views on the world and who aren’t afraid to think differently from the rest. you fluctuate between being an extremely eager, almost obsessive learner and wanting to have literal zero thoughts going on (it’s so amusing). your ideas are revolutionary and you need to feel free. this house deals with travelling, so when the planet of unconventionality is placed here, you can expect to experience all kinds of unexpected and weird things happening in your travels - if the planet is afflicted, you’ll be absolutely terrified of travelling, if not, it’ll be one of your biggest interests. you’re an avid book reader and philosophy interests you greatly. this placement indicates trouble with higher studies, because although you’re a sucker for learning, you hate doing it in a structured environment + the narrow-minded views of those who’re teaching/learning around you might make you feel trapped.

uranus in the 10th house: when the planet of eccentricity and rebellion is in the tenth house, it indicates very tense situations with authority figures - you need to do things your own way and you're capable of going through great lengths to not lose your independence in any way. freedom is the most important thing in the world to you. constant internal change. you don't care about reaching the top of the mountain, because the most important thing to you is to work somewhere where you can express your creativity. there's a potential for you to have many talents, even if it takes you time to discover them all. opportunity to become famous for your unconventionality. hates tradition. may have been raised in a strange/different way as a child. you might've been humiliated in your childhood and there's also a possibility to have traumatic memories concerning your parents esp the father. also very chaotic!!! 

uranus in the 11th house: many "friends" but a tendency to keep most at a distance out of fear of vulnerability, but still, you get very strongly attached to the closest to you. very fun to be around, crackhead energy - you make a joke out of everything. a craving for freedom and independence, you immediately throw those who try to clip your wings out of your life. attracted to people who radiate eccentricity and uniqueness; those who are afraid to be different simply bore you. might have felt rejected as a child by an authority figure. friends might get be prone to car accidents or very peculiar incidents. a love for the deeper subjects like metaphysics. very chaotic and can be very detached at times, but your honesty is the reason why you're so well-liked. you feel society's issues deep in your heart and there's an aching inside of you to communicate the problems your generation is facing and to be a pioneer in extreme change. 

uranus in the 12th house: the change that this planet gives an individual comes from within when placed in the 12th house. the intense experiences you go through force you to constantly change your ways and perspectives. you crave being of help to others and you don't even search for the recognition that comes with it, you genuinely just want to make others' lives better. big dreams and ambition. spiritual knowledge, psychic abilities - a tendency for this insight to be revealed during dreams - your dreams are very important to you and you might experience vivid dreaming or nightmares. you might have sudden breakthroughs or ideas, it's like things hit you full-force at any given moment, giving you a great surge of inspiration. there's a tendency to struggle with very simple tasks. can struggle with being shy and lacking confidence, suppressing your need to express the real, genuine you. need solitude to transform and grow as a person. 

#uranus through the houses #uranus in the houses #uranus in the 1st house #uranus in the 2nd house #uranus in the 3rd house #uranus in the 4th house #uranus in the 5th house #uranus in the 6th house #uranus in the 7th house #uranus in the 8th house #uranus in the 9th house #uranus in the 10th house #uranus in the 11th house #uranus in the 12th house #astrology #capricorn #aries #leo #sagittarius #virgo #scorpio #libra #taurus #gemini #aquarius #cancer #pisces

[gumpygumpygumpy]

“I’m reinventing electric cars and sending people to Mars; Did you think I was also going to be a chill and normal dude?”

So Elon Musk hosted SNL last night and it was predictably horrible. SNL has been declining in quality for years, if it was ever any good, and the latest season has clearly been the worst yet. It’s like they have no idea that it’s supposed to be a comedy sketch show, there are youtube videos being made by 12yr olds that far exceed the show in jokes and commentary, but what both SNL and the generation of minecraft youtubers have in common is clearly a devotion to Elon Musk and his money, regardless of all the shit he’s done. At the end of his monologue, his mother comes out for some even more stilted line readings in a thinly veiled attempt to humanise both her and her son. This is a woman who, along with her husband, made their money trading in blood emeralds during the apartheid in South Africa, a profession that could only sound more like a supervillian’s if they did it all while wearing capes and waxed their skulls. But this is nothing new for SNL, the corporate giant trying desperately to be relevant, they’ve previously had Hillary Clinton and Trump as their hosts, along with, as Musk pointed out in his monologue (seemingly in an attempt to make him seem a better host/person in retrospect), OJ Simpson. For a ‘comedy’ show that so incessantly parodies politics and the news, you’d think they would be a bit clearer on who they maybe should’nt invite onstage to squint at cue cards and awkwardly wave their hands around whenever they think they’ve made a joke. This is capitalist realism 101, the people destroying the planet, inciting violence, and hoarding billions are the new celebrities, aspirationally goofy-geeks who just happened upon all this money through some hard work and a lot of thinking. NO! They got to where they are through exploitation and the deaths of workers around the planet, either during their work, as a result of their work, or as a result of the system that these people are so so sure works for everyone and must be upheld, or else. It’s the same as all the discourse surrounding Bill and Melinda Gates’ divorce announcement this week. Why are people even talking about this? Why do we care that this couple who ahve been hoarding wealth and rolling around in a bath of do-goodery from philanthropy have decided that even they can’t make each other happy anymore? Bill Gates has so much money he’s drinking poo water, that man has nothing going on behind his eyes other and dollar bills and ominous cloud of smoke. Elon’s appearance in a ‘Gen-z hospital’ sketch was completely tragic. Not because I felt bad for this man trying to be down with the kids infront of millions of people and failing, but because it was a clear example of just how fucked we are. Granted, todays youth subcultures seem to be more wealth obsessed than any previous. but to have a billionaire and  a supposedly left-wing cast mock a culture they couldnt break into if they tried is essentially just spitting in tyheir face. It’s always the case that when some comedy show tries to parody a new young ‘thing’ that they don’t understand, they’ll just repeat words they’ve overheard on the street or hashtags they’ve noticed, rather than any actual engagement with what they’re supposedly emulating. SNL is the corporate embodiment of the problem with liberal politics: they alienate their intended base by not listening and mocking them, then public;y worship the same people they’re supposed to be against. It’s Hamilton, it’s Brooklyn Nine-Nine, it’s Parks and Rec, The Office, the new Falcon and the Winter Soldier, The Simpsons etc etc etc etc etc. 

#snl

[mashounen2003]

Here is the text of the video, translated into English. Seriously, check out this video, this guy is awesome.

"Conspiracy Theories" by Guille Aquino.

Posted on June 27, 2019.

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Warning: if you're influenceable, you need to watch this.

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Alright, before we start, I want us to welcome and applaud our new friends from the CIA, the FBI, NASA, the former SIDE -today, the AFI-, the KGB, Interpol, and the lazy virgins at the troll centre on Miserere Park, who are surely already watching this video because today we're gonna talk about...

Conspiracy Theories.

We all know some: the humans didn't go to the Moon, the 9/11 was a self-attack by the USA's government, Bin Laden never existed, Walt Disney is frozen, Elvis Presley is alive, the Simpsons predict the future, Marcelo Tinelli went to a famous hospital with a famous object inserted in a famous place on his body, and Dengue and Zika fever were created by Bill Gates who genetically modified mosquitoes to depopulate the Earth because it most likely was easier than making work that "Internet Explorer" bulls*** he sold us. But let's get to the news: in early 2019, YouTube modified its recommendation algorithm to avoid promoting conspiracy theories and false information. And let's stop here because I want us to become aware of the magnitude this matter took on and how this little joke of the conspiracy theories videos completely went to Hell.

Think of it this way: YouTube, the second most trafficked website in the world after Google, with over 30 million visitors per day and over 1.3 billion users -almost a third of all people connected to the Internet in the world-, where 300 hours of videos are uploaded per minute and almost 500 trillion videos are viewed per day, had to change its own recommendation system because all of us were watching too many videos denouncing that Lali Espósito is an Illuminati:

Video excerpt: [with obvious robotic voice] "Also, at the second Number Ten, she covers one of her eyes again, obviously symbolizing the All-Seeing Eye."

And I'm very sorry to tell you that, in today's world, if YouTube has a problem, we all have a problem.

Conspiracy theories are the Internet's new porn. In fact, if you filter the words "conspiracy" and "theories" by the number of views, the most viewed video has 36 million views. THIRTY-SIX! MILLION! VIEWS! That's like putting together the total populations of Belgium, Greece, Cuba and Jamaica, and then lighting a giant reefer to everyone and making them watch this video of people saying the Earth is flat:

Another video excerpt: [Channel 13 interview with Flat-Earthers, recorded in a park in Buenos Aires] "I pour water into this dish... Look, I pour water, and it stays, you see? But we pour water into the globe... and it goes down, people."

Okay, now we're gonna go over some of the most popular conspiracy theories of recent times, and we're gonna try to deconstruct the psychological profile of the average consumer of the conspiranoid world.

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We'll start with everyone's favourite...

The Flat-Earthers.

Excerpt of the second video: "This first meeting began to be announced in the groups I followed on YouTube. (And the tattoo you have there, what is it?) This is the flat Earth, the Sun and the Moon."

The Flat-Earthers basically hold the theory that the Earth is not actually spherical, and they claim Galileo Galilei was an old smoke-seller blabbermouth who often played into the Far-Right's hands, cut his hair in an old-fashioned barbershop and used the 1610 telescope mainly to bed with chicks. And I have nothing personal against the Flat-Earthers but I find it difficult to take them seriously, mostly because much of their scientific hypothesis can be explained with this blooper.

Excerpt of another, different video: "There's an inflatable pool filled with water and with two people in it, a third person suddenly jumps into the water, and the pool deforms and overflows on the other side, as one of the two previously present people also falls over the edge."

(Images from the film "Armageddon".)

The truth is that the "flat Earth" theory has one fundamental premise, and it's the same one that supports 100% of conspiracy theories:

There's a power above us that manages everything.

Governments, lobbies and other de facto powers are capable of lying on a massive scale, just as intelligence services, the New World Order and FlyBondi hostesses do.

Excerpt of the second video: "(And you can't see the curvature of the Earth from the plane.) Uh... I travelled by plane to Bariloche, and no, I didn't see it. There's some aircraft glass with a small magnification or something that changes your perspective, due to the thickness of the window, and because aircraft glass also has something."

Alright, stop, let's not turn this into "Point at the crazy assholes and laugh" either, right? Well, yes, a little- But we go beyond that! We're better than that!

Why do so many people choose to believe we're puppets of an evil system? One might say that, in the absence of a sense of real control over our own lives and in the face of the desolation of living in a seemingly random, chaotic world, believing there's an external force exerting control is, to some extent, comforting. Yes, phone the Vatican.

And according to a certain old white upper-middle-class snob who teaches at Harvard University, conspiracy theorists share several or at least one of the following features: they're paranoid, radical, extremist in their opinions; they aspire to a feeling of superiority, and basically, they feel special for possessing information that exceeds the common citizen. Yeah, it's like the row for an indie film festival.

Umberto Eco even said:

"The control syndrome invades us. When someone claims to have a secret, their strength is not in hiding something but in making people think there's even a secret in the first place."

And I didn't understand a f*** because I've never read a book in my life, but it sounds ultra-mega-hyper cool. I dare you to deny it!

So who would be the most likely to believe in these kinds of theories? People who had bad experiences in life, people in search of an answer that would rescue them from a deep existential crisis, and the most important: people in search of a place of belonging.

Excerpt of the second video: "Well, no, this opened a door for me to start thinking more, to question things, about a supposed alien invasion."

Wait, stop right there. Excuse me, but if I'm an alien and I have the power to cross the universe in a spaceship, with my own army and the ability to colonize a celestial body, I don't even waste my time invading a paper-thin planet. Give me a round planet or give me death!

And that's when the contradiction comes into play. Because if you believe in one conspiracy theory, you immediately start to believe in all of them. It's like the weed. Even the refutation of a plot fits within the plot itself: for example, if you believe Lady Diana was killed by the British Crown, you're also prone to believe Lady Diana is actually still alive.

(Woah, Mind Blown... She was totally killed anyway, sorry.)

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Good, let's move on to the next one:

The Anti-Vaccination movement.

Okay, here we come to a key point, since clearly there are the "harmless" conspiracy theories and the... rather dangerous ones. We've all heard someone say vaccines may cause autism in kids. Now, I'm clearly a specialist in absolutely nothing, and I ain't gonna explain why you guys have to vaccinate your children, so I better recommend to you the websites of any Ministry of Health or Wikipedia, so that you later visit them and find out how very important it is to inject legal drugs to your sweet little angels. And it's not to detract from any position or to err on the side of bigotry, but if you're an anti-vax and your baby coughs next to me, I swear I'll kick their head off.

(Tack! That bag of germs...)

And after all, that's why we invented Democracy!

(Ha, of course not, but...)

In fact, I dunno who gives a f*** about this but maybe someone will find it useful: I follow a pretty simple method when it comes to ideologically locating myself regarding any issue. And this is:

Always do the opposite of whatever Gisela Barreto says.

Gisela Barreto: [speaks with a flag in the background] "Vaccines show up, and they show them to us as something that heals us. Actually, they're part of our death."

(Seriously, she came this close to being in the Avengers.)

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Okay, and now let's move on to one that touches us all closely (at least here, in my country):

Hitler in Argentina.

It's the conspiracy theory ensuring that, after losing World War II, the Nazi leader, the most disgusting dictator and genocide in Human History, came to live incognito in our country. And I ask myself: what the heck did we need to shelter Hitler for? The birth of Alejandro Biondini, who's pretty much our local version of Nazism, was imminent:

Interview with Biondini in 1991 by Mariano Grondona in his program "Key Time":

Grondona: "Would you condemn Adolf Hitler?"

Biondini: "No, we vindicate Adolf Hitler."

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Okay, question: is it possible to keep a secret on such a large scale for so many years? Well, the Math says no. Seriously! I've read that a physicist at the Oxford University (Where else?) took the "humans didn't go to the Moon" theory, and then this guy created a mathematical calculation based on the number of conspirators involved, the time elapsed since the conspiracy, and the inherent possibility that a plot would fail.

For example, in the case of Apollo 11, 411 thousand NASA employees were involved, and according to the variables this physicist analyzed, the lie should have been known in less than four years; half a century passed, and no employee denied the mission. What does this tell us? Well... they were threatened and killed off, of course! It's obvious! [imitating Mirtha Legrand] Stanley Kubrick was not in the coffin! Nobody saw him. Nobody saw him!

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Gimme more!

Famous people who are actually dead.

For example, Paul McCartney. On the cover of the album "Abbey Road", he's barefoot; a clear subliminal message that the real one died and was replaced with a stand-in. (Why?!) It sounds silly, but the rumour got so big that McCartney himself had to go out and publicly deny it... Although come to think of it, he also came out to congratulate the butchers who named their butcher shop "Paul Mac Carne" ["Paul McMeat"], so maybe he's truly a stand-in and, to top it off, looks like a raisin.

Excerpt of another video: "Well, thinking of different names, someone said "Paul Mac Carne". And well, he, being a vegetarian, says the idea was very good, started laughing and sent us a greeting."

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I love this one:

The Reptilians.

It's basically the theory that there's a race of amphibian aliens [Wait for a second: aren't they called "reptilians"?] living among us for centuries and hiding their reptilian features behind human faces.

(Oh, you were telling me they're not actually aliens because they were born here?)

Excerpt of the 1996 movie "Mars Attacks!".

And who discovered this? David Icke! Or "Ique". An unsuccessful former soccer player and sportscaster. (How can you be unsuccessful as a soccer sportscaster?! All you need is a suit!) It's like believing in a religion where your Pope is Diego Latorre.

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Now, I know what you're thinking: after all, how dangerous can all this get? I mean, no conspiracy theory has someone popular to represent it, no spokesperson of ridiculous and implausible plots has reached a truly important position in today's world.

Bah... There's actually only one.

The President of the United States of America.

That's right! Donald Trump, once the leader of the most powerful country in the world, had come to power mostly by throwing out fake news and conspiracy theories. And here are some:

Barack Obama is an immigrant.

Trump: "And I just say: why doesn't he show his birth certificate?"

Global warming is a myth.

Trump: "Obama is saying all of this has to do with global warming and I say all that is a hoax..."

Gisela Barreto was right.

Trump: "At two and a half years old, the baby, the beautiful baby, went to get the vaccine. Now he's autistic."

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Okay, then... Conspiracy theories. For what? Well, in the case of Trump: influence on public opinion and accumulation of power. In the case of people who upload videos to YouTube... What do you think? A profitable, monetizable business! In fact, there's the conspiracy theory that we're actually making this video about conspiracy theories in order to have lots of views and earn buttloads of cash. (We'd never do that!)

And finally, a much deeper, inherent aspect of the human condition:

The need to believe in something.

The world is divided into two types of people: some think everything happens for a reason, everything is a sign, and perhaps there's also a magical entity organizing things for us; the other half of the people think we live in a desolate world without meaning or messages, there are only atoms randomly colliding with each other, and the Universe gives no f***s about us. Which of these two groups seems happier to you? Which one do you belong to? Which one would you like to belong to? I choose to join the conspiranoids! And listen to this, I know exactly what's going on:

The New World Order organized the Lollapalooza at the request of the Illuminati, who wanted to marketingly manage Lali Espósito, who actually wears a mask and underneath is "La Mona" Giménez, who's not actually a monkey but a reptile and has drank all the wine to get immunized against the vaccines at the request of Gisela Barreto, who was born in Corrientes just like Barack Obama, who claimed to have killed Bin Laden, who's actually alive and was driving the car that crashed that night and carried Chano Charpentier, who taught driving to Lady Diana, who was actually Mexican and was assassinated by Donald Trump, who was matched on Tinder with Hitler, who lives in a nursing home in Recoleta and has glaucoma, so he's hitting the reefers with Biondini, who is actually a hippie and a fan of León Gieco, invented global warming and, when being in a bad mood, takes a bus and goes to dinner at "Paul Mac Carne", where they invented the extra-thin Provoleta cheese, which coincidentally has the same shape as the Earth, which is actually flat!

*sigh* Knowledge is power. Quiero creer.

Soundtrack: State Anthem of the Soviet Union.

#conspirative theories #Analysis

[duhragonball]

7 Comfort Movies

Tagged by @pandemicpicnic . List your seven favorite comfort movies, then tag 7 people.   

This is a good thing to pass around, since I could use the diversion, and as I think about this list, I realize how long it’s been since I last saw a lot of these movies.  

In no particular order...

1) Dragon Ball Z: Fusion Reborn

I dunno if these are necessarily comfort movies, as opposed to just movies I like the best, but I don’t watch movies a whole lot, so I’m guessing my all-time favorites are probably close enough.   Movie 12 is good watchin’, period.   This is a movie about everyone working together.    Friends, enemies, strangers, the living and the dead, the damned and the divine.   I watch this movie and wish that we in the real world could put aside our differences so easily and blow up all the Nazis.

2) Superman IV: The Quest for Peace

People say this is the worst Superman movie, but fuck that noise.   This is the only one where Superman throws all the nuclear weapons into the sun.    But one of them has a chicken nugget attached to it, which grows into a clone of Superman with scratchy fingernails, his only weakness.    So Superman has to kick his ass on/with the moon, and then tell everyone that nuclear war is too big a job for Superman, because we’ll just re-arm the minute his back is turned. 

This is a story about high school physics, Luthor.     Sometimes the things we fear the most are only the darker side of our greatest strengths.   If humanity has the power to destroy itself, then doesn’t that mean we have the power to save ourselves as well?   The choice is ours.  

3) Spaceballs

Some killjoys actually hated this movie, and point to it as evidence that Mel Brooks lost his touch.   I respectfully submit that those people are dumb.  Spaceballs came out during the dark years between Return of the Jedi and Phantom Menace, when we all wanted more Star Wars but thought we would never get more.    Brooks heard our pleas, and gave us this movie, which is basically Star Wars with dick jokes all over it.   People always go on about how Star Trek predicted smartphones and the Simpsons predicted the Trump administration, but only Spaceballs was prescient enough to declare: “Fuck!    Even in the future, nothing works!”

This is a story about following your heart.    If all you care about is duty, and obligation, and profit, you’ll end up marrying some dullard, or owing your soul to a talking pizza, or roaming the universe in search of air.   

4) Batman: Mask of the Phantasm

This is the best Batman movie ever, and maybe even the best comic book movie period.    In 1994, Batman the Animated Series was popular enough that they made a feature film and ran it in theaters and everything.  I remember some smartass article at the time questioning whether parents would see the point in taking their kids to watch a movie of something that’s on TV for free, which is just dumb.    It’s not like they ran four episodes of the TV series for this thing.   It’s an original story!   Anyway, Batman has to figure out what the deal is with this new vigilante who fights crime with murder, which is also a crime.   He also gets very sad in place and it’s very emotional and I bought the soundtrack as soon as I could because I wanted to listen to it and feel things.

This is a story about the future, and promises, and the roads not taken.   And when all is said and done, maybe the choices we made were the right ones after all, in spite of our second-guesses.

5) Star Wars Episode VI: Return of the Jedi

I considered putting Revenge of the Sith on this list, since that’s usually the one I look up clips from on YouTube, but there’s no topping Jedi.   I saw this in the theatre when I was six and everything was awesome.    Jabba the Hutt, wint-o-green lightsabers, speeder bikes, Ewoks breaking stuff with logs and rocks, it’s just a pleasure to watch.   Also, this movie introduces Emperor Palpatine, and lays the foundation for the Sith lore that made me love Revenge of the SIth in the first place.  Not long after we got home from seeing this movie in 1983, I tried to draw this scene in the screencap above, because it left such a deep impression on me.   

This is a story about feelings.    Every butthole in Star Wars is always telling everyone else what to feel and how much they should feel it, and don’t get too attached to this or that.     But in this movie Luke has to exercise restraint and then cut loose, give into his passions and then reign them in, care for his friends and family but also be willing to let them go.    Everyone can give him advice, but he’s got to hoe that row himself, and figure it out as he goes.   He doesn’t always get it exactly right, but he still gets it.   

6) The Transformers: The Movie (1986)

The historians will say that cartoons like the original Transformers were nothing more than glorified toy commercials, made possible by the deregulation of children’s entertainment in the 1980′s.    I find this incredibly unfair, because that analysis ignores the fact that Transformers was a fucking awesome cartoon.    They’re all robots, so they could shoot and punch each other without any guff from standards and practices. And since the show was designed to promote an entire toy line, there were literally dozens of characters, each given a surprising amount of character and personality.   Starscream (center) and Ramjet (right) are practically the same toy, but kids wanted both of them because Starscream is a whiny, shitty drama queen, and Ramjet is a dumbass who likes to hit things with his head.     Astrotrain (left) is just a cool dude who can be a train or a space shuttle. 

This movie is the height of the franchise, where they could raise the stakes even higher, and introduce even crazier concepts like planet-eating monsters and robots actually killing each other for keeps.    I see fans from my generation acting all traumatized over all the deaths, like they never should have done that in a movie marketed for children, but this was a story about renewal.   The old order changeth, and it falls to the newcomers to rise up and carry on.    I’ve always taken a lot of comfort in the way these characters pass the torch.    The Smurfs were never brave enough to have Papa Smurf name his successor.  

7) UHF

Geez, I haven’t watched this one in forever.    I’d have to double-check to see if I even have it on DVD.    UHF was the ‘Weird Al’ Yankovic vehicle from the late 1980′s.   I want to say ‘89.    He plays a guy who takes over a TV station and runs all these ludicrous shows on it until it becomes the most popular channel in town.   It’s basically a bunch of sketch comedy stitched together into a movie, and it doesn’t try to apologize for this.  

This is a story of the importance of imagination, and of being true to yourself.   Al’s character has trouble finding a steady job, and its’ easy to conclude that there’s something wrong with him, but it’s really just that he hasn’t found the right opportunity for his passions and skills.   Once he finds his place, he rises to the occasion.  

And that’s my list.   Now I gotta tag people.   @auralime, @ediblenonsense, @semercury​, @twobellsilence​, @drowning-in-this-starry-serenade​, @cozymochi​, and @glintea​.

#that shot of the twinkie weiner sandwich is strangely poignant to me #when i was 11 it was hilarious #when i was 18 i was determined to make my own #out of some misplaced sense of patriotic duty to the weird al fandom #then al went vegetarian and it seemed kind of silly #now i watch the scene where he makes the thing and i just feel bad for him because his character's broke #i'm old enough to get the context finally

[fart-gate]

SG1

Season 4 episode 6

"WINDOW OF OPPORTUNITY"

Notes by me

- lovely set for the beginning. Vast wasteland

- jack using double sunglasses to look at the sun

- archeologist!Daniel is my favorite Daniel

- who is this guy

- no explanation as to who he is??? Hes just there???

- daniel had the opportunity to hear Latin spoken aloud a year ago??? I have a terrible memory when did this happen

- ok cool so Daniel is shot and we're having a good time but??? Still no explanation for this random guy

- when they all duck to avoid the vortex. Sg1 in sync

- LIGHTENING GATE

- "I have no idea, sir" some random side character got daniels line

- zapped back to breakfast!! This is what you get for eating cereal without milk!

- obsessed with how Daniel thinks Jack is the type of person to fake a blackout to get out of a conversation

- P4X 639 is the vast wasteland

- tealc remembers!!! Bc he also grabbed the dude as well as Jack right?? Im right

- "maybe he read your report?..."

Daniel:

- jack and tealc just listing things that are gonna happen

- watching this show in semi darkness always bites me in the ass fraiser shining a flashlight into the camera just made me fall off my bed

- malaki is the name of the random dude! Thank you for the info after 10 MINUTES INTO THE EPISODE

- nerd Daniel is cute❤ when he chases Jack to talk to him about the ancients

- apparently siler needs better glasses so he doesnt walk right into ppl. Daniel dropped all his notes!

- jack seems like he just does not care about anything at all in this ep . maybe RDA was having a bad day

- "it did send us back to 1969"

"Good year"

- sam: talks sciencey science

Jack and me: ??????

- LIGHTENING GATE

- "what do you think?" TIME LOOPS ARE ONE OF MY FAV TROPES YEESSS

- wait I need to pause the ep to put socks on my feet are cold

- when Jack predicts sg12 and hes off by like 8 seconds

- GODAMMIT fraiser and her stupid flashlight blinded me again

- daniel wrote down everything Jack said when he had ancient database brain damage

- *Daniel gets knocked over by siler a second time* "oops"

- *referring to tealc* "is this the face of a crazy man????"

- I dont trust this malaki at all

- "what kind of archeologist carries a weapon?"

"I do"

"......bad example"

- daniel ranting *time loops back* daniel ranting

- Jack getting more mad with every loop

- I was ready for the flashlight this time

- "I ask you....what could POSSIBLY be in my eye that could explain this??"

- jack going to find Daniel before Daniel finds him ❤

- if I hadnt seen gifs of this ep, I would think sams plan would work. But since ive seen gifs of parts that havnt happened yet I assume it doesnt work.

- what could be stopping them from dialing out 🤔 I'm gonna solve the mystery before they do

- "thats just how I feel about it" what is Daniel talking about I want to know

- jack: my recording didnt work :(

Tealc: TOLD YOU SO

- them getting out of the loop rests on Jack and tealcs ability to listen to Daniel

- tealc getting wacked in the face every loop I'm cackling

- okay why does everyone in the sgc have glasses huh??? Bunch of nerds

- *spinning in chair* *juggling* *both juggling* this is just adhd

- "if we dont find a way out of this soon I'm gonna lose it.

Lose it.

It means go crazy.

Nuts.

Insane.

Bonzo.

No longer in possession of ones faculties.

3 fries short of a happy meal!

WACKO!"

- daniel giving them the idea that they can do whatever they want without consequences and mischievous music starting

- hes gonna seduce Sam pls I want it

- why is the first thing Jack does POTTERY????

- anything on the board and you go for pottery

- tealc cruising along with whatever Jack is doing

- ok so far its been pottery, biking thru the sgc , hitting golf balls thru the gate

- I was right ! HE DIPPED HER💖💖💖💖💖💖💖💖💖💖💖🚨JACK AND SAM KISS JACK AND SAM KISS🚨

- she totally went along with it too. I have eyes i saw it

- "what are you smiling at?" He be knowin how them lips taste 💋

- ancients caused this. So far all they do is start shit

- ok they invented a "time machine" and it failed and looped time instead so they just shut it off and left it on a random planet for some poor sucker to activate??? Why didnt they destroy it??

- all they have to do is press some buttons omg all that time with Daniel was pointless

- tealc: walks into a force shield

Malaki: 😎

- Jack is ready to murder

- "so you can be king of groundhog day?"

- HIS WIFE

- tealc ready to go home to BED

- no glasses daniel🤓

- sorry ur wife died bro but other ppl are in this loop too. Dont be selfish

- "I can.....touch her face again. Talk to her. Hear her laugh."

Jack knows how you feel bro but still

- "I LOST MY SON!" :(

- it was 2 buttons??? All of that????? And it was 2 buttons???? Smdh

- they ve been stuck in this time loop for 3 months!!! Jack missed so many simpsons episodes!!!

- daniel: what crazy things did you do bc you knew no one would remember ??

Jack: *silently stares at sam and eats oatmeal*

Tealc whump: repeatedly hit in face with door (only shown twice), walks into force shield, passed out

Daniel: stunned, passed out, dragged

🎶listening to Keep Me Crazy by Sheppard🎶 for jack slowly going insane but still using the loop to kiss Sam

🤓no glasses!Daniel for less than 10 minutes at end of episode

#stargate season 4 #daniel whump season 4 #tealc whump season 4 #no glasses!daniel

[fly-pow-bye]

DuckTales 2017 - “The Golden Armory of Cornelius Coot!”

Story by: Francisco Angones, Madison Bateman, Colleen Evanson, Christian Magalhaes, Bob Snow

Written by: Christian Magalhaes, Bob Snow

Storyboard by: Stephanie Gonzaga, Vaughn Tada, Brandon Warren

Directed by: Matthew Humphreys

This episode certainly isn't cor...no, that joke would be too cor...no, not doing that one either.

The episode begins in Fort Duckberg, where Miss Quackfaster talks about the about the founder of Duckberg. Protecting Fort Duckberg from the Beagle militia, he was like a ghost. He was everywhere at once; musket fire could be heard from every direction. This alone scared off the Beagles. This was all commemorated with his statue, where he is holding a musket and a saber, standing on top of his enemies. A very different interpretation of the statue I remember, and that's all I will say.

In the present time, the Fort will host a celebration, where Della Duck, who is outright said to be Coot's descendant, is going to skywrite the letter "C". According to Huey, Scrooge charges by the letter. This is not the only way Scrooge shows his penny-pinching ways; Miss Quackfaster is the only person he hired, as she also has to be the innkeeper for the snack bar while wearing a fake moustache. That snack bar, keeping with this being essentially a Renaissance Fair, consists solely of "traditional victuals" from the era: saltwater jerky and raw buttermilk. They get a lot of mileage from the latter.

We get some of the other "kids being bored at the Renaissance Fair" tropes, such as Dewey trying to find fun in churning butter, and Louie outright calling this the worst thing ever. Even Huey complains about it, but, since he's the smart guy, he's only disappointed in the lack of authenticity with the hats. Webby gives an idea to find entertainment in this place: by solving a mystery even their legendary mother couldn't solve. That mystery? The titular Golden Armory of Cornelius Coot. She knows this because she has her journal. They don't ask how she got it, but I'm sure stealing Della's journal is normal for her.

Overhearing all of this are the Beagle Boys, attempting to get their vengeance for their scared-off ancestors. All of the Beagle Boys and their Ma want to reclaim that treasure that should be in their hands. With that treasure, they can reclaim the fort and call it Fort Beagleburg! While Burger and Bouncer are here, there is one guy that's missing.

What happened to Big Time Beagle? Big Time Beagle ran all the way from the junkyard to find out, and Ma Beagle tells him the Beagle Boys need to go in a different direction. Big Time doesn't get it; even after being told that he's no longer a member, he assumes she meant he's more of a leader than a member.

Speaking of people not known for figuring things out, we got a B plot with Launchpad. This B plot continues yet another thread in the Della storyline, one that hasn't really been touched upon since "Nothing Can Stop Della Duck!". In that episode, Della finds out that Launchpad replaced her in her absence, and she's none too happy to find her once her's Cloudslayer in the hands of a doofus, not that one, that constantly crashes planes. In this episode, she gets to see the plane she was supposed to fly over Fort Duckberg in shambles, and Launchpad promises to fix it in no time. One scene later:

Launchpad: (looking at the fixed plane) I did it!

(lowers photo of the fixed plane)

Launchpad: See, I found a photo of what the plane is supposed to look like, so we can piece it together.

I liked that gag from the Simpsons. To be fair, the Simpsons did everything. Even real life occasionally copies it, but that's a story for another time.

As expected, Della is not a big fan of Launchpad's way of flying. One of the major stick-ups, a stick-up that ends up being pretty literal, is that instead of using any regular way to fix various items, Launchpad, the wacky pilot just uses chewed up gum. Della, the recently-went-down-to-Earth pilot, comes in and fixes it the proper way. Della even questions if he even knows anything about planes at all, and Launchpad comforts her with:

Launchpad: When it comes to planes, everyone knows their own way.

Della: (looks at the "engine") Is that a hamster wheel?

Yes, it rotates the spinny-thingy! Launchpad's term, of course.

Back at Fort Duckberg, Huey distracts any other employees that aren't occupied with dealing with the Beagle Boys with a "historians at work" sign, which don't seem to exist. This is so the kids can try to figure out the riddle of finding the treasure "beneath the legend."

They find out that the sign on the statue hides a hidden passageway, going beneath the legendary statue. Big Time sees this as he's waiting for his buttermilk to pour out, see, they do get a lot of mileage out of that, and decides to go after them himself without telling his Ma. If Ma Beagle doesn't want him to be a Beagle Boy, he's got to make a name for himself.

In what Louie deems "their tomb" at the beginning of the scene, the kids start looking through the underground cavern, aided by Webby's smartphone light. Louie feels a shovel on the wall, which Webby thinks is meant to be an arrow, leading to a wall made up of peet moss.

At least, she claims it must be peet moss, but after falling through it, Huey decides to lick it and note that it tastes nothing like it. Both this episode and "The Depths of Cousin Fethry!" have one of the same writers and director; I guess having Huey lick gross things for science is their thing. What could it be? Let’s let Dewey’s eyes give us a hint...

GYAAH! SPIDERS!

...that becomes as much of a gag as the buttermilk.

Distracting us from those spiders and any question of how healthy drinking raw buttermilk could be, we go back to Della deciding that Launchpad shouldn't be anywhere near her plane. Let's just say it is not just because the paint is still drying; she outright tells him he's a bad pilot.

Initially sad about this revelation he was apparently never told, he realizes there's only one thing he can do. No, not retire and let Della do all the flying from now on, as much as Della seems to want that, but become Della's co-pilot so he can learn from the best!

Della: How do I say "yes" without agreeing to this?

Della couldn't figure that one out, as the recently repaired Sun/Cloud Chaser/Slayer goes airborne once again, with Della as the pilot and Launchpad as the guy who is told to look to the sky to see if the plane is still flying.

Going back to the underground cavern of the legendary Coot, okay, maybe that may need to be reworded, Webby continues her journey. Huey, Dewey, and Louie are starting to see this as less of a "fun adventure" and more of a "dangerous obsession that will kill them all". After finding another thing that is totally an arrow and not just another shovel, she bumps into a pair of mine carts. She specifically calls to Dewey's sense of wanting to endanger himself to get him to jump in.

This doesn't get the other two to jump in, but another person shows up: Big Time Beagle, running away from the spiders and landing himself right into the other mine cart. Webby uses this opportunity to say that this must be the Beagle Boys chasing after their treasure, and this convinces the other two to go down this epic rail chase!

A not very well designed one, as they both get stuck between two inclines. It turns out that the mine cart wasn't anywhere near as exciting as Dewey hoped it would be. This does lead to a rather entertaining scene where both the siblings and Big Time push their carts up the hill. It's not even necessary; even if they use those carts to carry back all of that treasure, they're just going to be stuck with it for the rest of the journey! But, in their logic, they both need a good mine cart chase in this adventure.

The Launchpad and Della plot pretty much go in the way one might expect. Launchpad does something foolish, Della yells at him for it. For example, while Della is teaching him about the different meters on the plane, Launchpad talks about the Point-O-Meter and talks about his high score on it. Guess the joke.

Eventually, she just yells at him to just sit in the corner, because nothing he does could be right. As much as Della may seem to have a point, I can't help but feel sorry for Launchpad here. I just knew he would eventually be vindicated.

Huey finds the blueprints, and this whole room is just a room meant for storing corn. In other words, in Webby's quest that in no way is a way for her to measure up to the original lady adventurer of Clan McDuck. She certainly doesn't make that obvious with lines like this:

Webby: We'll be as incredible as she is...er, Coot was!

While Webby has been mostly proven wrong throughout this adventure, even with minor things like assuming Big Time got stuck in a spider-infested tunnel as the camera pans to a blocked off section, there is one thing she was right about: there is something more to this. How did Cornelius Coot save Fort McDuck if he was just an ordinary farmer?

She doesn't get the time to ponder on that, as the rest of the Beagle Boys and Ma Beagle show up. Apparently, they followed Big Time's trail, even though they were explicitly never told about this. I would argue that since there wasn't much else to do in Fort McDuck other than eat some saltwater jerky, I could see them getting distracted by that hole in the statue.

Back on the plane, it's time for that aforementioned vindication. Well, kind of, it does feel a bit forced. As she turns on the smoke for skywriting that one letter, the plane starts to fill with smoke. Launchpad tells Della that gum was better to block the vents instead of actual vents, but what does he know?

Eventually, the plots are going to converge, or in this case, crash into each other...

...because crashing is what Launchpad does best! Della, after marveling at how this crash almost got them killed, and somehow did not, sees the Beagle Boys and begins to fight them. In the boy's eyes, she becomes the hero by accident in more ways than one!

While Webby and Della escape, the Beagle Boys get a surprise of their own: the entirely unrelated Beagle shows up now with a new Ma. One that has many more legs than usual!

Big Time Beagle became Bug Time Beagle, complete with his own Spider Ma. With the power of that spider's spinneret, he traps his former family and his former family's enemies in the spider webs.

That's mostly it; Big Time, er, Bug Time's spider-beagle shtick doesn't really go anywhere. At most, it's just the payoff to the spider gag. While DuckTales 2017 is not afraid to lose the status quo, this is not one of those times, as he gets his job back right at the end of the episode.

After bonding with Dewey and Huey, Della gets to bond with someone who isn't even related to her in this episode. Webby places a candle that lit the way after her phone ran out of batteries on a table, and talks to. She tries to comfort her by saying that she got further than anyone else. That candle ends up revealing something, as it lights a nearby string.

While I won't spoil it, I will say that the revelation that comes after this scene is pretty neat to see. It's also a reference to the original comics, as DuckTales 2017 loves to do. Since Coot is shown to be a distant relative to Della, and therefore a distant relative to Scrooge McDuck, it shows that the McDuck's way of defeating their enemies with wit runs in the blood.

In the end, legends are rewritten, the fort gets more people to visit it, and while she never got to make that "C", Della just seems to just begrudgingly accept Launchpad's incredible luck of not dying due to his silliness. Yeah, that B plot just kind of ends with that.

As for the Beagle Boys, as said before, Big Time gets his job back. Considering the alternative, Ma Beagle had no other choice.

How does it stack up?

Despite some plots that I felt went nowhere, I did enjoy this episode enough to not give it a Neutral. The B plot was certainly what I expected out of a Della and Launchpad team-up, though I do wish it had a better ending. All in all, a good episode.

Next, the beginning of a sort of tetralogy, all leading up to the Moonvasion!

← A Nightmare On Killmotor Hill! 🦆 TimePhoon! →

#fpb dt 2017 #fpb reviews #ducktales 2017 #ducktales #disney

[apicturewithasmile]

LOST rewatch (season 1):

[follow the entire rewatch-tag here]

episodes 1 and 2 – Pilot:

Jack’s Angel Hair Pasta speech is making my eyes roll so far back up my head that it hurts

Kate speaks the first “we have to go back (for him)” around minute 39 of ep1

I forgot how incredibly sexy Naveen Andrews is

John Locke doesn’t speak his first line until minute 23 of ep2 when he explains Backgammon to Walt – his iconic Orange Smile scene and the Sitting In The Rain On The Beach scene actually both happen before he gets to speak

episode 3 – Tabula Rasa:

Oh, it’s the first “previously on LOST”

the sheer loathsomeness of that fucking US marshal… ugh

Michael: “I will get your dog back as soon as it stops raining.” – rain: *stops*

Wash Away playing in the final scene

that last shot that made John look like he was gonna be some mysterious villain character when actually he’s just the jungle philosopher who talks to the island

episode 4 – Walkabout:

yaaay, the first boar action

I can’t believe they waited until the airplane food was all eaten up before they thought about finding food on the island

that asshole from the office who’s bullying John makes me so angry

“don’t tell me what I can’t do” makes its first appearance at minute 21 and is quickly followed a mere minute later by the second appearance

totally forgot that John is actually the first one to see Smokey – and that early on in the show?!

Uuuuuuh first time we see ghost!Christian Shephard

Do we really think John killed that boar on his own or did Smokey help him?

episode 5 – White Rabbit:

there’s so many times they say “the others” before there’s even any sign of The Others™ I’m starting to wonder whether it’s intentional

the best thing about Jack-centric episodes is Christian Shephard (I got it hard for daddy Shephard okay!??!?!)

do Australians really sound like that or did they mainly cast American actors for the scenes that take place in Sydney?

aaaaand there they are, the Jears (Jack tears)

episode 6 – House of the Rising Sun:

god I love Sun and Jin, I hate how underrated all of their flashbacks are

bless the bad CGI bees

look! it’s Mother’s first appearance

episode 7 – The Moth:

ugh it’s a Charlie episode -.-‘

headcanon: Jacob made that cave collapse because he wanted to get rid of Charlie

John believing and being proud in Charlie makes this episode worthwhile for me

episode 8 – Confidence Man:

Kate is actually carrying a… bundle??? of bananas over her shoulder. What’s mote #jungle aesthetic?

John you manipulative bastard, I love you!!!! I can’t wait for Not Henry Gale to join you into an endless manipulation play-off

I honestly can’t remember whether or not Sawyer and Sayid will ever work out their issues in the later seasons and actually get a somewhat friendship?! I don’t remember any bro-scenes between them which is a shame tbh.

Boone: “She’s my sister!” – god how did I think it was totally reasonable to turn this into an incetuous romance?!

episode 9 – Solitary:

Yaaaaaaaaaasssss it’s Sayid’s first episode which also means: DANIELLE ROUSSEAU!!!

I am a big Shannon/Sayid shipper but I can really understand the folks who ship Kate with Sayid. It would have been soooo much better than the love triangle of hell.

And I hate that Sayid doesn’t speak Arabic in his flashbacks. I get, Naveen Andrews doesn’t speak it but… they made Daniel Dae Kim speak Korean even tho he couldn’t?!?! It’s a bit of inconsistency that annoys the crap out of me.

I’m moaning a lot considering this is my fav show… there’s just… a couple of things about season 1 that always been bothering me.

OH MY GOD IT’S CREEPY ETHAN!!!

Danielle looks so fucking good and so does Sayid fnfsdkgnjkngjdfh my bi senses are tingling.

episode 10 – Raised By Another:

Claire’s nightmare is super fucking disturbing

Her ex is literally the most annoying fuckboy and I have absolutely forgotten about him for a good reason. What an asshole.

Kate’s been wearing the same green short for at least the past 3 episodes… which… I get because clothing is limited on the island but it reminds me of the Simpsons’ wardrobe

The fact Creepy Ethan™ is there after Claire wakes up the second time saying she’s been attacked should have been the biggest #clue.

Hurley getting the flight manifest from Sawyer by just… talking to him… my aesthetic!

The “Ethan is creepy”-reveal is soooooo well done gjfsngkngdg

episode 11 – All The Best Cowboys Have Daddy Issues:

More Terry O’Quinn close ups please!!!

I love that John is “of course Kate is coming along” and just hands her a knife whereas Jack is always like “no, don’t come along, this is #dangerous” – like… by now we should all know there’s no stopping Kate!

John predicting the rain is one of my fav scenes.

Wooooow they discovered the hatch THAT early in the season?!??!

episode 12 – Whatever The Case May Be:

Sawyer really shouldn’t go swimming in sweet water with his wounded arm.

I love Rose :’)

okay this episode was kinda underwhelming but that might be because I remembered what was in the case

episode 13 – Hearts and Minds:

I do not remember this episode title AT ALL so I have no idea what to expect

Aaaaaah I think it’s the Shannon and Boone incest episode which explains why I have forgotten about it – one of the most unnecessary plots in the history of LOST ever

How is Boone still friends with Locke after this whole bondage mess? Nevermind, John could do anything to me and I’d still follow him to the end of the world.

“PEE ON IT!”

episode 14 – Special:

I hate that Michael’s ex took his son away from him. She shouldn’t have put him in that position. I hate her.

What is it with Michael and car accidents?

and now she’s clearing her bad conscience with money. I HATE HER!

And now Charlie’s reading Claire’s diary – I hate him, too!

Aaaand here comes the bad CGI polar bear

Every time John Locke smiles an angel gets its wings.

Claire is already back?!?!?!?

episode 15 – Homecoming:

Wait…. Is this already when they kill Creepy Ethan? If so then I really liked this episode. Probably the only moment I truly liked Charlie.

The Scott/Steve-joke never gets old.

I love that Sawyer organised a gun for Kate. If I absolutely had to ship any combination of the love triangle of hell it’d be Kate and Sawyer… but only because Juliet isn’t in the picture yet.

episode 16 – Outlaws:

Oh it’s the Sawyer versus boar episode, I love that one!

Sayid you sassy fucker, I love you!!!

I love that they made the “I never…” scene so long.

“You’re not alone – don’t pretend to be!” is exactly what I needed to hear right now, thanks Sayid!

episode 17 - …In Translation:

How are Sun and Jin both so incredibly beautiful? Newsflash: I’m bisexual!

Hurley, my lovely empathetic sunshine!

Is it just me or is Michael’s first raft bigger than the second version?

John back at it again with the jungle philosophy.

“WE ARE NOT THE ONLY PEOPLE AN THIS ISLAND AND WE ALL KNOW IT!!!!” you go John, tell them!!!

Aaaah Jin’s father aka the only good father in the entire show!

episode 18 – Numbers:

FINALLY!!!

John building the cradle with Claire for the baby is breaking my heart. Jungle grandpa Locke <3

I’d love for the monster to have been a “pissed off giraffe”

DANIELLE IS SO FUCKING BEAUTIFUL

episode 19 – Deus Ex Machina:

Awwww I forgot that John worked in a toy shop – that’s so cute

Damn he looks so much better without hair than he does with it

Anthony fucking Cooper you disgusting weasel of a human being

I just remembered that the “Deus” that’s in the “Machina” is Desmond Hume, my Scottish puppy – can’t wait for him to be there doing his thing

God that moment with the light is sooooo good! That’s when I was #hooked the first time I watched the show.

And I just remembered: that’s John saving Desmond’s life there and Desmond saving John’s life and rgkdabgdlkgndg

episode 20 – Do No Harm:

Jack doesn’t deserve this wonderful wife…. And I really don’t like the whole “fixing things” trope that surrounds his character.

Oh riiiiiight, Claire’s having the baby while Boone dies. I totally forgot about that. I love it!

Sun is soooo strong in this episode, I love her!

Jack: “Don’t tell me what I can’t do!” – I think this is the first time someone other than John said it.

god it’s so fucking tragic with everyone looking at the baby while Shannon gets told the news her brother died. it’s too much for my tiny heart

episode 21 – The Greater Good:

John it ain’t really helping that you still drowned in Boone’s blood, my guy, my buddy, my pal.

Sayid saying “I know when I’m being lied to.” is kinda foreshadowing the whole Henry Gale affaire because he was the only one who wouldn’t take any of Ben’s shit for even a second.

Sayid: “You’ve never fired a gun before!” – Shannon: *fires gun*

episode 22 – Born To Run:

judging by the title of this it’s gonna be a Kate episode

ah yes…. The horrible blond wig. I mean…. How bad must a wig be to see it’s a wig from behind?!??!?!

episodes 23-25 – Exodus:

jhbdfajksfg it’s Ana Lucia, bless her, my lovely angry smol child

it was absolutely not necessary to show Sawyer with his shirt off but I ain’t complaining

anyways… when will I ever have enough time and money to go to Hawaii?

That Walt/Shannon/Vincent-moment breaks my heart big time.

The Black Rock being an old ass ship was one of the biggest plot twists the first time I watched.

The parts of Arzt flesh raining down on our guys was really more realism than needed

IT’S SMOKEY!!!! Yaaaasssss!

Has there ever been a better finale for the first season of a show ever?

#Maddie rewatches LOST #lost show #lost abc #4 8 15 16 23 42 #I'll put this in the tags in case anyone wants to check my 'Maddie rewatches LOST' tag

[coreytravelogue]

October 11, 2020 - Vancouver, BC, Canada

Happy Thanksgiving to any fellow Canadians who read this. As you can tell nothing really has changed, no travel and no real events. Well there have been events that have went on in my life since last month but nothing I feel is worth speaking of in here. I do not know how long or brief I will be with this, I feel I should write though to tell you the truth I don’t feel like it. I feel like just sleeping through this pandemic, I am sure I am not the only one who thinks this.

My life from 2015-2019 has been such a positive one for the most part I feel like life is trying to give me a new challenge to see if I truly have conquered the depression that took me for most of my life. All things considered I am surviving but to say that i haven’t had depressive relapses over this year would be a bold face lie.

I guess I am writing today because if COVID wasn’t a thing this year I would have been traveling right now. Sound like a tired broken record when I say that, I have been saying that all year whether it was Ottawa and Portland during spring time, to trips i may have went to Alberta or wherever in the summer to a trip to Australia I could have made with my girlfriend last month to the trip I could have taken around this time. Of course I didn’t wind up making any plans, with the second wave in a effect I don't feel like it is worth going out of the house let alone out of the city. A month ago alone seems like 6 months ago that has been how gruelling the past few weeks have been for me without end.

Would have went to Quebec City if I did go this long weekend or even Montreal again. I had a decent amount of time in Montreal even though nothing went on during that time that I could enjoy but that was why tickets were so dirt cheap to go at that moment in time. If I went I would probably enjoy the craft beer, poutine and smoked meat sandwiches again while trying to explore the city beyond the downtown area.

Even thought about maybe I would travel to Toronto, that city is so fucking huge I would try to spend most of my time outside of it this time but I am not going to lie Quebec City would be the place I would consider.

The place has always been stuck in my head and not exactly in the best fashion. I remember passing through that city both times and both times being discriminated against by French people. I understand the hate towards English people like me but the racism they display against other cultures disgusts me to no end but I will leave that bit aside.

Thinking about what I would do there would probably involve Jayne hatting and craft beer drinking mostly followed by museums and just getting lost in the place but that mostly what I normally do. I can't say my travels are not so much exciting as they are predictable.

I thought I would have more to talk about what I would do in Quebec City but I can’t help but not want to think about traveling because this pandemic doesn't seem like it will end anytime soon. 

Newfoundland hasn’t even opened its boarders yet as I may have said before so there goes at least spending time with my parents this year. With this amount of leave I have I could spend the entire month there this time if I wanted to or at least 3.5 weeks.

One caveat of this year is I have eating more doniars in this year than I have any other. I am sure Turkish Doniar in Burnaby Heights appreciates my service as I am sure his business as taken a hit but he has always know that I loved his doniars and I still do.

What can I be thankful for I guess that Turkish Doniar is still around and his doniars are as goo as ever. Strange Fellows has their El Jefe hefeweizen out which is a good hefe and very drinkable for me.

I am thankful my girlfriend and me have a healthy relationship for the most part I guess. She is still stranded here as her government continues to leave their own people stranded elsewhere like the fuck wits they are.

Thankful my parents are alive and healthy, Newfoundland is probably the safest place in the world right now to tell you the truth. With all the shit that they have went through they deserve to be safe during this time though I can't imagine the crumbling economy worldwide is doing much for them either.

Thankful what few friends I have are alive and well and doing ok.

Thankful that despite not being able to travel and my mental health taking a bit his I am for the most part in ok shape. My eyes I feel are slowly deteriorating and I am slowly getting out of shape. I dunno there are moments where I physically feel in shape, ripped even and feel like superman then there are times like today where I feel like Homer Simpson. I guess it doesn’t help I have been eating doniars like made the last two months stress eating working three positions at once, having a COVID scare that wound up just being that my lungs cut handle smoke no more and the stress at home. I feel helpless, like I can't really do anything and anything I do makes everything around me worse. So all I can do is eat doniars, drink hefes and work on my life playlist project using Spotify.

A goal in my life is to write my own auto biography but when I think about it always comes in vague terms where if I just listen to a song it opens up those memories much better. I have been doing because it helps me remember those times but also see how I can grown as a person through the music on my life.

Where form birth to kindergarten my influence came straight from radio, TV shows and whatever my babysitters would play. The moment Much Music and the ability to own my own CD collection began followed by MTV, power metal, classic folks ,etc. Doing this playlist thing I feel is more of a accurate autobiography than actually writing down though to be honest it is getting harder now.

I am age 17, a lot of the music I listened to from 14 to probably 19 is no on Spotify weirdly enough, even stranger since many of the bands and songs I listened have stuff on Spotify. 1998-02 was such a weird time for music, it is almost like everyone wants to forget that time or not release what they released at that time. Maybe because it was the era of Spears and BSB who knows. it definitely makes those playlists feel incomplete.

I am not looking forward to age 21 playlist, that year will probably be the biggest of any other year but full of very bad memories for me but it is what it is.

Should also try and finish my book, it is actually done but I feel like i need to go over it once more. One of my friends asked me what I want for my Birthday I told her if you need to give me anything give me food but I am not starting to think no just read my book, actually read my book and give me constructive criticism. I know it will be shit, as you can tell I am not well versed in my use of the English language and this is my first (won't be my last) book. I guess i just want someone to read it and tell me if it is worth putting more time in. I have spent around 7 years on this fucking book, to say I am am growing tired of being in that world would be a understatement but I still feel more work needs to be done on it. I feel like GRRM right now with that.

Anyways I got stuff to do, hefes to down and music to listen to today. Shazbot nanu nanu

[gwensanotherdimension]

Not Legit Movie Reviews

After a 6 month hiatus I have returned with a relevant movie review! This one was fun to write so I hope you enjoy!

Before you continue reading, if you haven’t seen the movie, I spoil the ending and describe some scenes in detail. This review also works if you’re familiar with the first Phineas and Ferb movie; Across the 2nd Dimension. I would also like to preface this as I know my sister is going to read this, a lot of these thoughts and ideas were discussed together, so a lot of these opinions are influenced by her opinion as well, but luckily, we came to the same conclusion about this movie. 

This movie was heavily anticipated as the Phineas and Ferb series ended in 2015, which was a long 5 years ago. I have always liked this show, the characters were all enjoyable, the songs were extremely catchy and the plot was always engaging. 

As a kid, it hit all the benchmarks for what made a kid’s show great. Only when I wrote my own episode with my sister for a school assignment, did I realize that there was so much hard-work and effort put into the show to make it the spectacular show that it is. The genius’ behind the show; Dan Povenmire and Jeff “Swampy” Marsh are an extremely talented and creative duo who had previously worked on The Simpsons and Rocko’s Modern Life together; they write a majority of the episodes as well as the songs themselves which are extremely impressive as they’re in almost every single episode. As the impressive song-writers that they are, they are masters at making the songs original and catchy - multiple generations know what an aglet is because of this show, I don’t know what else to say other than the songs are absolute bangers. 

But let’s not waste anytime, Candace against the Universe was not their best. I’m just going to say it right now. The plot wasn’t the strongest in terms of story and twist. It was predictable and simply not as interesting as regular episodes or Across the 2nd Dimension which I will compare heavily to this movie. My sister and I had a long discussion about how it was similar to the Mission Marvel special where the content had potential but it missed the original charm and wit that the episodes have. This movie could have easily been condensed into a two parter, or just under forty-five minutes. The plot of Across the 2nd dimension was so strong and was executed so perfectly; a quick summary: Phineas and Ferb help Doofenshmirtz build an ‘inator’ to another dimension but Perry is stuck between exposing himself as a secret agent to the boys or allowing them to help Doofenshmirtz take over the Tri-State area. He ends up doing both which carries the rest of the story to meet their alternate-dimension selves and then finally comes together at the end in a massive battle where alternate-dimension attempts to conquer yet another Tri-State area (the one that we’re familiar with).  

I felt like the problem with Candace against the Universe, the ending was very anti-climatic. It ends in a short battle which felt lacking compared to the final battle in Across the 2nd dimension. My sister and I absolutely love how in the end of AT2D, it was revealed that Perry had been collecting their inventions throughout the summer and had been saving them for an ‘Alpha-level’ threat. It’s a thrilling pay-off for audiences to see that all of their incredible inventions haven’t gone to waste after a single use - they have a second purpose - which is to fight evil. In Candace against the Universe, it followed a very basic plot structure, Candace is captured by an alien species in space, they give her what she’s looking for which is individuality and validation, the boys ‘save’ her but then Candace kicks them to the curb, the true intentions of the alien leader are revealed and it’s a race to save Candace and the rest of the humans on earth. What made the ending in AT2D so satisfying was seeing all of the inventions come back, obviously they couldn’t do that again in this movie but I felt like there could’ve been a better ending to it. 

Within the first ten minutes of Candace against the Universe, we’re introduced to Doofenshmirtz’s newest invention. ‘A power-vacuum-inator.’ a machine that turns things into lint and then vacuums it away. A pretty hilarious contraption which isn’t far away from the other inventions that he’s made before but later, we’re introduced to another invention, the ‘Chicken-replace-inator’ which swaps things with the closest chicken; pretty self-explanatory but it proves itself handy later. What my sister and I found as a ‘cop-out’ was how easy they made it so that Doofenshmirtz and Vanessa could return to earth. When the Mama plant is preparing to take over Danville, a simple blast from the ‘Chicken-replace-inator’ zaps it away and the cast breaks out into a final song. But before I continue, let’s talk about Vanessa’s purpose to the plot. 

A huge drawn-in point to the movie was Candace and Vanessa as a duo. In the episodes it was exciting to see them come together and interact because they’re connecting the plot line of Phineas and Ferb to the plot line of Doofenshmirtz and Perry which is pretty high stakes since Perry can’t reveal to his host-family that he’s a spy. But, early on into the movie, Candace and Vanessa get split up and we don’t see them together again until the very end of this movie. Before Doofenshmirtz reunites with Vanessa, he uses the ‘Chicken-replace-inator’ to zap away a large dragon-monster creature, replacing it with the closest chicken, which is on earth; so there’s now a chicken on the alien planet. Unfortunately for them, when Doofenshmirtz, Vanessa and Perry (who were left behind by the others) want to return to earth they attempt to use the ‘Chicken-replace-inator’ on themselves but, if you remember from before, the closest chicken is now the chicken on the alien planet. So the ‘cop-out’ of the inator is that Doofenshmirtz, Vanessa and Perry simply change the settings of the inator to swap places with the furthest chicken instead of the closest. And, anti-climatically use the inator to blast and switch the Mama plant with the furthest chicken (the one back on the alien plant). Which got me thinking, that was a pretty lazy ending, it was anti-climatic and just an easy way out. They already had a “battle” with Candace shooting free t-shirts at the minions so they needed to get rid of the plant quickly. 

I thought it over in the shower, what would’ve made for a similar ending to AT2D? Where they would use Chekhov’s gun and make use of everything that was introduced in the movie. If they had defeated the Mama plant with the vacuum, it would’ve given the movie an extra ten minute action scene; where Baljeet has his ‘a-ha!’ moment and finally his knowledge of Space Adventures doesn’t fail him or Phineas takes the spotlight (when the boys are hurtling towards the ground and Phineas uses something he saw in Space Adventures to save them) Baljeet could reference an episode were they created an air-vacuum to deprive something of all air, drying it out and killing it; tying the end to the beginning. I understand they decided to use the ‘Chicken-replace-inator’ because they spent so much time on it but as I was saying before, it just wasn’t satisfying. It was already pretty silly and made just for the sake of being a joke but I felt it would’ve been better suited to use the Power-Vacuum-inator. 

Which brings me to my next point, the running gags. When Phineas and Ferb pull the crew together to go to space, Baljeet introduces Space Adventure - an adventure in space - which is reminiscent of Star Trek and referenced in an older episode (Nerds of a Feather) Throughout the movie, Baljeet attempts to help navigate alien territory with his knowledge of Space Adventure but it backfires on him every time. However, when they’re hurtling back to Earth, Phineas references Space Adventure and saves them, essentially taking Baljeet’s running gag from under his feet which didn’t sit right with me. It didn’t come to a satisfying conclusion. Again, I understand not everything has to come full circle but this should’ve. Same with Buford’s running gag, when they’re packing for space, Buford brings aboard a canoe, everyone but Buford can agree that there’s absolutely no use for a canoe in space; so it’s ‘funny’ that Buford is dead-set on carrying around a massive canoe into space and back. But the conclusion that he gets is that it gets strapped to a golf cart and swings into the aliens, knocking them out.  

Finally, there’s a relationship that wasn’t fully developed but still happened that bothers me. When the crew crash land on the alien planet, there’s discourse between Isabella and Doofenshmirtz on who should ‘lead’ the group to the fortress that Candace is most likely held in. Isabella supports her claim as leader since she’s a girl scout and has patches proving her worthy as a leader but Doofenshmirtz is the adult so naturally, he should be leader. My complaint is that there is absolutely no development between Isabella and Doofenshmirtz but yet, a mere twenty minutes later Doofenshmirtz believes that Isabella is a deserving leader and saying that he “learnt from the best” yet there is no example of Isabella being the natural leader that she is. 

Moving away from my problems with the plot, I felt that the jokes and gags in the movie weren’t as hilarious as other jokes in episodes or AT2D. I read a review from Variety and Polygon which had high praise for the movie, which includes “ jokes about support groups, power ballads, Cubism, talk-show obsequiousness, plus a very funny song called “Adulting,” about how adults justify their judgment with no good reason.” (Variety) and “The movie is still chock full of bubbly humor. The show excelled at comedic timing, effectively using beats, cutaway gags, and fourth-wall breaking.” And while I agree with the second half, the movie missed some of the benchmarks of Phineas and Ferb-level humour. The jokes in the movie were uncomfortably off-beat and repetitive, heavily relying on comedic timing and dead air for audiences to laugh. The comedic timing was unsuccessful and dare I say, too long and too often. The jokes couldn’t have been more obvious, they were pretty much lit up with fireworks and a huge neon sign that said “You should laugh here! This is a joke that is funny and you can laugh here! That’s what this awkward empty space is for.” After a brief scan of AT2D there were jokes that didn’t feel forced or obviously meant for certain audiences - like one of the aliens ‘flossing’ which feels a little outdated even for 2020. 

As mentioned earlier, after writing my own Phineas and Ferb script I have a much larger appreciation for the work put into a single episode. Povenmire and Marsh out-do themselves with each episode and it’s impressive; I admire their work so much. Now, I don’t know if it’s because I went into the mindset of knowing what makes Phineas and Ferb great, this movie felt lacking in the original appeal that the episodes had. The characters didn’t have the depth they usually had, the songs weren’t as catchy, the jokes weren’t as funny and the plot wasn’t as strong. It felt rushed; and I don’t know if they were but there could’ve been so much more depth and (irony not included) dimension. 

I have the same opinion with Frozen 2, it felt rushed so there wasn’t as much depth as the first movie. And, they were rushed with the movie; in the docu-series Into the Unknown: The making of Frozen 2, so many elements in the final movie were added within the last nine months of production. The story was rewritten multiple times when the writers and directors had trouble deciding who Elsa was hearing calling out to her. They just had to choose at that point which made the story feel rushed and bunched. It’s like rolling up a yoga mat, you start off neat and even but when you get near the end and your friends have already packed up, you haphazardly roll up the mat, so now it’s pointed at one end and looks like an ice cream cone. 

Don’t get me wrong, I still watched the entire thing and there was one scene at the end that I enjoyed but it just didn’t live up to my expectations. And that’s totally okay; it was appealing to their target audience and hit all the notes of a Phineas and Ferb movie. It’s simply that I had my expectations extremely high. 

I give Phineas and Ferb The Movie: Candace Against the Universe 5.5 Stars out of 10 

#phineas and ferb #candace against the universe #movie review #movie essay #please don't kill me i swear i actually like phineas and ferb disneyplus #catu #catu spoilers #pnf #pnf candace #pnf catu

[supperfashions-blog]

The Metrosexual Male vs. The Cowboy - What Do Women Want?

He always looks perfectly put together. He can be in a t-shirt and jeans or headline out to a black-tie event. His hair never has a evil day. His nails are clean and buffed. His clothes are perfectly pressed and exquisitely coordinated. He smells like flowers and spice. Is he gay? No, he's the new metrosexual man.

As dozens of you know by now, the semester "metrosexual" was coined by a journalist (and gay man) named Mark Simpson, to describe a new kind of urban male who is straight, but in effect with his feminine period and not afraid to bazaar it. Essentially, metrosexuals are guys who income on behaviors and show an interest in things that have traditionally belonged in the noblewoman domain.

You may have a metrosexual brother, male supporter or boyfriend (ex). These are the guys you can studio till you drop with. They tins discuss fashion, evidence poster your great new shoes, buy their scrubbing merchandise from the same role you do and have no qualms roughly owning a manicure, pedicure or facial. You tins actually TALK to these guys roughly something other than sports, cars and other traditionally male interests. These are the guys you can profits to the opera, symphony and ballet. The perfect man, right? Depends on whom you dialogue to.

Let's step back a minute and seeming at the where and how of the life of the metrosexual man. Simply put, he is a result of feminism and the changing roles and related expectations of women. As women have moved into (previously) male dominated environments and roles, it has caused a incantation in the male-female balance. Women are now active partaker in industry, politics and the professions- to name a few. However, as they have left their old jobs as homemakers and full-time domestic caregivers, they left a lot of empty hiatus to be filled. Childcare providers and the domestic washing trade could provide some of this. The problem was all the "other" objective women had always done.

Men were therefore called upon to contribute more to the raising of children, housework, cooking, shopping, argentum Their sons were beings exposed a new role model, a papa who took on jobs and chores that had traditionally belonged to mom. Young son themselves were also entity tapped to do housework and help with siblings, exposing them to a new funds of creature a male in our society. Women had become more independent and financially and professionally successful. Men had become more domestic and had to soften their way as they moved into more traditionally feminine roles.

A new social lineup had evolved that worked for everyone, right? Not necessarily. We never profits on something new without appointing something up. So, what has been discarded? Clearly defined social roles and the anticipation that come with them- for starters. Suddenly there was a new plan for how men and women should relate- especially in the den of dating. However, it was unclear and depending upon whom you asked, you would get a different answer. Usher in the confusion and disappointment surrounding dating in the new millennium.

Women ask dispute such as:

* who asks who out

* who calls who

* who pays

* who makes decisions closely where to go, etc.

* What are the anticipation at the end of the date

* how soon should we become intimate

Women trace on:

* his lack of encouragement in goal or asking her out

* his expectations that they testament go dutch

* how he never offers to choice her up

* his overall avoidance of assertiveness

* his saying he will call, but not following through

* his too polished kind which lacks a certain spark of masculinity

* his holding longer to get ready than she does

* his crudeness or over aggressive style

* his expectations that they will have sex

Men ask misgiving such as:

* what do women want

* why should a guy have to ask a fellow out

* why should the fellow always pay

* why do women opinion they need sensitivity, etc., but see guys like that as wimps

* why do girlfriend give out such mixed signals in general

* why do women seem to reject nice guys and go for jerks

* why can't a hens be the aggressor

Men shadow on:

* girlfriend acting spoiled

* girlfriend wanting their independence, money but not wanting equal debt and weight

* women expecting a fold from men, but offering little in return

* women not knowing what they want

* girlfriend playing games

* women's lottery to "bad boys"

Both women and men verbalize that they are OK with the turning roles that have evolved for them in our society, yet I hear both dialogue wistfully approx how it was in previous generations. Back then; everyone KNEW what was expected from him or her. Life was predictable. Dating was scads simpler and "safer". Men were men and women were raised to be wives and homemakers. We have gained something and we have lost something. One thing for sure, we can never have it both ways.

What's the answer? It is never simple. However, it does involve better copulation in general between men and women. Singles conditions to clarify for themselves (first), what stripes of counterpart they seek and what their anticipation from a closeness really are. Once a person is clear about what they must have and what they can't live with, they necessities to go out and HONESTLY seek that. Knowing what you event is good. If you turn off someone by your frankness, he/she was not the someone for you.

So, begin with a self-assessment. Then go out and pursue interests and environments, which maximize your danger of appointment compatible singles. And remember, there is no perfect person. He may be overly fussy with his hair, revenue longer in the bath than bulk women, be less ambitious in his maintenance life than you are and put your cooking to shame. However, if he's sensitive to YOUR needs, easy to dialogue to and entertainment to be with, great with youngster and very supportive of your goals, he may be the fellow of your dreams.

Toni Coleman, MSW is a licensed psychotherapist, junction wagon and originator of https://supperfashion.com/product-category/womens-fashion/intimates-womens/ . As a recognized expert, Toni has been quoted in many local and national publications including: The Chicago Tribune, The Orlando Sentinel, New York Daily News, Indianapolis Star and Newsweek newsprint and Family Circle, Woman's Day, Cosmo Style, Tango, Men?s Health, Star (regularly quoted corpse language expert), and Nirvana magazines. She has been featured on ; discovery. and . Toni offers dating help and association approval as the weekly love and dating wagon on the KTRS Radio Morning Show (St. Louis, MO) and through her syndicated column, ?Dear Dating Coach.? Her newsletter, The Art Of Intimacy, helps over fifty-five hundred subscribers with its dating and junction advice. Toni is a organ of The International Coach Federation, The International Association Of Coaches and The National Association of Social Workers.

[joannalannister]

It’s always bothered me that Gandalf comes back from the dead. The Red Wedding for me in Lord of the Rings is the mines of Moria, and when Gandalf falls — it’s a devastating moment! [...] And then in the next book, he shows up again, and [...] ehh, he’s more or less the same as always, except he’s more powerful. It always felt a little bit like a cheat to me. And as I got older and considered it more, it also seemed to me that death doesn’t make you more powerful. That’s, in some ways, me talking to Tolkien in the dialogue, saying, “Yeah, if someone comes back from being dead, especially if they suffer a violent, traumatic death, they’re not going to come back as nice as ever." That’s what I was trying to do, and am still trying to do, with the Lady Stoneheart character. [...]

And poor Beric Dondarrion, who was set up as the foreshadowing of all this, every time he’s a little less Beric. His memories are fading, he’s got all these scars, he’s becoming more and more physically hideous, because he’s not a living human being anymore. His heart isn’t beating, his blood isn’t flowing in his veins, he’s a wight, but a wight animated by fire instead of by ice, now we’re getting back to the whole fire and ice thing.

--GRRM, when asked about Jon Snow being “drained by the experience of coming back from the dead”

I feel like this is relevant to what I was saying about Jon and the WftD, before this interview came out:

“In the cold night air the wound was smoking. […] He never felt the fourth knife. Only the cold …”

and this juxtaposition of cold and heat here is fascinating to me, you have the cold of the night’s watch, their resistance to Jon’s causes, and then you have Jon’s smoking, fiery passion to save everyone literally bleeding out of him as he dies

P l e a s e click the above link, I don’t wanna explain all those ice vs fire thoughts again, but anyways, to me, the War for the Dawn seems like the ice cold of the Others trying to destroy the fiery passion of humanity, and to chain and enslave humanity and turn everyone into their ice slaves to do their bidding, with no will of their own.

When the Watch stabs Jon Snow, they do the Others’ work for them, doing the work of ice, turning Jon cold and dead, and Melisandre is gonna have to bring Jon back in TWOW, lend him some fire to be able to do the work that he left unfinished. 

And if Jon’s a “wight animated by fire” to me it feels like Jon is being brought back for this one specific purpose - to fight in the War for the Dawn - so once that’s over, does he ... idk what words I’m looking for here ... expire? release his hold on life? Whatever it is Jon’s gonna do, I keep saying, I don’t believe Jon’s gonna be around after the War for the Dawn, and I really don’t think Dany or Tyrion are gonna survive it either. 

and this is reallyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy really speculative now, ok, im just spitballing in the absence of any new book material, but I’ve wondered for a while if Benjen is being held hostage by the Others, like “Aliens hold the initial human hostage in stasis to study him or use him as bait or w/e” kind of thing in a scifi. Like, the Others need an example of humanity’s “fire” for mass destruction or s/t idk. 

And so what I’m wondering now is, if the Others have this sort of ... “token” fire to use against humanity 

what if

one of the prophecy’s rhaegar read predicted that, predicted benjen being captured (not by name or w/e, just something)

and Rhaegar was trying to counter this prophecy, by building his Team Humanity of three fire babies

(oh, heyyyyy, Elia’s sigil was a sun, that’s pretty fucking cool, Rhaegar must have been pretty happy with that while he was making his first two babies)

so anyways

Rhaegar was trying to counter whatever the prophecy said the others were trying to do, with some sort of, for lack of a better phrase, “token” ice teammate, so he becomes quite enchanted by the idea of Lyanna, to create his third fire baby with a touch of “ice”

except as we all know, you can’t force prophecy, prophecy has a mind of its own, and maybe the prophecy was really about how jon would die by cold/ice and be resurrected in fire

idk, these are only half formed thoughts, I’m just spitballing here, please do not take this as gospel truth, you do not need to respond with a 5000 word essay on why i am wrong, this is just 10 minutes of a free thinking exercise, chill

i think this idea of “fire wights” is important tho

(and yes, if GRRM can write a story about a giant spider falling in love, then fuck yes I think GRRM can write a story about a fire wight falling in love with a doomed living girl, asoiaf is all about love, my god. i wish i had a gif of bart simpson on a skateboard wearing a jon/dany tshirt . “cliche” 👀  godddddd, have i told you all how much i love grrm’s doomed love stories, my godddddddd, i loved them in dreamsongs, i loved them, i am soooooooooo ready for twow, i am sooooooo ready for jon/dany in the books. so ready.) 

((the idea of “fire wight falling in love with living girl” makes me love J/D even more, it’s doomed, doooooomed, doomed like The Lonely Songs of Laren Dorr, I still haven’t recovered from that. SO READY FOR TWOW. SO READY.)

#*whispers* so ready #asoiaf speculation #/ #// #/// #fire wights #beric dondarrion #lady stoneheart #jon snow #grrm #lannister thoughts

[westworld-daily]

Jimmi Simpson Talks Tailored Clothing and Westworld Predictions

Spoiler alert: Jimmi Simpson isn’t done with Westworld yet. At least he hopes he isn’t, as do the rest of us, who marveled at his character’s transformation from earnest, rumpled William into series-defining dark cowboy over the course of the show’s hit first season. Luckily, Simpson predicts there’s at least “six or seven” seasons of Westworld plot in the works: “It’s like The Odyssey,” he told us. And we’ll happily go along for the ride. Not only did Westworld deliver gripping performances—shoutout Evan Rachel Wood—and mind-melting plot twists, it was low-key one of the most stylish shows on television. Nearly every character’s costume in the futuristic Wild West theme park balanced historical accuracy with a pinch of contemporary trendiness. And Simpson’s character wore band-collar shirts, patterned silk scarves, black jeans, and cowboy boots with the best of them.

We sat down with the actor on the set of GQ Style’s Spring fashion portfolio—where he and some of our other favorite guys of the moment rocked the season’s best relaxed tailoring—to discuss what’s next for him, for William, and for his newly reinvigorated personal style. Check it out below, and stay tuned for the full shoot later this week.

What did you make of the overwhelmingly positive response to Westworld? I was delighted. It’s some of the work I’m proudest of. A lot of times, I do work either on stage or on small-scale television that a lot of people miss. It’s so nice to feel proud of something that people are engaged in.

It certainly struck a chord. Really—it’s so pertinent. We’re dealing with our own waves of revolution. And it was the perfect time for [Westworld writers] Jonah [Nolan] and Lisa [Joy] to talk about it.

One thing that really struck me about Westworld was the costume design. From the moment your character, William, arrived on the show by walking into basically a futuristic Tom Ford cowboy store— It was just gorgeous. The same person that brought the style into that scene was responsible for all the historically accurate style—or intentionally inaccurate style—throughout the whole show, [costume designer] Ane Crabtree. She did every single choice that blew your mind. And it’s because she’s so passionate about it.

Did you borrow any ideas from her after filming? Back in the day, they did things a little more fitted than I’m used to doing, and Ane encouraged me to do that in my life and have a little bit more structure in my look. I’ve always been a little bit Western-leaning anyway. Tailoring is something I think most, like, straight men aren’t aware of how amazing the effect is. Especially being a skinny guy. We learned from the baggy ’90s situation, where the idea was you’re thin, so surround yourself in fabric. But as I got older, I realized—when you cut the fabric away, you stop looking so skinny!

Sure, and now that dress codes are relaxing, wearing one is a much more conscious choice. Oh, it’s so true. I guess that’s why they’re looking sharper. The suit now is less a uniform that you’re putting on to go to school and it’s a choice, a choice to look better, as opposed to looking how you have to look.

Do you have any personal style inspirations? It would be helpful if I did. I think I’ve gotten most from the activity I’m doing, which is generally skateboarding. It’s about simplicity, and layers, and comfort. I think a well-fit T-shirt and jeans can just kill, style-wise. At least that’s what I tell myself, because that’s what I’m going to keep wearing till I die.

You skateboard? I mean, I’m 41, so I moved to the longboard when I hit 30, but it’s a lifesaver. Not only does it eclipse my time for parking in Los Angeles, because I keep my skateboard in my trunk at all times, but it helps me feel kind of young. I’ve skateboarded my whole life, and I’m going to keep enjoying it until my age prohibits me. My buddies who play golf, it seems to me a very passive choice of like, I’m old, I’m tired, and this is now my time where I don’t have to talk to anybody. And I’m like, Later, dudes!

What’s your next project? I just wrapped David Robert Mitchell’s movie Under the Silver Lake. He’s the guy who did It Follows, and he’s written this 150-page opus to L.A., and he’s fabricated this entire history and it’s fabulous, and Andrew Garfield’s our lead and he’s so talented.

How do you find the transition from television to film? It’s all its own art form, each one. I do a lot of theater, a lot of television, a lot of film. Even more than the medium, I think it’s project-specific as to how your craft changes. But it’s always different. And that’s one of the reasons I fell for this career, is because no matter which job you’re doing in acting, you have to be doing something different or else you’re not doing your job, basically. So it’s always new, and I personally get off on things being new and fresh. You always have to be pushing your boundaries. I try to avoid doing long-term roles that don’t grow or change. I’ve been in this business for 20 years, and I haven’t had a long-running sitcom or anything that’s a little more technical, because I think I’d start to lose my shit.

Everyone’s curious about Westworld season two and beyond. What do you know about your potential involvement? So far, my involvement in that is unclear. If they have more for William, I would assume it would be a whole new kind of story. Because I feel like this story, the love affair [with Evan Rachel Wood’s character, Dolores], we know everything, we know what happens, we don’t have to belabor that point. But if they have a reason—I mean, it was the greatest set I’ve ever worked on. But we’re all speculating what season two will be, and I think it’ll be something that will blow our minds, to the degree that the first season did. But I wouldn’t be surprised if William showed up season three or something.

#westworld #cast #jimmi simpson #articles #interviews #GQ Magazine #articles 2017 #interviews 2017

[felipemx]

40 powerful concepts for understanding the world.

Some are complex so forgive me for oversimplifying, but the main purpose is to incite curiosity. Okay, here we go: 

- Causal Reductionism: Things rarely happen for just 1 reason. Usually, outcomes result from many causes conspiring together. But our minds cannot process such a complex arrangement, so we tend to ascribe outcomes to single causes, reducing the web of causality to a mere thread. 

- Ergodicity: A die rolled 100 times has equal probabilities to 100 dice rolled once; rolling a die is “ergodic”. But if the die gets chipped after 10 throws so it’s likelier to roll 4, then 1 die 100 times =/= 100 dice once (non-ergodic). Many treat non-ergodic systems as ergodic. 

- Dunning-Kruger Effect: Awareness of the limitations of cognition (thinking) requires a proficiency in metacognition (thinking about thinking). In other words, being stupid makes you too stupid to realize how stupid you are. 

- Emergence: When many simple objects interact with each other, they can form a system that has qualities that the objects themselves don’t. Examples: neurons creating consciousness, traders creating the stock-market, simple mathematical rules creating “living” patterns.

- Cultural Parasitism: An ideology parasitizes the mind, changing the host’s behavior so they spread it to other people. Therefore, a successful ideology (the only kind we hear about) is not configured to be true; it is configured only to be easily transmitted and easily believed.

- Cumulative Error: Mistakes grow. Beliefs are built on beliefs, so one wrong thought can snowball into a delusional worldview. Likewise, as an inaccuracy is reposted on the web, more is added to it, creating fake news. In our networked age, cumulative errors are the norm. 

- Survivorship Bias: We overemphasize the examples that pass a visibility threshold e.g. our understanding of serial killers is based on the ones who got caught. Equally, news is only news if it’s an exception rather than the rule, but since it’s what we see we treat it as the rule. 

- Simpson’s Paradox: A trend can appear in groups of data but disappear when these groups are combined. This effect can easily be exploited by limiting a dataset so that it shows exactly what one wants it to show. Thus: beware of even the strongest correlations.

- Condorcet Paradox: a special instance of Simpson’s paradox applied to elections, in which a populace prefers candidate A to candidate B, candidate B to C, and yet candidate C to A. This occurs because the majority that favors C is misleadingly divided among different groups. 

- Limited Hangout: A common tactic by journos & politicians of revealing intriguing but relatively innocent info to satisfy curiosity and prevent discovery of more incriminating info. E.g. a politician accused of snorting cocaine may confess to having smoked marijuana at college. 

- Focusing Illusion: Nothing is ever as important as what you’re thinking about while you’re thinking about it. E.g. worrying about a thing makes the thing being worried about seem worse than it is. As Marcus Aurelius observed, “We suffer more often in imagination that in reality.” 

- Concept Creep: As a social issue such as racism or sexual harassment becomes rarer, people react by expanding their definition of it, creating the illusion that the issue is actually getting worse. I explain the process in detail here: How progress blinds people to progress. 

- Streetlight Effect: People tend to get their information from where it’s easiest to look. E.g. the majority of research uses only the sources that appear on the first page of Google search results, regardless of how factual they are. Cumulatively, this can skew an entire field. 

- Belief Bias: Arguments we'd normally reject for being idiotic suddenly seem perfectly logical if they lead to conclusions we approve of. In other words, we judge an argument’s strength not by how strongly it supports the conclusion but by how strongly *we* support the conclusion. 

- Pluralistic Ignorance: Phenomenon where a group goes along with a norm, even though all of the group members secretly hate it, because each mistakenly believes that the others approve of it. (See also: Abilene Paradox) 

- The Petrie Multiplier: In fields in which men outnumber women, such as in STEM, women receive an underestimated amount of harassment due to the fact that there are more potential givers than receivers of harassment. (See also: Lotka–Volterra equations).

- Woozle Effect: An article makes a claim without evidence, is then cited by another, which is cited by another, and so on, until the range of citations creates the impression that the claim has evidence, when really all articles are citing the same uncorroborated source. 

- Tocqueville Paradox: As the living standards in a society rise, the people’s expectations of the society rise with it. The rise in expectations eventually surpasses the rise in living standards, inevitably resulting in disaffection (and sometimes populist uprisings). 

- Ultimate Attribution Error: We tend to attribute good acts by allies to their character, and bad acts by allies to situational factors. For opponents, it’s reversed: good acts are attributed to situational factors, and bad acts to character. 

- Golden Hammer: When someone, usually an intellectual who has gained a cultish following for popularizing a concept, becomes so drunk with power he thinks he can apply that concept to everything.

- Pareto Principle: Pattern of nature in which ~80% of effects result from ~20% of causes. E.g. 80% of wealth is held by 20% of people, 80% of computer errors result from 20% of bugs, 80% of crimes are committed by 20% of criminals, 80% of box office revenue comes from 20% of films 

- Nirvana Fallacy: When people reject a thing because it compares unfavorably to an ideal that in reality is unattainable. E.g. condemning capitalism due to the superiority of imagined socialism, condemning ruthlessness in war due to imagining humane (but unrealistic) ways to win. 

- Emotive Conjugation: Synonyms can yield positive or negative impressions without changing the basic meaning of a word. Example: someone who is obstinate (neutral term) can be “headstrong” (positive) or “pig-headed” (negative). This is the basis for much bias in journalism. 

- Anentiodromia: An excess of something can give rise to its opposite. E.g. A society that is too liberal will be tolerant of tyrants, who will eventually make it illiberal. I explain more here: Alex Jones Was Victimized by One Oligopoly. But He Perpetuated Another.

- Halo Effect: When a person sees an agreeable characteristic in something or someone, they assume other agreeable characteristics. Example: if a Trump supporter sees someone wearing a MAGA cap, he’s likely to think that person is also decent, honest, hard-working, etc. 

- Outgroup Homogeneity Effect: We tend to view outgroup members as all the same e.g. believing all Trump supporters would see someone wearing a MAGA cap, and think that person is also decent, honest, hard-working, etc. 

- Matthew Principle: Advantage begets advantage, leading to social, economic, and cultural oligopolies. The richer you are the easier it is to get even richer, the more recognition a scientist receives for a discovery the more recognition he’ll receive for future discoveries, etc. 

- Peter Principle: People in a hierarchy such as a business or government will be promoted until they suck at their jobs, at which point they will remain where they are. As a result, the world is filled with people who suck at their jobs. 

- Loki’s Wager: Fallacy where someone tries to defend a concept from criticism, or dismiss it as a myth, by unduly claiming it cannot be defined. E.g. “God works in mysterious ways” (god of the gaps), “race is biologically meaningless” (Lewontin’s fallacy).

- Subselves: We use different mental processes in different situations, so each of us is not a single character but a collection of different characters, who take turns to commandeer the body depending on the situation. There is an office “you”, a lover “you”, an online “you”, etc. 

- Goodhart’s Law: When a measure becomes a goal, it ceases to become a measure. E.g. British colonialists tried to control snakes in India. They measured progress by number of snakes killed, offering money for snake corpses. People responded by breeding snakes & killing them. 

- Radical Phase Transition (my term): Extremist movements can behave like solids (tyrannies), liquids (insurgencies), and gases (conspiracy theories). Pressuring them causes them to go from solid => liquid => gas. Leaving them alone causes them to go from gas => liquid => solid. 

- Legibility: We see a complex natural system, assume that because it *looks* messy that it must be disordered, then impose our own order on it to make it “legible”. But in removing the messiness we remove essential components of the system that we couldn’t grasp, and it fails.

- Shifting Baseline Syndrome: Frog says to Fish, “how’s the water?” Fish replies, “what’s water?” We become blind to what we’re familiar with. And since the world is always changing, and we're always getting used to it, we can even become blind to the slow march of catastrophe. 

- Availability Cascade: When a new concept enters the arena of ideas, people react to it, thereby amplifying it. The idea thus becomes more popular, causing even more people to amplify it by reacting to it, until everyone feels the need to talk about it. 

- Reactance Theory: When someone is restricted from expressing a POV, or pressured to adopt a different POV, they usually react by believing their original POV even more. For a detailed example read my piece on my attempt to deradicalize a neo-Nazi: How not to de-radicalize a Twitter neo-nazi.

- Predictive Coding: There is no actual movement on a TV screen; your brain invents it. There are no actual spaces between spoken words; your brain inserts them. Human perception is like predictive text, replacing the unknown with the expected. Predictive Coding leads to… 

- Apophenia: We impose our imaginations on arrangements of data, seeing patterns where no such patterns exist. A common form of Apophenia is…

- Narrative Fallacy: When we see a sequence of facts we interpret them as a story by threading them together into an imagined chain of cause & effect. If a drug addict commits suicide we assume the drug habit led to the suicide, even if it didn’t. Another form of Apophenia is… 

- Pareidolia: For aeons predators stalked us in undergrowth & shadow. In such times survival favored the paranoid — those who could discern a wolf from the vaguest of outlines. This paranoia preserved our species, but cursed us with pareidolia, so we now see wolves even in the skies.

And that’s it! There are many other ideas but these are the ones that came to mind first (availability bias), and I think they provide good springboards for understanding a wide range of phenomena.

Retirado de: Gurwinder Bhogal.

#comportamento #texto

[absurdfuture]

THE “WHERE’S MY ELEPHANT?” THEORY OF HISTORY

According to my dad, there are two major theories of history. The first, the “conspiracy theory,” holds that there exists a shadowy elite behind all the various outrages which constitute the whole grim story of mankind, deliberately manufacturing evil to suit their nefarious designs. The advantage of subscribing to the conspiracy theory is that if you were to find some way of unraveling the conspiracy, you would be able to make everything all better.But the second theory, which my dad personally would always say he subscribed to, is the “cock-up theory,” holds that all the bad things that happen are essentially just mistakes: that it is human to err and so, ultimately, nothing can ever really improve. Incremental gains, sure, can sometimes be made, but someone is always bound to cock things up again.My dad tended to raise the cock-up theory against my naïve attempts at teenage dinner-table Marxism, since he assumed that any sort of central state intervention — under which he included any attempt to make things better for people using politics — was likely to result in more cock-ups. So I guess the distinction between these two folk historiographies has always bugged me.Which is why I'm going to sketch a third one. Call this the “where’s my elephant?” theory of history (I got this phrase from someone who follows me on twitter who goes by “JamesFerraroFan”).The “where’s my elephant?” theory takes it name, of course, from The Simpsons episode in which Bart gets an elephant (Season 5, episode 17, to be precise). For those of you who don't know the episode: Bart wins a radio contest where you have to answer a phone call with the phrase, “KBBL is going to give me something stupid.” That “something stupid” turns out to be either $10,000, or “the gag prize”: a full-grown African elephant. Much to the presenters’ surprise, Bart chooses the elephant — which is a problem for the radio station, since they don't actually have an elephant to give him. After some attempts at negotiation (the presenters offer Principal Skinner $10,000 to go about with his pants pulled down for the rest of the school year; the presenters offer to use the $10,000 to turn Skinner into “some sort of lobster-like creature”), Bart finds himself kicked out of the radio station, screaming “where's my elephant?”The story is picked up by the news (Kent Brockman: “Isn't that what we're all asking in our own lives? Where's my elephant? I know that's what I've been asking.”), which leads to the presenters being threatened with the loss of their jobs, which leads to them to obtain the elephant for Bart. Bart has won his joke prize, but now he must deal with the joke's consequences. Predictably, the elephant proves impossible for the Simpson family to keep — it costs them a huge amount of money and does a significant amount of damage to local real estate. In the end, they give the elephant away to an animal sanctuary. A few seasons later (in the episode in which the Simpson family hosts Apu’s wedding in their back garden), Bart is barely able to remember that he even had an elephant at all.In short then, the “where’s my elephant?” theory holds the following:If you give someone a joke option, they will take it.The joke option is a (usually) a joke option for a reason, and choosing it will cause everyone a lot of problems.In time, the joke will stop being funny, and people will just sort of lose interest in it.No one ever learns anything.So what evidence is there that the question “where’s my elephant?” has somehow been in the background throughout the history of our species, the driving force behind all human events?Well, here’s one somewhat news-relevant example: On Friday, the UK will officially leave the European Union. In a sense, this event will conclude the almost four years of political turmoil that have raged in my home country following the June 2016 Brexit referendum. But of course “in a sense” is doing quite a bit of heavy lifting here. In truth, the agreement to withdraw passed by Boris Johnson's government only really settles a few formalities about what will happen the day the UK ceases to be an EU member state, with much of Britain's future relationship with Europe still to be agreed upon (questions of how trade will work, how the borders will work, etc.). Given the difficulties still to come, it is no surprise that the conservative Tory party — which most recently campaigned on a platform of pretty well ending Brexit, and indeed politics in general, forever — have moved to ban the word “Brexit” after January 31. Brexit will remain with us — and yet, even as it continues to happen, it will be forced into feeling like a distant memory, the after-image of some unpleasantness we no longer wish even to understand.And perhaps it was the same with Boaty McBoatface. In hindsight, everyone should have always known that people were going to vote for Brexit — because a few months before the referendum, a poll to name a new vessel owned by the British National Environment Research Council was topped, following a social media campaign, by the suggestion “Boaty McBoatface”. In the end though, the public were denied the opportunity to call a research vessel something manifestly very silly, with the then-Science Minister Jo Johnson (Boris’s centrist, anti-Brexit brother) intervening to ensure that the boat would be called “RRS Sir David Attenborough.” “Boaty McBoatface” still became the name of something — but only one of Attenborough’s remote-controlled submersibles. As with Brexit, the Boaty McBoatface poll saw the public voting en masse for the joke option, the option no-one ever expected them to choose — in part, one suspects, simply because the people in charge had not thought to plan for what would happen if they did so.The difference, of course, is that the Boaty McBoatface vote was trivial enough to be dismissed, but then-Prime Minister David Cameron had held the Brexit referendum in order to resolve an internecine conflict within his own party, which made that act of voting for the joke option significant enough to trigger a constitutional crisis.HOW THE PENTAGON MANAGED TO FORGET THAT PEOPLE WILL INEVITABLY CHOOSE THE JOKE OPTION WHILE TALKING TO PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP IS BEYOND ME.Similar forces were at work when Donald Trump was elected towards the end of the same year. In part, “similar forces” here mean a resurgent nativism, but it’s also significant that for more than a decade, the idea of “President Trump” had been used as a punchline by comedies like The Simpsons. “Donald Trump has been saying he will run for president as a Republican,” quipped Seth Myers at the 2011 White House Correspondent's Dinner, “which is surprising, because I just assumed he was running for president as a joke.” Trump was never supposed to become the president; the mere idea of him doing so somehow upset the order of reality, and that was a huge part of his appeal. In almost exactly the same way, Boris Johnson, Trump’s UK analogue, first rose to prominence via his appearances on the BBC panel comedy show Have I Got News For You?, where he excelled at playing a blustering, upper-class twit Tory MP character called “Boris Johnson.” By the mid-2010s, Johnson was widely presumed to be a future Tory leader — but only because people had first had the idea “what if Boris Johnson was the Prime Minister?” pop into their heads as a joke.Meanwhile, earlier this year, Trump (allegedly) decided to have Iranian commander Qasem Soleimani assassinated because Pentagon officials tacked on the option of doing so in a briefing to “make the other options seem reasonable”. How the Pentagon managed to forget that people will inevitably choose the joke option while talking to President Donald Trump is beyond me.In my dad’s “conspiracy theory,” the driving force behind history is malice; on his “cock-up theory,” history is propelled by incompetence. But according to the “where’s my elephant?” theory, history is shaped by something rather more positive: desire. Specifically, the desire operative behind the “where’s my elephant?” theory is the desire for transgression. Humor, after all, exists at the limits of our world: the comedian Stewart Lee’s theory of clowning says that the purpose of jokes is to set out, and thus legislate, the boundaries of acceptable behavior. To make the “joke option” a reality, then, is to transgress the limits the joke itself sets out.Sometimes this can be joyous. Consider this oral history of the time the dog ate that guy's donor heart on the teen drama One Tree Hill, which happened (it seems) because the writers came up with it as a joke option, then essentially baited themselves into choosing it for real. But more often (and certainly when it comes to things more consequential than teen dramas), it’s a disaster — because now that the joke option has actually happened, it's no longer locatable at the margins of possibility, so it’s no longer particularly funny. Then all you’re left with is something that there were previously very good reasons not to let happen — and everyone is going to have to adapt around them. No wonder a public that was already bored enough with reality to vote for something as ridiculous as Brexit lost interest pretty quickly when it turned out that Brexit was in fact a very hard thing to do.So how should we respond to all this? Well, one major reaction to both Brexit and Trump was a sort of renewed call for everyone to be simply a lot more sensible. But this is strategically very stupid, like thinking the solution to your kid loudly demanding ice cream for breakfast is to offer them broccoli instead. Probably the closest we’ve yet come to using the “where’s my elephant?” theory for good instead of evil was in Britain in 2017, when we almost managed to get Labour party leader Jeremy Corbyn elected prime minister using memes.Back then, the idea of a Corbyn premiership seemed, if not completely ridiculous, then at least fantastical — in large part, because the media had spent the past year and a bit making it seem so (indeed, Corbyn was only ever let onto the ballot for the 2015 Labour leadership election as a sort of joke option in the first place — endorsed by members of Parliament who never thought he would win). Unfortunately, by 2019, the quite-good 2017 result had lent the idea of “Prime Minister Corbyn” the smack of realism, and Labour was unable to capture the same utopian joy.Perhaps though there is still a clue here. If the “where’s my elephant?” theory is broadly correct, and history is driven by desire, then, well, not all of our desires are simply aimed at transgression for its own sake. In the “where’s my elephant?” theory, the world-spirit is rendered as Bart Simpson, perennially a 10-year-old scamp (if we wanted to historicize the historiography, perhaps we could speculate that the “where’s my elephant?” theory is the product that makes it impossible for everyone, regardless of age, to grow up).Bart can, yes, be mischievous and destructive, but not all his desires are anti-social ones. He is the kid who gets the principal fired after his dog runs loose in the school vents; who makes 900 dollary-doo collect calls to Australia; who responds to the command “go to bed” by going, instead, “to bread. ”But he is also a sweet boy who needs his family’s love and wants his mom and dad to be proud of him — the Bart of episodes like “Marge Be Not Proud”. If we are doomed to be Bart Simpson, then we must figure out how to be that Bart Simpson, instead.

#politics #dystopia #the simpsons

[freshleadprovider]

The Future of Local Search: 20+ Predictions for 2020

As the decade draws to a close, here at BrightLocal we’re preparing to don our flapper gear and sashay our way into the Roaring Twenties 2.0 in style. To celebrate the end of a very eventful year — the year in which that Google My Business survey, BERT, and of course, the Bedlam Update, took place — we’ve reached out to some of the industry’s leading figures. Read on as we bring out our crystal ball and discover what the top experts in local are predicting for the year ahead. The return of Google+? (Kind of) As Google continues to introduce new functions (such as the ability to follow Local Guides) theories of the resurgence of Google as a social network have begun to emerge. Spam-fighting pro and latest addition to Sterling Sky’s expanding team Jason Brown speculates: Google will launch a new service similar to G+ and a new community will be built around Local Guides and reviewers. This ties in particularly with his second prediction, that Google will rely more heavily on user-generated content (UGC) than ever before: Google is going to increase its demand and push for UGC, photos, reviews, Q&A and ‘Know this business?’ And Jason’s not alone in his thinking – Local Product Strategist at Rio SEO and GMB Gold Product Expert Krystal Taing predicts that if local businesses don’t start playing the UGC-game, they’ll miss out in a major way: All brands need to get up to speed on the many different ways user-generated content can impact your local visibility and rankings, from consumer reviews to suggested updates to local listings to GMB Q&A and beyond. Active listening, the ability to respond in real-time, and then using that UGC to drive greater visibility and engagement are key. Spam be gone! When we reached out to the experts for their 2020 predictions, there was one word on everyone’s lips – spam (no, not that kind). Sadly, despite the Nov. 2019 Local Search Update (aka the Bedlam Update), it doesn’t look like we’ll be seeing the back of GMB spam just yet. Local SEO Consultant at Online Ownership Tim Capper shares his thoughts on the controversial issue: Google has attempted to get [spam] under control but I don’t see it getting better in 2020. If Google does want to get a handle on this they need to close API loopholes and expand ‘bad’ address databases to other countries, not just the US – there is spam outside of the US too! Meanwhile, Crystal Horton of Accelerate Marketing remains optimistic about the spam outlook come 2020… I’m hopeful that fake listings and fake reviews will start to decrease in rankings once data from review place topics and service area specificity become more prominent. …Attorney Sync’s Gyi Tsakalakis offers a happy medium… I hope 2020 will bring major improvements to Google’s ability to fight spam in local packs. It’s absolutely out of control. Unfortunately, I neither predict nor expect that much to change. While there’s been a ton of local flux recently, there’s still no shortage of spam, at least in legal SERPs. …And Powered by Search’s Matt Lacuesta suggests taking things into your own hands: Spam in GMB is rampant and I think we’ll see Google try to address it more in the coming year, but don’t plan on that solving the problem. In 2020 business owners and agencies alike will need to actively monitor their local search landscape and report suspected spam.  Finally, GMB Gold Product Expert, Steady Demand’s Ben Fisher – an ever-shining light of optimism – told us: 2020 will be the year Google catches more spam than ever before…   …Just kidding! If anything, I think spam will increase. While Google states that the spam that is in the system is small compared to real data, the system is too easily gamed and fake listings along with fake reviews are on the rise. Will Neural Matching help curtail it? Maybe, but even so, spammers will find another way and Google is always a step behind. The redressal form was a great first step, but it is not enough. Pay-to-play and ads, ads, ads Last year, one of the most prominent topics among local SEOs (partially owing to that GMB summer survey) was pay-to-play. In 2020, director of SEO at Postali Dan Foland continues to anticipate the rising popularity of paid options:  I see the future of local SEO going more towards paid offerings which will make it more difficult for businesses relying on organic visibility. Google has been aggressively testing more local ad placements and even sent out a survey asking GMB users their opinions on making aspects of GMB paid. It’s clear that Google is starting to focus more on monetizing local search and GMB and I don’t see it slowing down anytime soon. Meanwhile, Tim Capper warns GMB users to keep an eye out for ads making their way into more and more places: You should expect this ad encroachment to increase and to keep an eye on what is being displayed in your business’s knowledge panel. In fact, it’s entirely possible that the first page of SERPs will be entirely filled with various types of paid ads – at least that’s what Kickpoint’s Dana DiTomaso is anticipating: Paid search is going to continue to take over more of local SEO when it comes to the ‘traditional’ SERP. We’ll see results where paid is the majority of the first page, along with Google specific products, such as Local Service Ads. Given the increasing frustration with Google My Business (summarized nicely by Optimisey’s Andrew Cock-Starkey as a “great big dumpster fire”), can we expect paid features to emerge? According to Andrew, this might be the only way for Google to feasibly clean things up: One way Google could clean up GMB is to make it a paid for product – or at least parts of it. Most people in local SEO saw the survey which slipped out from Google, asking about which services you might pay for,  how much, and which packages you’d get most value from. I’m going to stick my neck out and say before 2020 is done there will be some form of ‘pay to play’ system in Google My Business. Similarly, co-founder of Ignitor Digital Mary Bowling anticipates more ads within Google Places, stating: We’ll see more ads and more types of ads in more Google Places and Google will continue to find ways to insert itself into the online sales processes of local businesses. Alexa, tell me about voice search As if the year ‘2020’ didn’t sound futuristic enough, it looks like we’ll be seeing even more of an increase in the use of voice search, AI, and other similar techniques. Digital Strategist Shane Barker predicts voice search will have increasing importance in local: There will be an increased focus on optimizing for voice search, even by local businesses. Though you might think machine learning happens mostly online, we can expect it to have some very real-world consequences. VP of Search at SearchLab Chicago Greg Gifford explains: Google is going to really push the entity angle in local even harder. We’ve seen so many patents around entity analysis and the newest patent involves using quality ‘repeat visits’ to a location as a ranking factor. I think Google (especially in local) wants to use real-world signals to rank businesses instead of links and content. Machine learning has finally allowed Google to gain a better understanding of entities, and those real-world signals are much more reliable than links and content. We’ll see physical visits, unlinked mentions, and reviews become some of the most important ranking factors. Making the most of GMB Two well-loved UK SEOs, Claire Carlile and Andy Simpson both touched on similar points when asked to get their crystal balls out. Referencing the myriad new features introduced to GMB in 2019, Claire commented: In GMB, new functionality will continue to roll out and businesses will need to take advantage of existing opportunities such as photos, Q&A, Google posts, product editor, short names, messaging, and reserve with google, as well as keeping an eye on new features as they emerge.  Businesses will need to actively engage with GMB as a communications channel to reach and respond to clients and potential clients. The importance of GMB will continue to grow and small businesses will do well to think of it as a CMS separate to that of their website. Similarly, Andy emphasized the importance of taking control of what’s visible to users on the SERPs: Taking control of how your business’s brand is displayed in the SERPs should be on everyone’s radar for 2020. When potential customers search for your brand by name, what appears on the first page of Google? It should almost be a given that your Google My Business listing should appear. In 2020 business owners large and small have to be aware and ‘take control’ of what is displayed on the first page of Google about your business and make sure it’s the best it can be. Meh, links When it comes to the conversation of link building, it’s hard for Gyi Tsakalakis’s famous catchphrase not to be the first thing that comes to mind – and really, we couldn’t justify calling this section anything else. But in all seriousness, here’s what Gyi had to say on the matter: I predict: Meh, links. Well, what did you expect? Continuing with the theme, owner of Rickety Roo Blake Denman shared his thoughts on the age-old practice: Meh, links (hat tip to Gyi for coining this).  All jokes aside, Blake suggested that local businesses should focus on “topically and locally-relevant link building.”  Zero is the loneliest number, actually Towards the end of the year, the local search community was rife with talks of the elusive ‘position zero’ and zero-click searches. PatientPop’s Joel Headley anticipates: With the broader SEO community focused on the growth of zero-click searches, local SEOs know that zero-click is the bread and butter of bringing customers to the front door of storefronts through phone calls and driving directions.  Andy Simpson elaborated on the current state of so-called zero-click SERPs, outlining the consequence we might expect it to have for local businesses: Users are finding what they need to know about your business directly from the Google search results. Your business address (including directions to it), phone number, and even customer reviews, so the user has no need to click through to your website. This could mean fewer clicks through to your site, less traffic and perhaps lower sales/bookings in some cases. Way back in early 2017 Mike Blumenthal called it “Google as your new homepage”, but should we now be thinking of it as “Google IS your homepage”?  Long live schema markup In addition to the state of SERPs, spam, and GMB features, our experts had plenty to say about the future of schema markup. Of course, when it came to discussing schema, CEO of Schema App Martha van Berkel, was the first person we turned to: 2020 is looking to be the year of schema markup (aka structured data). Why? Throughout 2019 we’ve seen an acceleration of features released and announcements pertaining to schema markup. On November 4th at the Google Webmaster Conference, one of the top trends was schema markup, with Google stating that they will be investing in more features in 2020. As we see more searches be for questions on mobile, desktop, and through typing and voice search, schema markup will make sure that the content, services, products, and locations are fully understood and stand out in these search channels. Shane Barker also anticipates that schema will be a prominent factor for local businesses in 2020: Local businesses that use structured data, especially for business information, will be more successful in their local SEO efforts. Further predictions We received so many insightful predictions from our experts in local, we couldn’t possibly fit them all in (on that note, be sure to follow us on Twitter where we’ll be sharing exclusive snippets from our conversations with the pros). But what else can we expect from Google in the year ahead? Ending on an optimistic note, Head of Search at Local SEO Guide Dan Leibson predicts we’ll have even more communication from the major players in 2020: Now that Danny Sullivan is providing comms for Google’s GEO products (like the Google My Business September Core Update), I would expect to get more information from Google around that product. Now how accurate it is is an entirely different discussion. He also suggests that Google will continue to localize SERPs in general: I think the biggest trend in all of search, the one no one is really talking about except AJ Kohn and myself, is that Google wants to be able to localize parts of all SERPs and SERP features. I expect this trend to aggressively continue in 2020. Join the conversation Now the experts have spoken, why not have your say? Will 2020 be the year spam is eradicated from GMB? Will the rise in no-click SERPs increase? Drop us a comment below with your predictions — if nothing else, we can all return to this post next year and laugh at the inevitable naivety and optimism a new decade brings with it. The post The Future of Local Search: 20+ Predictions for 2020 appeared first on BrightLocal. https://probdm.com/site/MzE4NA

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5 Hollywood Stories You See Everywhere (That Are Always BS)

Entertainment sites are facing a serious problem: There’s a limited number of things that happen every day, but their readers will click on an infinite amount of articles, as long as someone or something vaguely famous is involved. The solution? Follow the grand Internet tradition of making shit up. Print a headline saying “Bill Murray killed and ate Miley Cyrus!” and watch as it gets 100,000 shares before either of their publicists can deny it.

Now, all of us have fallen for stories like these in the past, but there are some particularly egregious types of bullshit articles that should really be setting off our hogwash alarms by now. Starting with …

#5. Stop Saying The Simpsons Predicted Stuff

The Internet is 80 percent porn, 70 percent fanfic on Tumblr, and 90 percent inaccurate statistics. Whatever’s left is made out of bullshit listicles about how some old Simpsons episode predicted today’s events. Apparently, they foresaw Donald Trump: Angry Half-Chewed Orange Starburst For President 15 years before it happened:

They also predicted that Lisa would be an adult by 2010, so …

But before you go proclaiming Matt Groening “King of the Psychics,” consider this: That episode aired in 2000. Guess what lying, hypocritical moron announced he’d be running for President in 2000? No no, the other one. Yes, Trump said he’d run for President under the Reform Party in 2000 (and had been talking about it since 1987), meaning The Simpsons predicted precisely squat. And as far as them “predicting” that President Trump would destroy the country … duhhhh. That’s like predicting grass will be green, or that a diaper will be loaded with shit.

Can anthropomorphic loaded diapers even legally run for president?

And we do this all. The. Fucking. Time. Unless some fat yellow dude destroys an entire city by pressing the wrong button at the power plant, it’s no big deal if real life imitates The Simpsons. It’s a topical show with damn near 600 episodes under its quarter-century-old belt. Of course there’s going to be overlap with reality — which hasn’t stopped sites like BuzzFeed from marveling over the matter. Let’s review their mind-blowing discoveries:

So the Simpsons made an irradiated food joke, and now Japan’s got irradiated fruit? That’s not a new idea. If anything, the vegetation around Chernobyl predicted The Simpsons. Oh, and the deformed Japanese veggies were bullshit anyway. Off to a good start, BuzzFeed!

OK. So. In 2004, a bunch of Ohio voting machines glitched and accidentally gave George W. Bush 4,000 extra votes. In 2008, the Simpsons satirized that incident. In 2012, it happened again for real. And that’s supposed to be a score for Homer and friends how? Just because your memory was crippled by all those ’90s nostalgia GIF parades doesn’t mean that the past suddenly didn’t happen, BuzzFeed.

This is probably the closest one: They successfully predicted that somebody who works with wild animals would eventually get attacked by one. Impressive. What’s next, claiming that The Simpsons predicted baseball players playing softball?

DICK TRACY, YOU ASSHOLES! THE JETSONS! EVEN THE FUCKING FLINTSTONES! Somebody got paid for this list! You know what, we’re moving on before this gives us an aneurysm.

Arrrrghhh! Too late!

#4. People Need To Chill About Idris Elba Playing James Bond

Eventually, Daniel Craig will stop being James Bond. And despite the fact that he’s a totally outdated character, tradition dictates that we’ll need a new one. One of the top names being bandied about is Idris Elba, who deviates from the Bond norm in one glaringly obvious way …

“The world isn’t ready for a Bond with facial hair. Sorry.”

OK, there’s also the race thing, an issue which Bond novelist Anthony Horowitz dealt with in the worst possible way. In an interview with The Daily Mail, he claimed that Elba would suck as Bond because he’s “too street.” The Internet responded by figuratively painting Horowitz’s naked body gold and leaving him to asphyxiate.

Most were only scandalized to find out there are still Bond books, though (or books in general).

First off, this quote came from The Daily Mail, so rage-sharing it is like raging over something the bad guy said at WrestleMania. Even worse, all these headlines conveniently ignore where he named other black actors he’d prefer play Bond. Everybody’s focused on “too rough” and “too street,” while see-no-eviling the part where he recommended Hustle‘s Adrian Lester instead.

There’s still a race issue at play here, of course — but not in the overt, simplistic way that everybody seeing red took it as. It’s deciding that black actors, who have proven their ability to play both suave and rough with equal tenacity, should only be one thing. Horowitz is typecasting Elba as a rough, street black man, and Lester as a suave, classy black man, and won’t let them sit at each other’s table. And nobody’s talking about this except … The Huffington Post? Really? Dear Internet: When BuzzFeed-Minus-Cat-GIFs is the voice of reason, it might be time to pay attention and rethink things.

Both because they’re right on the money, and because it’ll probably never happen again.

Ex-Bond Roger Moore got in similar hot water recently, accused of opposing Elba Bond over blackness. Moore himself had to clarify that he only said Bond should be 100 percent “English-English” — his interviewer later edited it so it seemed like he was talking about Elba. But you know what? When Elba finally becomes Bond and blows everyone out of their seats, all this ridiculous talk of race, class, and who’s street and who’s not will disappear. Because it’s the performance that matters, not the-

Wait … it was all a rumor? He’s NOT going to be Bond? There were never even talks of him being Bond, nothing but Daniel Craig dream-casting off the top of his head? We got all worked up over that? FUCK.

#3. Every Celebrity Death Hoax Comes From The Same Source: Your Idiot Friends

The world lost the best/worst father in movie history last August when James Earl Jones sadly passed away, according to the Internet. The only person who didn’t hear the news was James Earl Jones, who is still tweeting like normal. Yeah, it was another celebrity death hoax. So what happened? What crapbag news site yellow-journalism’d a beloved celebrity to an early grave this time?

“NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOoooot dead yet, guys.”

None, as it turns out. The source is us. We fake-killed James Earl Jones, the same way we’ve fake-killed every other celebrity since the days of Netscape. We’re not merely part of the problem; we’re all of it.

The only source for Darth Vader’s voice reuniting with the Force was the Woodward-and-Bernstein-approved paragon of journalism called FeedNewz. But FeedNewz isn’t a fucking news site — its real name is prank.link, a content creator where any random asshole can plug anybody’s name into the generator and create a fake news story about them. When people clicked on the “James Earl Jones dies” link to learn how an 84-year-old man could possibly pass so suddenly, they got this instead:

“Also, his most famous line was ‘I quit on you when you cleared out of Detroit with Willie the Pimp‘ … from The Lion King.”

GET IT? You thought a thing happened, but it didn’t! Doesn’t that tickle-torture your ribs? Here’s another knee-slapper: Justin Bieber was raped and killed in Las Vegas … except he wasn’t! How gullible you must be, to think people die.

Don’t worry, David Caruso is on the case.

But if FakeNewz sounds too shady for your phony death needs, perhaps you’d prefer a website that sounds an awful lot like a legitimate one? FakeAWish.com will kill any celebrity you like and report it under the name “Global Associated News,” which is the biggest waste of an official-sounding name since Dr. Phil first called himself “Dr.” Then there’s MSMBC.co, where you create a fake death story (like this one for Arnold Schwarzenegger) complete with a link that looks exactly like MSNBC.com if you’re both blindly clicking on everything and actually blind. And when somebody clicks on it, they’re greeted not by a HAHA PWNED page, but a real-ish-looking news story that you can’t read until you share it with your distant uncle and that guy you haven’t talked to since college:

Or with no one, if you go with the Google+ option.

Alternatively, if using those sites is too much work, you can go with the absolute laziest option and create a “RIP [celebrity name]” Facebook page for someone who isn’t in fact RIPing … and then watch it grow inexplicably popular. Rowan “Johnny English” Atkinson, for example, has no fewer than two pre-posthumous Facebook pages, each with over 3,000 fans. For the sake of our species, we hope it’s simply the same 3,000 who fell for the same thing twice.

#2. Stop Pretending Everyone’s Offended By Movies

Hey, remember when those Native American actors walked off the set of Adam Sandler’s new movie? It seems they were outraged over all the gross inaccuracies, blatant stereotyping, lazy jokes, and other things that have never, ever been in an Adam Sandler movie.

“We thought we were signing up for something more sophisticated, like a male deodorant ad.”

Notice how none of those headlines mention how many actors walked off the set, implying through omission that the number was “all of them”? Well, they did that for a reason: The real situation was way less volatile (and thus, more boring) than the hate-click media reported. According to one of the actors, only four out of 154 actors walked out, plus one consultant, leaving the rest to feel “betrayed” that they were being painted as “sell-outs” to the White Man. Oh, and another actor says they all saw the script beforehand, so those who quit probably should have seen the terribleness coming, even if they haven’t been to a cinema since Big Daddy came out.

Precedent shows “pee-pee on your teepee” wasn’t going to be a metaphor.

Then there’s Mad Max: Fury Road and the supposed shitstorm it caused among Men’s Rights Activists for daring to include women kicking ass:

“Feminists started all the wars,” one anonymous member said.

Makes sense, right? Babies throw tantrums. MRAs are babies, so they’re throwing tantrums. Except they weren’t. This entire story came from one blog post on We Hunted The Mammoth, which centered around the anti-Furiosa furor on Return Of Kings, a site so viciously anti-woman even Al Bundy would yell at them to grow the fuck up. But RoK isn’t a MRA site — just some random cootiephobes — and nowhere on Mammoth does it confuse the two. Every other site, desperate for traffic, did that.

Misogynists want her to grow hair and make babies and sandwiches, while MRAs want her to stop destroying masculinity. And to grow hair and make babies and sandwiches.

Did legitimate Men’s Rights Assbags hate Fury Road? Sure, because vagina. But they’re not nearly smart enough to organize some massive boycott of a film $375 million worth of people saw anyway. Also, despite what leading MRA loudmouths fantasize about while jerking off with mini-tweezers, nobody was “paid to put [an MRA boycott story] in the press.” It was lazy and biased, adjectives with which MRAs should be plenty familiar. And finally, we have the time the Noah movie threw every Christian into a hateful tizzy:

That’s a lot of cheek not-turning.

A survey of over 5,000 people found a whopping 98 percent were tut-tutting the movie for bastardizing the Bible. One problem: That survey focused on “faith-driven consumers,” and was organized by an ultra-religious group called … FAITH DRIVEN CONSUMER. They urge boycotts of anything that disagrees with their interpretation of the Bible, and are the same company behind IStandWithPhil, a petition to reinstate that homophobic guy from Duck Dynasty. Even Family Feud surveys like “Name a body part that rhymes with ‘eenis'” aren’t that obviously slanted.

#1. Nope, That Actor Didn’t Confirm A Sequel To That Movie

You know how we’ve dumbed down “literally” and “irony” so morons can feel literate too? “I literally ate an entire pig yesterday, and ironically, I literally ate an entire pig today, too!” We’re doing that crap with “confirm” now. Where once it meant “official news from an official source,” it now means “anybody saying anything about anything.”

Like these constant breaking news stories about a celebrity “confirming” a sequel to some film, when it turns out all they really said was “yeah it’d be cool to do that maybe.” Recently, the Internet went bonkers over Keanu Reeves supposedly saying that Speed 3 was going to happen:

The biggest question now is: Which of the e’s will they replace with a 3?

But no, Speed 3 isn’t happening, for two reasons. Number one: Speed 2. Number two: Keanu was making a goddamn joke. Some reporter asked him about Speed 3, and he said, “Oh my god, Speed 3: Redemption. Sure. Jack Traven kind of like, dusting it off.” That’s sarcasm, folks — another term we’ve dumbed down because nobody can get it right.

Granted, it can be hard to tell with this guy.

Even SlashFilm admits (at the end, when everybody’s stopped reading) that this is probably a non-story, writing “I’m not sure I take the affirmative answer that seriously, but he said it and it’s our job to tell you what he said.” It’s also your job to cleverly edit your headlines so overexcited Speed demons click and share your gossip without a second thought, it would seem.

Ewan McGregor ran into this too, with headlines screaming about how he’d be down with doing Trainspotting 2, even though it’s absolutely not happening.

How old is the ceiling baby now, anyway?

Good God, three paragraphs in, the man admits “I’ve not seen a script yet and I don’t know if there is one.” And yet People reported this anyway. You might as well report on him debating whether to order pizza or Chinese food.

Even Beetlejuice 2 isn’t as done a deal as the headlines make it seem:

Michael Keaton better start practicing his surf moves.

This “confirmation” was her going on Seth Meyers and yammering, “Um, I think I can confirm it, because Tim Burton did this interview — like, it was very hush-hush, top secret … and then he was doing some press for Big Eyes and he did an on-camera interview and he said, ‘Oh yeah, we’re doing it and Winona’s going to be in it,’ and I was like [shocked face].”

And we were like [unimpressed face]. Until some studio gives us an official release date (like Universal recently did with Jurassic World 2), Beetlejuice 2: At Least Lydia’s Legal This Time is nothing but actors talking.

But boy do we love when actors talk — we’ll believe anything they say, even when it’s so obviously a stupid joke. Like Michael Shannon saying he would return as General Zod for Batman V. Superman: Dawn Of Justice, but with flipper hands:

That’s almost as silly as the name of the movie.

Notice how none of those headlines say “flipper hands”? That’s because even the writers know it’s bollocks, but they still want to suck you in and get your clicks, so they tease you “new details” and “strange change.” Except according to Shannon himself, Zod is stone dead, he only appears via voiceover, and the flipper thing was him being a silly goose:

A Batman story starring a guy with flippers? That’s preposterous.

Welcome to the Internet, Shannon, where you can’t believe everything you read, except for that one thing you’re about to share with your buddies. That thing? Totally believable.

from All Of Beer http://allofbeer.com/5-hollywood-stories-you-see-everywhere-that-are-always-bs/ from All of Beer https://allofbeercom.tumblr.com/post/182767620712