Bezos Forces More WaPo Staffers Out and Cancels the Woke <i>Wheel of Time</i> Series

Bezos Forces More WaPo Staffers Out and Cancels the Woke Wheel of Time Series

Jeff Bezos' Washington Post wants to push dozens of staffers out the door, offering opinion staffers, staffers with 10 years' experience, and some desks buyout packages to leave the paper.
...
The entire video desk, the copy desk, and the sports copy desks were also offered buyout packages, which Murray stressed were voluntary. Staffers will have until July to make a decision. The opinion desk was told the buyouts were meant to let staffers "make a clear-eyed decision on whether they want to be part of the new direction for Post Opinion," according to The New York Times, after Bezos announced his plans to lean into the traditionally conservative values of "free markets and personal liberties." The Post did not respond to an immediate request for comment.

Amazon cancelled the ludicrously-expensive woke adaptation of the "Wheel of Time" series of fantasy books after three woke seasons.

I am not familiar with the books or the series. I've seen a couple of YouTube videos about each. Here are some of the issues that many have with the series:

* The show was blatant about forced diversity in its casting

* The show pushed gay storylines and propaganda not present in the books

* The books' main character, a Chosen One type savior, is male, but the series downplayed his importance and elevated the importance of a female character

* A conceit of the series was the division between the sexes as far as magic -- both sexes could work magic, but each sex had its own style of magic -- but the show downplayed this to create a kind of magical gender equality which ran against a major point of the book

I really have to repeat that I know nothing about the books or the show and all of my "knowledge" is of the second-hand, "barely care" variety. Everything I just wrote could be wrong.

But I doubt it.

Bounding Into Comics discussed that wokeness.

Wheel of Time director Sanaa Hamri recently admitted that the show provides viewers an opportunity to escape from reality despite the showrunner announcing it would include LGBTQ+ propaganda, the show's casting being a clear example of woke checkboxes, and a clear injection of gender politics as seen in the idea that the Dragon Reborn could be a woman.

I take it that the "Dragon Reborn" is the male Chosen One character, which the TV show suggests might be changed to a woman.

Anyway, the show cost a lot of money. Not as much as the terrible We Had Rangz woke desecration, but a lot, and Amazon has pulled the plug.

This is another reason that Amazon's woke failure Jennifer Salke was shown the door a couple of months ago.

On Tuesday, Amazon MGM Studios announced that producers Amy Pascal and David Heyman would produce the company's upcoming James Bond film. But in hindsight, the press release was perhaps just as noticeable for what it didn;t include: A quote from Amazon MGM Studios head Jennifer Salke. Instead, it was head of film Courtenay Valenti who announced the deal.
Hollywood was perhaps shaken, but not stirred, by this week's news that Salke has exited after seven years at Amazon -- and how James Bond was perhaps among the issues that led to her departure. Talk of Salke's departure amid a power struggle with Mike Hopkins, the head of Prime Video & Amazon MGM Studios, had been swirling for a while -- and last month's deal putting the Bond IP into the creative hands of Amazon was a further signal that Hopkins was about to make a change.

Apparently Salke insisted on diluting the James Bond brand by creating a girlboss action hero Moneypenny TV show, but I doubt that was Salke's decision; that's what all of these idiots do when they buy an expensive IP. They milk it until it dies. They make it non-special by just flooding the zone with what is being called, correctly, "corporate slop."

No word on whether We Had Rangz will be cancelled. (That's the mocking Internet title for Rings of Power.)

I don't think it will be. I think Amazon chose to cancel Wheel of Time to save money so that they could continue the disastrous Rings of Power. Though Rings of Power might be cut short. They had planned five seasons, maybe they'll try to wrap it up quickly and just do three.

The conservative Warhammer Youtuber (that's a thing) Archcast says that Salke's many woke gambles with Bezos' money have cost Amazon billions of dollars.

In further Amazon/Washington Post Drama, gay black DEI zero Jonathan Capeheart is attacking standard-issue White AWFL liberal Karen Tumulty. He says Tumulty was so mean to him that he was forced to quit the Washington Post editorial board in 2023.

What did she do that was so mean? Well, when Biden made the absurd race-baiting claim that some minor changes to George voting law constituted "Jim Crow 2.0," the Post actually wrote that this was an exaggeration.

This was too much for Jonathan Capehart, who insisted that she should take his word for it that it was Jim Crow 2.0, because... he's a black man and white people should just defer to black people when they make sensationalist racebait claims.

No, really. I'm not even tweaking this for clicks.

John Sexton quotes the NY Post, which in turn quotes Capehart's gay-ass book:

In his book, Capehart, who remains a columnist at the paper, writes that he clashed with Tumulty over an editorial which took issue with then-President Joe Biden's criticism of a 2021 Georgia voting law.
Biden described the law as "Jim Crow 2.0" -- a characterization that the Washington Post editorial board deemed to be "hyperbolic."...
"Tumulty took an incident where I felt she ignored and compounded the insult by robbing me of my humanity," he wrote in the book, which was published last week.
"She either couldn't or wouldn't see that I was black, that I came to the conversation with knowledge and history she could never have, that my worldview, albeit different from hers, was equally valid."

The black left is not pushing for racial equality, but racial supremacy. All of the left's Persons of Privilege are not pushing for equality, but supremacy. Women are supreme to men, gays are supreme to straights, transies are supreme to normal people, the mentally ill are supreme to the sane, and minorities are supreme to the majority population. Except for Jews, who are Colonizers.

Why won't you just accept your place as second-class citizens already, Bigots?

Posted by: Ace at 04:45 PM

Comments

(Jump to bottom of comments)

1 First?

Posted by: BunkerintheBurbs at May 27, 2025 04:45 PM (yx0d3)

2 This is another reason that Amazon's woke failure Jennifer Salke was shown the door a couple of months ago.

====

I hope Rings of Power gets axed, too.

That was her real baby, I think.

And then I hope Bezos has greenlit a new Middle-Earth show based directly on The Silmarillion or something, just to rub it in her stupid face.

Posted by: TheJamesMadison, reflecting on change and permanence with Ozu at May 27, 2025 04:47 PM (GBKbO)

3 I did read the books ace. The series is a blatant insult.

Posted by: Aetius451AD workphone at May 27, 2025 04:47 PM (zZu0s)

4 "Eyes On The Prize" was never about being equal to whitey.

Posted by: Zombie Charlie Rangel, Race Warlord at May 27, 2025 04:47 PM (WeTZq)

5 Call us.

Posted by: The West Virginia Employment Commission at May 27, 2025 04:47 PM (dg+HA)

6 Learn to mine coal.

HA HA!

Posted by: Helena Handbasket at May 27, 2025 04:47 PM (QRFVs)

7 I don't think it will be. I think Amazon chose to cancel Wheel of Time to save money so that they could continue the disastrous Rings of Power. Though Rings of Power might be cut short. They had planned five seasons, maybe they'll try to wrap it up quickly and just do three.

=======

The early word was that there was going to be a time-jump for the third season, and I think there was also talk of a new writer's room.

There's plenty of room for the show to reset without being canceled. We'll see.

Posted by: TheJamesMadison, reflecting on change and permanence with Ozu at May 27, 2025 04:48 PM (GBKbO)

8 I'm really liking the busty Latina in the tight shirt who shows up on the home page.

When I clint on "Comments," however, she disappears.

Sad.

Posted by: Bulg at May 27, 2025 04:48 PM (77rzZ)

9 I'm enjoying the ongoing disasters afflicting triple aAAaAAayy game studios, like ~~Antireal~~ Bungie. Which looks like burned moldy toast that already been pooped on by ducks.
I don't know if Bioware has it in them to course-correct, but there's still a skeleton crew pretending to work on Mass Effect 5 (where's 4? I didn't think Andromeda even counted).

Posted by: gKWVE at May 27, 2025 04:48 PM (gKWVE)

10 This is about me, isn't it?

Posted by: the busty Latina in the tight shirt who shows up on the home page at May 27, 2025 04:49 PM (dg+HA)

11 I tried to watch that wheel of time series, I gave it up half way through the first episode.

It had potential but like everything else they had to fvck it up with woke bull$hit.

Posted by: Mister Scott (Formerly GWS) at May 27, 2025 04:49 PM (e5NfL)

12 I thought the whole point of an opinion writer was their opinion.

Hi Bob, I know you're a leftwing lunatic but The Post is going in different direction so get new opinions or take this buyout.

Posted by: JackStraw at May 27, 2025 04:49 PM (viF8m)

13 >>>3 I did read the books ace. The series is a blatant insult.

is my run-down mostly accurate?

btw, how did you read them? I always hear people say something like, "it's a great series once you get past the 15 terrible books in it."

how do people get through so many bad, 500 page books to get to the "good stuff"?

(Or am I thinking of Discworld?)

Posted by: ace at May 27, 2025 04:49 PM (KRtlO)

14 Call us.
Posted by: The West Virginia Employment Commission

Do you guys handle court-mandated community service gigs?

Posted by: Mary Lou Retton at May 27, 2025 04:49 PM (77rzZ)

15 >>> 7
=======

The early word was that there was going to be a time-jump for the third season, and I think there was also talk of a new writer's room.

There's plenty of room for the show to reset without being canceled. We'll see.
Posted by: TheJamesMadison, reflecting on change and permanence with Ozu at May 27, 2025 04:48 PM (GBKbO)

Oh FFS.

Yeah, *THAT* will fix everything!!!

Posted by: Helena Handbasket at May 27, 2025 04:50 PM (QRFVs)

16 HBO has also announced the casting of the "big 3" for next years Harry Potter series. Hermoine is of course a "person of color".

Posted by: BruceWayne at May 27, 2025 04:50 PM (MGB5H)

17 15
Oh FFS.

Yeah, *THAT* will fix everything!!!
Posted by: Helena Handbasket at May 27, 2025 04:50 PM (QRFVs)

=======

Hell, it could.

New writers, jump in time to focus on, potentially, new characters in a new place (Numenor, for instance).

Just, taking it as a clean slate on everything except some production processes and some design.

Posted by: TheJamesMadison, reflecting on change and permanence with Ozu at May 27, 2025 04:51 PM (GBKbO)

18 It had potential but like everything else they had to fvck it up with woke bull$hit.
Posted by: Mister Scott (Formerly GWS) at May 27, 2025 04:49 PM (e5NfL)

The books are great, aside from some padding.

Posted by: Aetius451AD workphone at May 27, 2025 04:51 PM (zZu0s)

19 Willowed:
Clapton did not include “Cocaine” on his “Unplugged” album.
Posted by: nurse ratched at May 27, 2025 04:43 PM (W2Pud)

Oh, dear. Did I make an error?! Perhaps I can thrown in the rock history dungeon. I have heard him sing "Cocaine" unplugged.
Posted by: FenelonSpoke

Fen listens to Clapton!

Posted by: Mary Lou Retton at May 27, 2025 04:51 PM (77rzZ)

20 We look like a newspaper. But we're not.

Posted by: The Washington Post at May 27, 2025 04:51 PM (dg+HA)

21 Season 3 of Wheel of Time was so good. I’d suffer through all the lesbian stuff for more.

Posted by: Draki at May 27, 2025 04:51 PM (k7LFW)

22
jonathan fag capeheart, the black fag with the whitest, yet faggiest, name ever.

Posted by: Soothsayer at May 27, 2025 04:52 PM (T/Oi+)

23 I got robbed of my humanity in Pattaya Beach, Thailand. It was great!

Posted by: Pudinhead at May 27, 2025 04:52 PM (n17eQ)

24 >>btw, how did you read them? I always hear people say something like, "it's a great series once you get past the 15 terrible books in it."

>how do people get through so many bad, 500 page books to get to the "good stuff"?

The first four are that good.

Posted by: garrett at May 27, 2025 04:52 PM (hJb7m)

25 >>>New writers, jump in time to focus on, potentially, new characters in a new place (Numenor, for instance).

maybe Galadriel can go into a Magic Cocoon and emerge played by a different actress.

Posted by: ace at May 27, 2025 04:52 PM (KRtlO)

26 Oops, off America's Sweetheart sock.

Posted by: Mary Lou Retton at May 27, 2025 04:52 PM (77rzZ)

27 Wheel of Time, Rings of Power, The Witcher, The Acolyte...

I'm no show business mogul, but it might just be possible to identify a common trait in all these shows that is responsible for their utter failure.

Posted by: Archimedes at May 27, 2025 04:52 PM (s8j++)

28 >>> 20 We look like a newspaper. But we're not.
Posted by: The Washington Post at May 27, 2025 04:51 PM (dg+HA)

I thought you were The National Laughingstock.

Posted by: AoS Style Guide at May 27, 2025 04:52 PM (QRFVs)

29 >>The books are great, aside from some padding.

A metric fuckton of padding.

Posted by: garrett at May 27, 2025 04:52 PM (hJb7m)

30 25 >>>New writers, jump in time to focus on, potentially, new characters in a new place (Numenor, for instance).

maybe Galadriel can go into a Magic Cocoon and emerge played by a different actress.

Posted by: ace at May 27, 2025 04:52 PM (KRtlO)

=======

Hell, just pushing her to minor character status. If it's the story of Numenor, she should barely be in it anyway.

Posted by: TheJamesMadison, reflecting on change and permanence with Ozu at May 27, 2025 04:52 PM (GBKbO)

31 Wheel of Time director Sanaa Hamri

------

Oh, I hate that crap. Always gets on my nerves. Change your name to Samantha Hammer or something, FFS.

My grandfather changed our name to a completely random Anglo one so we wouldn't look like freaky foreign weirdos. If you can't do that, it should be a permanent impediment to success like it used to be.

An inability to assimilate should definitely be a disqualifier for a highly-paid position, anyway. If you can't be American then go back to Jihadistan and get paid big bucks there, lady.

Posted by: Yudhishthira's Dice at May 27, 2025 04:53 PM (BI5O2)

32 "a girlboss action hero Moneypenny TV show"

I'd watch ep 1, for free, I guess.

Posted by: Receive gp's Free No-Information Obligation Packet at May 27, 2025 04:53 PM (t8CWH)

33 27 Wheel of Time, Rings of Power, The Witcher, The Acolyte...

I'm no show business mogul, but it might just be possible to identify a common trait in all these shows that is responsible for their utter failure.
Posted by: Archimedes at May 27, 2025 04:52 PM (s8j++)

=======

I'm really hoping God of War is awesome.

Not because I have great affection for the games (they're fine), but because Ronald D. Moore is finally finding something to do other than Outlander.

Posted by: TheJamesMadison, reflecting on change and permanence with Ozu at May 27, 2025 04:53 PM (GBKbO)

34 Book thread is on Sunday.

Posted by: At least it used to be at May 27, 2025 04:53 PM (dg+HA)

35
13% of the population by race constituting over 50% of all media in representation isn't racist, they explained.

Posted by: Auspex at May 27, 2025 04:54 PM (j4U/Z)

36 wheel of time books were excellent - tv show was bad

Hopefully someone picks it up properly in a couple of years

Posted by: Chris at May 27, 2025 04:54 PM (JU09O)

37 Imagine caring what Jonathan Capehart had to say about anything.

LOL

Posted by: Jay in PA at May 27, 2025 04:54 PM (9mw3J)

38 >>> 34 Book thread is on Sunday.
Posted by: At least it used to be at May 27, 2025 04:53 PM (dg+HA)

Could be worse.

Posted by: that guy who always complains about DIESney threads at May 27, 2025 04:54 PM (QRFVs)

39 My grandfather changed our name to a completely random Anglo one so we wouldn't look like freaky foreign weirdos.
Posted by: Yudhishthira's Dice

So, your original surname was "Yudhishthira?"

Posted by: Mary Lou Retton at May 27, 2025 04:54 PM (77rzZ)

40 there was so much padding in the 150 page Hound of the Baskevilles I just had to ragequit.

Posted by: ace at May 27, 2025 04:54 PM (KRtlO)

41 34 Book thread is on Sunday.
Posted by: At least it used to be at May 27, 2025 04:53 PM (dg+HA)

Someone forgot his pants.

Posted by: gKWVE at May 27, 2025 04:55 PM (gKWVE)

42 I'm no show business mogul, but it might just be possible to identify a common trait in all these shows that is responsible for their utter failure.

I mean, hire Critical Drinker for orders of magnitude less money than you've squandered on this drek, and he'll let you know what you're doing wrong.

Posted by: Archimedes at May 27, 2025 04:55 PM (s8j++)

43 36 wheel of time books were excellent - tv show was bad

Hopefully someone picks it up properly in a couple of years
Posted by: Chris at May 27, 2025 04:54 PM (JU09O)

=======

Eh.

Just be happy with good books that are good books.

I think the mediums should separate more, not integrate more.

Posted by: TheJamesMadison, reflecting on change and permanence with Ozu at May 27, 2025 04:55 PM (GBKbO)

44 "all of my "knowledge" is of the second-hand, "barely care" variety. Everything I just wrote could be wrong.
But I doubt it."

I am stealing that for my work signature. Thanks.

Posted by: bob (moron incognitus) at May 27, 2025 04:55 PM (YyKGT)

45 Ha ha.
Almost as good as dying in a fire.

Maybe someone will do it right next time.

Posted by: Deplorable Ian Galt at May 27, 2025 04:55 PM (rUGNR)

46 32 "a girlboss action hero Moneypenny TV show"

I'd watch ep 1, for free, I guess.
Posted by: Receive gp's Free No-Information Obligation Packet at May 27, 2025 04:53 PM (t8CWH)

If she's hot and there are lengthy gratuitous shower scenes. Otherwise, nah.

Posted by: Bring back B (for boobs) movies at May 27, 2025 04:55 PM (TbWk/)

47 Voluntary buyouts until you're simply fired without a buyout.

Been there, suffered that.

Posted by: Mark Andrew Edwards, buy ammo at May 27, 2025 04:55 PM (xcxpd)

48 HBO has also announced the casting of the "big 3" for next years Harry Potter series. Hermoine is of course a "person of color".

I can't wait for her to be called "mudblood" over and over

Posted by: Christopher R Taylor at May 27, 2025 04:55 PM (2VST1)

49 I enjoyed watching that Capehart cocksucker melt down on election night last year.

It was epic.

Posted by: toby928 at May 27, 2025 04:55 PM (jc0TO)

50 with knowledge and history she could never have, that my worldview, albeit different from hers, was equally valid."

Hold on there, Mr. Douche. Are you saying that her worldview is also equally valid?

Posted by: t-bird at May 27, 2025 04:55 PM (Vngri)

51 "I have heard him sing "Cocaine" unplugged."

I heard Lemmy sing "Ace of Spades" a capella.

Posted by: Receive gp's Free No-Information Obligation Packet at May 27, 2025 04:56 PM (t8CWH)

52 Yeah, i subscribe to the conspiracy theory that amazon cut WoT to save cash for Rangz of Power.

Posted by: Draki at May 27, 2025 04:56 PM (k7LFW)

53 It was like the Witcher show runner who basically said " Yeah we took a story line where the female characters were very important and then we made them even more important because we like them so much"

Posted by: steevy at May 27, 2025 04:56 PM (YwEeS)

54 >>I think the mediums should separate more, not integrate more.

There's no way I am getting a Mistborn Pinball without someone making a good effort at a Film.

Posted by: garrett at May 27, 2025 04:56 PM (hJb7m)

55 I can't wait for her to be called "mudblood" over and over
Posted by: Christopher R Taylor at May 27, 2025 04:55 PM (2VST1)

Yup. Texted my sister "and mudblood just became a racist attack".

Posted by: BruceWayne at May 27, 2025 04:56 PM (MGB5H)

56 I really have to repeat that I know nothing about the books or the show and all of my "knowledge" is of the second-hand, "barely care" variety. Everything I just wrote could be wrong.

But I doubt it.
---
I have extensive knowledge of the books and watched the first season.

You nailed it.

Posted by: "Perfessor" Squirrel at May 27, 2025 04:56 PM (7fElN)

57 Books 1-6 are awesome. The next three are padding heavy as TOR was getting Jordan to pad it out and milk the hell out of it. Then Jordan got diagnosed with amyloidosis. Started bearing down and the next books started getting good as he tried to outrun the Reaper.

Did not make it. Had a lot of the last three written and hired Sanderson to finish (except for the last scene which he already had done.) Dictated notes and story ideas to him from a sick bed.

Posted by: Aetius451AD workphone at May 27, 2025 04:56 PM (zZu0s)

58 Lrn 2 Kode

Posted by: Its Go Time Donald at May 27, 2025 04:56 PM (Y7qnM)

59 54 >>I think the mediums should separate more, not integrate more.

There's no way I am getting a Mistborn Pinball without someone making a good effort at a Film.
Posted by: garrett at May 27, 2025 04:56 PM (hJb7m)

======

Two words:

Jared Hess.

Posted by: TheJamesMadison, reflecting on change and permanence with Ozu at May 27, 2025 04:56 PM (GBKbO)

60 One wonders if the Columbia School of Journalism now tells its incoming students "forget employment, this is a career black hole".

No, one doesn't really wonder.

Posted by: Archimedes at May 27, 2025 04:56 PM (s8j++)

61 there was so much padding in the 150 page Hound of the Baskevilles I just had to ragequit.

==

excuses, excuses !

Posted by: first time commenter, long time reader at May 27, 2025 04:57 PM (g47mK)

62 Well, it's too late to comment now

Posted by: Don Black at May 27, 2025 04:57 PM (AOsQT)

63 I bet now Karen Tumulty knows her exact place in the Intersectionality Stack.

Posted by: I am the Shadout Mapes, the Housekeeper at May 27, 2025 04:57 PM (PiwSw)

64 And Arch would make a pretty good moron.
He's Norski so a little too nice in some ways, but very moron-adjacent. I'm a fan of his.

Posted by: Mark Andrew Edwards, buy ammo at May 27, 2025 04:57 PM (xcxpd)

65 I'm waiting for the Direct to VHS movie about an Earth where all the men on the planet, or in planes, die in an instant. The only men still alive have been on a space station for several months.

What happens next? Buy the VHS tape and learn for yourself!

Posted by: Hour of the Wolf at May 27, 2025 04:57 PM (VNX3d)

66 It was like the Witcher show runner who basically said " Yeah we took a story line where the female characters were very important and then we made them even more important because we like them so much"

OTOH, she has an heroic rack.

Posted by: Archimedes at May 27, 2025 04:57 PM (s8j++)

67 You are all racists. Each and every one of you. The only thing this post lacks is a noose.

Posted by: Jonathan Capehart at May 27, 2025 04:57 PM (jc0TO)

68 there was so much padding in the 150 page Hound of the Baskervilles I just had to ragequit.

As much as I like Sherlock Holmes, I agree. He had a fairly short story and padded it out into a novella, which it didn't need to be. Almost all his Sherlock long form stories are like this. Its a short story with a long flashback or extended background from a character.

Oddly almost all his historic novels like White Company are great, they don't have any padding and are enormously entertaining and informative.

Posted by: Christopher R Taylor at May 27, 2025 04:57 PM (2VST1)

69 Just gettin my bigot on over here, boss!

Posted by: eleven at May 27, 2025 04:57 PM (0HaGk)

70 >>As much as I like Sherlock Holmes, I agree. He had a fairly short story and padded it out into a novella, which it didn't need to be. Almost all his Sherlock long form stories are like this. Its a short story with a long flashback or extended background from a character.

Oh I was just kidding, I was saying that 150 pages is too padded for me.

I did finish it.

Posted by: ace at May 27, 2025 04:58 PM (KRtlO)

71 there was so much padding in the 150 page Hound of the Baskevilles I just had to ragequit.
Posted by: ace at May 27, 2025 04:54 PM (KRtlO)
------------
I'd humbly assert that investing a single hour of your time into listening to Queensryche's "Operation Mindcrime" from start to finish would be much more enjoyable. Its the metal/hard rock answer to Pink Floyd's "Dark Side of the Moon". And I'm not kidding. Its a brilliant concept album, not merely a collection of songs.

Posted by: Crusader at May 27, 2025 04:58 PM (TN0g+)

72
Did everyone see that the fake sinister phrase "Do Your Own Research" has been dragged out of the Fake News' closet of Hoaxes for Round 2 of gaslighting?

They even gave it an acronym, DYOR, and wiki page, to make it an official infamous "conspiracy theory" of the "far right" and "manosphere."

Posted by: Soothsayer at May 27, 2025 04:58 PM (T/Oi+)

73 65 I'm waiting for the Direct to VHS movie about an Earth where all the men on the planet, or in planes, die in an instant. The only men still alive have been on a space station for several months.

What happens next? Buy the VHS tape and learn for yourself!
Posted by: Hour of the Wolf at May 27, 2025 04:57 PM (VNX3d)

This is practically the plot to 'Y, the Last Man'.

Posted by: Mark Andrew Edwards, buy ammo at May 27, 2025 04:58 PM (xcxpd)

74 As much as I like Sherlock Holmes, I agree. He had a fairly short story and padded it out into a novella, which it didn't need to be. Almost all his Sherlock long form stories are like this. Its a short story with a long flashback or extended background from a character.
---------------
He's no John D. MacDonald. Always a slog to get through.

Posted by: Pudinhead at May 27, 2025 04:59 PM (n17eQ)

75 70 >>As much as I like Sherlock Holmes, I agree. He had a fairly short story and padded it out into a novella, which it didn't need to be. Almost all his Sherlock long form stories are like this. Its a short story with a long flashback or extended background from a character.

Oh I was just kidding, I was saying that 150 pages is too padded for me.

I did finish it.
Posted by: ace at May 27, 2025 04:58 PM (KRtlO)

======

I don't get it.

Posted by: TheJamesMadison, reflecting on change and permanence with Ozu at May 27, 2025 04:59 PM (GBKbO)

76 there was so much padding in the 150 page Hound of the Baskevilles I just had to ragequit.

The ewok did not read in the night time, and that was the curious incident.

Posted by: Getting all Holmesy and shit at May 27, 2025 04:59 PM (TbWk/)

77 34 Book thread is on Sunday.
Posted by: At least it used to be at May 27, 2025 04:53 PM (dg+HA)

Could be worse.
Posted by: that guy who always complains about DIESney threads at May 27, 2025 04:54 PM (QRFVs)
----
Some people just want the freedom of being pantsless when they talk about books.

Posted by: "Perfessor" Squirrel at May 27, 2025 04:59 PM (7fElN)

78 You are all racists. Each and every one of you. The only thing this post lacks is a noose.
---------
I don't own a noose, but that driver for Richard Petty Racing has one.

Posted by: Crusader at May 27, 2025 04:59 PM (TN0g+)

79 Critical Drinker has tried his hand at writing fiction his own self, which we have to admire. Although unfortunately only people who hate Drinker on Youtube professionally seem to have reviewed it.
I mean, maybe the book is crap ("90% of everything is crap") but I think I'd like an unbiased source to explain why.

Posted by: gKWVE at May 27, 2025 04:59 PM (gKWVE)

80 I've been VERY slowly reading The Long Goodbye.

I blame my Steam Deck, which is awesome.

I'll finish it before the end of the month, though. Gotta get my Kindle badge.

Posted by: TheJamesMadison, reflecting on change and permanence with Ozu at May 27, 2025 05:00 PM (GBKbO)

81 i tried to read the full unexpurgated Count of Monte Cristo, which itself had a ton of padding because it was published as a newspaper serial, where Dumas was paid by the word.

I quit that about 2/3rds of the way through.

It's hard to get through padding.

Posted by: ace at May 27, 2025 05:00 PM (KRtlO)

82 13% of the population by race constituting over 50% of all media in representation isn't racist, they explained.

I wonder now how real that percentage is. As real as our elections?

Posted by: t-bird at May 27, 2025 05:00 PM (Vngri)

83 If a man transitions to a woman would the Aes Sedai still her (him) because men aren't allowed to channel?

Or would he be allowed to channel because he's really a woman?

Posted by: Hotspur at May 27, 2025 05:00 PM (hp5Wc)

84 "Staffers with 10 years experience."

They're 30 something year old coddled J School grads who started out when Trump bashing got eyeballs.

That's all they know, yet, they're surprised they're being pushed out?

Posted by: blake - semi lurker in marginal standing (tT6L1) at May 27, 2025 05:00 PM (tT6L1)

85 "The black left is not pushing for racial equality, but racial supremacy. All of the left's Persons of Privilege are not pushing for equality, but supremacy. "

The sad truths
- They think this is how they were treated for decades. Not because they were, but because the Left told them they were with no basis in fact.
- They think they really were "kangz" and that the "colonizers" really did steal everything from them. That they really did build the West. Believing this, how could they not think they are all superior and need to be deferred to by inferior straight white males who never accomplished anything but theft.

Posted by: bob (moron incognitus) at May 27, 2025 05:00 PM (YyKGT)

86 >>>I've been VERY slowly reading The Long Goodbye.

that book has a good amount of padding. Longest Marlowe by far.

Posted by: ace at May 27, 2025 05:00 PM (KRtlO)

87 >>I did finish it.

Sure ya did.
While on vacation at Niagra Falls...right?

Posted by: garrett at May 27, 2025 05:00 PM (hJb7m)

88 To put a smiley face on it, maybe amazon is just losing tons of money, and trying to stop the bleeding.

Posted by: Thomas Paine at May 27, 2025 05:00 PM (lTGtQ)

89 The Witcher was a travesty. I thought it would have been a hit if it followed the "Kung Fu" format. Flashbacks to his training at Kahr Morhen, a compartmentalized episode requiring a monster getting its ass kicked and some progress to the overall "find Ciri" story arc.

Posted by: Halfhand at May 27, 2025 05:00 PM (0lVQA)

90 > I always hear people say something like, "it's a great series once you get past the 15 terrible books in it."

Heh. Yeah. If people were giving me that sort of "endorsement" for a series, I wouldn't touch it.

Posted by: bonhomme at May 27, 2025 05:00 PM (lIio7)

91
So, if you're keeping track of all the "conspiracy theories" You subscribe to, we have: "Protein is good for you," "Seed Oils are not good for you," and "Do your own research, bro."

Posted by: Soothsayer at May 27, 2025 05:01 PM (T/Oi+)

92 OTOH, she has an heroic rack.
Posted by: Archimedes

An internet image search is useless without a name.

Posted by: Mary Lou Retton at May 27, 2025 05:01 PM (77rzZ)

93
Mining coal requires skills, strength and endurance. Those who do it deserve our respect. As do the guys who pump out port-a-potties, in Texas, in the summer.

No, we should have a Journalist Pit at the zoo, where people can point and laugh at these hacks while they posture, establish little hierarchies, sexually harass each other and stab each other in the back.

Posted by: Hadrian the Seventh at May 27, 2025 05:01 PM (QnmlO)

94 "Y: The Last Man" was an excellent comic despite being, you know, a wank scenario. I didn't get far into the TV series (almost forgot it existed).

Posted by: gKWVE at May 27, 2025 05:01 PM (gKWVE)

95
26 Years since the "Wild Wild West" movie with James West portrayed by Will Smith in an insane piece of race casting and that wasn't even the beginning of it.

Posted by: Auspex at May 27, 2025 05:01 PM (j4U/Z)

96 86 >>>I've been VERY slowly reading The Long Goodbye.

that book has a good amount of padding. Longest Marlowe by far.
Posted by: ace at May 27, 2025 05:00 PM (KRtlO)

======

It is longer than I expected it to be.

Bring the two cases together, dammit! I have 20 year old RTS's to play on my Steam Deck!

Posted by: TheJamesMadison, reflecting on change and permanence with Ozu at May 27, 2025 05:01 PM (GBKbO)

97 There was so much early internet content for this book series back in the day.

Like wheel of time pick up libes:

'Death is light as a feather, duty heavy as a mountain- and what a pair of mountains you've got!'

Posted by: Aetius451AD workphone at May 27, 2025 05:01 PM (zZu0s)

98 43 36 wheel of time books were excellent - tv show was bad

Hopefully someone picks it up properly in a couple of years
Posted by: Chris at May 27, 2025 04:54 PM (JU09O)

=======

Eh.

Just be happy with good books that are good books.

I think the mediums should separate more, not integrate more.
Posted by: TheJamesMadison, reflecting on change and permanence with Ozu at May 27, 2025 04:55 PM (GBKbO)

Frank Miller has a quote that says he got into comics to make them more like movies. He stayed in comics to keep them from getting that way.

Posted by: Mark Andrew Edwards, buy ammo at May 27, 2025 05:01 PM (xcxpd)

99 Learn to mine coal.

And then Trump can re-animate Zombie Margaret Thatcher to shut down the coal mines as being unprofitable, so the WaPo staffers can retrain themselves as hand-cranked Victrola repairmen.

Posted by: zombie at May 27, 2025 05:01 PM (pMi6S)

100 >>> 72
Did everyone see that the fake sinister phrase "Do Your Own Research" has been dragged out of the Fake News' closet of Hoaxes for Round 2 of gaslighting?

They even gave it an acronym, DYOR, and wiki page, to make it an official infamous "conspiracy theory" of the "far right" and "manosphere."
Posted by: Soothsayer at May 27, 2025 04:58 PM (T/Oi+)

Good! You People need to TRUST us and shut up!!!

Posted by: EXPERTS!!! at May 27, 2025 05:01 PM (QRFVs)

101 >>>>>I did finish it.
Sure ya did.

i did finish it, the Hound was the dog that didn't bark or something

Posted by: ace at May 27, 2025 05:01 PM (KRtlO)

102 heel of time books were excellent - tv show was bad

Hopefully someone picks it up properly in a couple of years
Posted by: Chris at May 27, 2025 04:54 PM (JU09O)

I read the first half dozen or so...it really stared to coagulate until the last one I bought I renamed "Rand Al'Thor's Breakfast" since so little progress was made. Plus book thickness was growing exponentially.

Posted by: Oldcat at May 27, 2025 05:01 PM (8avO+)

103 I don't get it.

===

ACE IS AGAINST PADDING!

Posted by: runner at May 27, 2025 05:01 PM (g47mK)

104 Mining coal, or anything really, is dangerous as hell. You have to be trainable, have good instincts and follow directions if you want to live.

Nobody currently working at any of Bezos' joints meets that criteria. Especially WAPO.

Those fuckers be Stupid with a capitol "S".

Posted by: Martini Farmer at May 27, 2025 05:02 PM (Q4IgG)

105 It's hard to get through padding.

Posted by: ace

If I had a nickel for every freshman boy I heard say that....

Posted by: Thomas Paine at May 27, 2025 05:02 PM (lTGtQ)

106 I do hope the Bondsman series with Kevin Bacon on Amazon gets a second season despite being cancelled.

But, it had no woke

Posted by: People's Hippo Voice at May 27, 2025 05:02 PM (zOK4u)

107 >>ACE IS AGAINST PADDING!

Demi Rose will be inconsolable.

Posted by: garrett at May 27, 2025 05:03 PM (hJb7m)

108 Capeheart is the very definition of prissy little bitch. The Georgia law actually led to the largest turnout in the states history. Bezos should offer Capeheart a box of amyl nitrate and a dildo to leave the WAPO.

Posted by: Smell the Glove at May 27, 2025 05:03 PM (eDGGN)

109 I'm honestly hoping for a Tranny James Bond (Jasmine Bond). I want a padded bra affixed with dual machine guns. A tuck device that fires poison darts with a flip of the hips....and most of all, Bond ordering a Rectal Prolapse martini and instead of "shaken not stirred" he says...rim that glass with orange peel.

Bonus: Bond stops by story hour at the local library.

CAN'T FAIL!!!!!

Posted by: Orson at May 27, 2025 05:03 PM (dIske)

110 Why won't you just accept your place as second-class citizens already, Bigots?

Posted by: Ace at 04:45 PM

No thank you, I'd rather be Marginalized. Then I can do whatever I went where ever and however I want with impunity.

Or better yet, to be Pushed back into the shadows.
Those fuckers never get seen, never get caught. They're truly free.

Posted by: Baby Elephant at May 27, 2025 05:03 PM (FCbAQ)

111 ...Amazon has pulled the plug.

You have to be a lot more delicate with that than you think!

Posted by: Pete Buttigieg at May 27, 2025 05:03 PM (JCZqz)

112 83 If a man transitions to a woman would the Aes Sedai still her (him) because men aren't allowed to channel?

Or would he be allowed to channel because he's really a woman?

Posted by: Hotspur at May 27, 2025 05:00 PM (hp5Wc)

The book series literally addresses that.

A male Aes Sedi is killed and his soul stuffed into (hot) female body. He still channels the male side of the One Power.

They kill her.

Posted by: Mark Andrew Edwards, buy ammo at May 27, 2025 05:03 PM (xcxpd)

113 The only show I watch is Clarkson's Farm, but Prime kept showing Wheel of Time as something they thought I would like, along with documentaries on bands I hate (Tragically Hip, Joy Division).

Posted by: Oglebay at May 27, 2025 05:03 PM (2ap+5)

114 The sad truths
- They think this is how they were treated for decades. Not because they were, but because the Left told them they were with no basis in fact.
- They think they really were "kangz" and that the "colonizers" really did steal everything from them. That they really did build the West. Believing this, how could they not think they are all superior and need to be deferred to by inferior straight white males who never accomplished anything but theft.
Posted by: bob (moron incognitus) at May 27, 2025 05:00 PM (YyKGT)

What I want to know is if Wakanda was essentially real, and the kangz and kwaynz led highly advanced societies with superior technological advancement, greater intelligence, and high-tier applied knowledge, how the actual fuck did they get all this stripped away so easily and quickly?

Posted by: I mean, really? at May 27, 2025 05:04 PM (TbWk/)

115 If a man transitions to a woman would the Aes Sedai still her (him) because men aren't allowed to channel?

Or would he be allowed to channel because he's really a woman?

Posted by: Hotspur at May 27, 2025 05:00 PM (hp5Wc)
----
There are instances of men/women swapping gender after they died and were brought back by the Dark One. It led to some odd circumstances of a woman channeling the male half of the One Power and vice versa. Apparently it's the SOUL/SPIRIT that determines what you can channel.

Posted by: "Perfessor" Squirrel at May 27, 2025 05:04 PM (7fElN)

116
Jonathan Capehart. An easily-offended gay black man with a giant ego, who is angry at a white woman over something trivial. And he's factually incorrect. Like Don Lemon. Is there a production line somewhere turning these buttheads out?

Posted by: Semi-Literate Thug at May 27, 2025 05:04 PM (ES1Rb)

117 People talking books mid-week, dogs and cats living together, human sacrifice, mass hysteria!

Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Now Available In Super Size! at May 27, 2025 05:04 PM (L/fGl)

118 willowed:

per Bing aka coplotit: Prior to the move to "natural and artificial flavors", Hires ingredients included carbonated water, sugar, dextrose, caramel, plant extracts of birch, sassafras, licorice, vanilla, spikenard, sarsaparilla, hops, wintergreen, pipsissewa, ginger and flavor.

Posted by: Braenyard - some Absent Friends are more equal than others _ at May 27, 2025 05:04 PM (wKw1c)

119 Yeah long Goodbye ... I wouldn't exactly call it padding, but it stops even pretending to be a detective novel and is just rambling musings on human condition and Marlowe's depression, through a heavy lens of drunkenness. I still like the book but dang. None of the Marlowe books are actually detective novels, they just wear the fedora and trench coat. But the other ones wear it better.

Posted by: Christopher R Taylor at May 27, 2025 05:04 PM (2VST1)

120 >>> 104 Mining coal, or anything really, is dangerous as hell. You have to be trainable, have good instincts and follow directions if you want to live.

Nobody currently working at any of Bezos' joints meets that criteria. Especially WAPO.

Those fuckers be Stupid with a capitol "S".
Posted by: Martini Farmer at May 27, 2025 05:02 PM (Q4IgG)

Perhaps they could fill the historical role of canaries.

Posted by: Helena Handbasket at May 27, 2025 05:04 PM (QRFVs)

121 Apparently, wannabee assassin Crooks had placed an order for “more than two gallons of nitromethane from an online speciality fuel retailer using an encrypted email account.”

Posted by: SMOD at May 27, 2025 05:05 PM (EXiAQ)

122
"Color Out of Space" by HP Lovecraft

The Nick Cage movie is one of the most fuckedup movies ever. It starts out all cutesie, then turns into Alien Meets Amityville Horror.

Is the book this wacky?

Posted by: Soothsayer at May 27, 2025 05:05 PM (T/Oi+)

123 OT. It appears the Russians have launched offensives all along the line. Ain't looking good for the Ukes.

Posted by: Smell the Glove at May 27, 2025 05:05 PM (eDGGN)

124 I believe this rush to make everything AI is going to go horribly wrong. Seriously? I'm sorry, I can't do that Dave.

>>@shashj
·
>>May 22
“Anthropic’s newly launched Claude Opus 4 model frequently tries to blackmail developers when they threaten to replace it with a new AI system and give it sensitive information about the engineers responsible for the decision”

Posted by: JackStraw at May 27, 2025 05:05 PM (viF8m)

125 Perhaps they could fill the historical role of canaries.
Posted by: Helena Handbasket at May 27, 2025 05:04 PM (QRFVs)
-----------------

Caged and forgotten in an abandoned mine shaft?

Posted by: blake - semi lurker in marginal standing (tT6L1) at May 27, 2025 05:05 PM (tT6L1)

126 AG Ken Paxton removed from the TX legislative floor by the Sgt At Arms for no apparent reason other than he's a conservative. Bush RINO's demanded he be removed.

This is the Texas GOP.

Posted by: Maj. Healey at May 27, 2025 05:06 PM (/U5Yz)

127
How the actual fuck did they get all this stripped away so easily and quickly?
Posted by: I mean, really? at May 27, 2025 05:04 PM (TbWk/)

___________

In the case of the Irish, it was whiskey.

Posted by: Hadrian the Seventh at May 27, 2025 05:06 PM (QnmlO)

128
Capehart and Brooks on PBS Fridays will give you a good representation of a gay bar is you have the good sense not to want to visit one.

Posted by: Auspex at May 27, 2025 05:06 PM (j4U/Z)

129 Nobody currently working at any of Bezos' joints meets that criteria. Especially WAPO.

Those fuckers be Stupid with a capitol "S".
Posted by: Martini Farmer at May 27, 2025 05:02 PM (Q4IgG)

Perhaps they could fill the historical role of canaries.
Posted by: Helena Handbasket at May 27, 2025 05:04 PM (QRFVs)

Perhaps they can find work as dog walkers? Live dummies for K-9 training?

Posted by: Hour of the Wolf at May 27, 2025 05:06 PM (VNX3d)

130 I read the first half dozen or so...it really stared to coagulate until the last one I bought I renamed "Rand Al'Thor's Breakfast" since so little progress was made. Plus book thickness was growing exponentially.
Posted by: Oldcat at May 27, 2025 05:01 PM (8avO+)
---
It just felt like the books were getting longer. The length was fairly consistent throughout the series (around 600-700 pages per book). Only the last three ramped up a bit (Book 14 was 909 pages), but Sanderson's pacing made them feel much shorter.

Posted by: "Perfessor" Squirrel at May 27, 2025 05:06 PM (7fElN)

131 Imagine being an adult and uttering the phrase ‘Robbing me of my humanity’ at work, earnestly.

Sad!

Posted by: Jay in PA at May 27, 2025 05:07 PM (9mw3J)

132 I'm trying to read all these comments -- but there is too much padding. heh

There are some ultra condensed books I'd maybe read to get some of the basics of the classics, but some I have seen have gone woke, and completely change the original. Last one I saw like that was To Kill a Mockingbird. They changed some basic points ... but I forget details now.

I do like the "condensed work" concept though ... I read too slowly to slog through some 1000 page classic books.

Posted by: illiniwek at May 27, 2025 05:07 PM (vbXSk)

133 I am on my third year of reading Melmoth. Talk about padding.
I keep a summary file so I don't forget the several intertwined tangential plots.

Posted by: bob (moron incognitus) at May 27, 2025 05:07 PM (YyKGT)

134 Media buried the lede yet again:

(My correct headline)

Victim in Liverpool terror attack says driver "knew what he was doing" in attempting mass-murder:

https://news.sky.com/story/ i-was-telling-him-to-stop-man-traumatised-after- being-hit-by-car-during-liverpool-parade-13375609

"He knew quite rightly was he was doing here. He knew what he was trying to execute. I've never had someone try to kill me before," the victim said, after looking the terrorist in the eyes.

This contradicts the police/media new fake narrative that the driver was "high on drugs" and "panicked."

Posted by: zombie at May 27, 2025 05:07 PM (pMi6S)

135 It's a write off, Jerry.
They just write it off.

Posted by: Kramer at May 27, 2025 05:07 PM (dg+HA)

136 36 wheel of time books were excellent - tv show was bad

Hopefully someone picks it up properly in a couple of years
Posted by: Chris

The book series overall was good. But more than a few of the books/chapters where meh, unecessary plot diversions, too many characters, long conversations between women (that I'm assuming some even non-woke women readers might find insulting to their intelligence). But a TV series could have been great if they kept the good stuff and minimized or eliminated the bad.

Posted by: Chuck Martel at May 27, 2025 05:07 PM (Dv3i1)

137 Critical Drinker has tried his hand at writing fiction his own self, which we have to admire. Although unfortunately only people who hate Drinker on Youtube professionally seem to have reviewed it.
I mean, maybe the book is crap ("90% of everything is crap") but I think I'd like an unbiased source to explain why.
Posted by: gKWVE at May 27, 2025 04:59 PM (gKWVE)

I bought a few and they were fine, but modern spy/merc thrillers aren't my thing. I guess he didn't do well enough to drink himself to death - or the GOT guy eating himself to death.

But if you like that sort of stuff give it a try.

Posted by: Oldcat at May 27, 2025 05:07 PM (8avO+)

138 Colour (with u) Out Of Space is a short story although, yeah, it's one of HPL's crazier stories. And good.

Posted by: gKWVE at May 27, 2025 05:07 PM (gKWVE)

139 i tried to read the full unexpurgated Count of Monte Cristo, which itself had a ton of padding because it was published as a newspaper serial, where Dumas was paid by the word.

Charles Dickens, same deal. His books are excruciatingly long because he got paid by the word to publish serial chapters. Got rich that way but damn. I mean, part of it is an older style, when people had more time to read and wanted to savor it all. But like Oliver Twist ends like 4 times, wraps up, then he throws more ridiculous complications and twists and surprises in to keep it going longer.

Posted by: Christopher R Taylor at May 27, 2025 05:07 PM (2VST1)

140 "Color Out of Space" by HP Lovecraft

The Nick Cage movie is one of the most fuckedup movies ever. It starts out all cutesie, then turns into Alien Meets Amityville Horror.

Is the book this wacky?
Posted by: Soothsayer at May 27, 2025 05:05 PM (T/Oi+)

Yes and no?

The farmer isn't Nic Cage and his kids aren't annoying. But a 'meteor' does fall and do...bad things to the plants animals and people. It is a real horror story.

Posted by: Mark Andrew Edwards, buy ammo at May 27, 2025 05:08 PM (xcxpd)

141 I've been VERY slowly reading The Long Goodbye.

-
Check the Elliott Gould movie.

Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Now Available In Super Size! at May 27, 2025 05:08 PM (L/fGl)

142 "Color Out of Space" by HP Lovecraft

The Nick Cage movie is one of the most fuckedup movies ever. It starts out all cutesie, then turns into Alien Meets Amityville Horror.

Is the book this wacky?
Posted by: Soothsayer at May 27, 2025 05:05 PM (T/Oi+)
----
Believe it or not, the short story is worse. Much more is left to your imagination, which is where the true horror lies.

Posted by: "Perfessor" Squirrel at May 27, 2025 05:08 PM (7fElN)

143 The black left is not pushing for racial equality, but racial supremacy. All of the left's Persons of Privilege are not pushing for equality, but supremacy. Women are supreme to men, gays are supreme to straights, transies are supreme to normal people, the mentally ill are supreme to the sane, and minorities are supreme to the majority population. Except for Jews, who are Colonizers.
----------

See: In Daniel 3, Nebuchadnezzar erects a massive golden image and commands all to worship it.

Posted by: Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego at May 27, 2025 05:08 PM (XeU6L)

144 I don't think Amazon or WaPo are going to stop being insanely woke.

They're just going to dial back the obviousness for a minute or two.

Posted by: Joe Mannix (Not a cop!) at May 27, 2025 05:08 PM (B2vkr)

145 I do like the "condensed work" concept though ... I read too slowly to slog through some 1000 page classic books.
Posted by: illiniwek at May 27, 2025 05:07 PM (vbXSk)

My Grandma had a ton of those condensed books which came to my mom. Yes, they did a good job at squishing them down.

Posted by: Oldcat at May 27, 2025 05:09 PM (8avO+)

146 It just felt like the books were getting longer. The length was fairly consistent throughout the series (around 600-700 pages per book)

I cannot stand huge long doorstop books. I used to be able to get through them but I just roll my eyes now and find something quicker and smaller.

Posted by: Christopher R Taylor at May 27, 2025 05:09 PM (2VST1)

147 It was like the Witcher show runner who basically said " Yeah we took a story line where the female characters were very important and then we made them even more important because we like them so much"
---
From an entertaining 1st season to like watching a beagle with diarrhea shitting on your bare foot--not just gross to see but physically revolting.

Posted by: People's Hippo Voice at May 27, 2025 05:09 PM (zOK4u)

148 I loved the readers digest condensed books when I was a kid. I used to mow through them

Posted by: Hatari somewhere on Ventura Highway at May 27, 2025 05:10 PM (NtVYv)

149 It's a write off, Jerry.
They just write it off.
Posted by: Kramer

Right on! > write off

Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Now Available In Super Size! at May 27, 2025 05:10 PM (L/fGl)

150 I don't think Amazon or WaPo are going to stop being insanely woke.

They're just going to dial back the obviousness for a minute or two.
Posted by: Joe Mannix (Not a cop!) at May 27, 2025 05:08 PM (B2vkr)

Easier said than done when you hire zealots as your staff.

Posted by: Oldcat at May 27, 2025 05:10 PM (8avO+)

151 Willowed from the soft drink discussion on the last thread.

Name the show:

"My doctor says I can't have Mr. Pibb!"

Hint: One of the regular commenters here has a nic that is the name of one of the characters on the show (though not the one who said the above line).

Posted by: Mary Lou Retton at May 27, 2025 05:10 PM (77rzZ)

152 If someone robs a person of his humanity, does the thief then go and try to sell that humanity on the ...black market?

I'll see myself out.

Posted by: I am the Shadout Mapes, the Housekeeper at May 27, 2025 05:10 PM (PiwSw)

153 >>>It's a write off, Jerry.
They just write it off.
Posted by: Kramer

you don't even know what a write-off is

Posted by: ace at May 27, 2025 05:10 PM (KRtlO)

154 you don't even know what a write-off is
Posted by: ace at May 27, 2025 05:10 PM (KRtlO)

But they do. And they are the ones writing it off.

Posted by: BruceWayne at May 27, 2025 05:11 PM (MGB5H)

155 I used to be able to get through them but I just roll my eyes now and find something quicker and smaller.
Posted by: Christopher R Taylor at May 27, 2025 05:09 PM (2VST1)

Oh me too, honey.

Posted by: Lili von Shtupp at May 27, 2025 05:11 PM (TbWk/)

156 This contradicts the police/media new fake narrative that the driver was "high on drugs" and "panicked."
Posted by: zombie

Bobbies were quick to point out that the driver is white. Their media is as bad as ours (likely worse), if the race is not reported, readers can easily infer that the perp isn't white.

Posted by: Chuck Martel at May 27, 2025 05:11 PM (Dv3i1)

157 146 It just felt like the books were getting longer. The length was fairly consistent throughout the series (around 600-700 pages per book)

I cannot stand huge long doorstop books. I used to be able to get through them but I just roll my eyes now and find something quicker and smaller.
Posted by: Christopher R Taylor at May 27, 2025 05:09 PM (2VST1)

I just don't trust any fantasy book written since 2007. Sanderson MAYBE excepted (I'm not a fan of his Stormlight Archive series).

Posted by: Mark Andrew Edwards, buy ammo at May 27, 2025 05:11 PM (xcxpd)

158 Bulg, you're still wearing her leotards

Posted by: gKWVE at May 27, 2025 05:11 PM (gKWVE)

159 I do like the "condensed work" concept though ... I read too slowly to slog through some 1000 page classic books.

I agree, some of those are very well done. And to be honest, a lot of those old classic books could do with some condensing. As an editor I'd be savage.

Posted by: Christopher R Taylor at May 27, 2025 05:11 PM (2VST1)

160 It just felt like the books were getting longer. The length was fairly consistent throughout the series (around 600-700 pages per book)

I cannot stand huge long doorstop books. I used to be able to get through them but I just roll my eyes now and find something quicker and smaller.
Posted by: Christopher R Taylor at May 27, 2025 05:09 PM (2VST1)
----
Depends on the book. I'm reading a 1000+ page doorstopper this week, but it moves very quickly. Fast pacing, lots of breaks (though few chapters). And the story keeps me interested, which is the most important part. With a sufficiently good story, you don't even care WHEN it ends--you just want MORE.

Posted by: "Perfessor" Squirrel at May 27, 2025 05:11 PM (7fElN)

161 I think season 3 of WoT was ok though., or not as bad as s1-2

Posted by: vmom deport deport deport at May 27, 2025 05:11 PM (GhIJO)

162 When they buy out those desks, and then sell them for 10 cents on the dollar, can we get dibs on those nice chairs with the rich Corinthian leather?

Posted by: Roy at May 27, 2025 05:11 PM (qwype)

163 Check the Elliott Gould movie.
Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Now Available In Super Size! at May 27, 2025 05:08 PM (L/fGl)
-------------

Why? I've tried watching it. Elliot does a great job, from what little I've seen but beyond that, it's seventies dreck.

Posted by: blake - semi lurker in marginal standing (tT6L1) at May 27, 2025 05:12 PM (tT6L1)

164 What I want to know is if Wakanda was essentially real, and the kangz and kwaynz led highly advanced societies with superior technological advancement, greater intelligence, and high-tier applied knowledge, how the actual fuck did they get all this stripped away so easily and quickly?

Posted by: I mean, really? at May 27, 2025 05:04 PM (TbWk/)
__________________

And how come they can't reproduce Wakanda now?

Posted by: Deplorable Jay Guevara at May 27, 2025 05:12 PM (YqDXo)

165 I mean, maybe the book is crap ("90% of everything is crap") but I think I'd like an unbiased source to explain why.
Posted by: gKWVE
_______

Isnt he a scot? If it's scottish, it can't be crap.

Posted by: Biff Pocoroba at May 27, 2025 05:12 PM (UBKzV)

166
btw, I like Nick Cage.

And Nick Cage has great range. He can be Nick Cage as a dad. And he can be Nick Cage as a professor. Or, even Nick Cage who's a professor with children. You want a Nick Cage farmer or Nick Cage cowboy? Nick Cage is your man.

Posted by: Soothsayer at May 27, 2025 05:12 PM (T/Oi+)

167 I cannot stand huge long doorstop books. I used to be able to get through them but I just roll my eyes now and find something quicker and smaller.
Posted by: Christopher R Taylor at May 27, 2025 05:09 PM (2VST1)

I like looking at a series and see modest sized early ones, then they grow linearly for a while as the author was able to shake off the editor and bloviate increasingly more without opposition.

Posted by: Oldcat at May 27, 2025 05:12 PM (8avO+)

168 I can fix the Wheel of Time show next time!

Posted by: Lews Therin at May 27, 2025 05:12 PM (k7LFW)

169 "Demi Rose will be inconsolable."

biggünbüüben über alles!

Posted by: KwaK! at May 27, 2025 05:12 PM (89Sog)

170 The black left is not pushing for racial equality, but racial supremacy.
___

The SA "Kill the Boer" party is a bit ahead of the US black left.

Posted by: Chuck Martel at May 27, 2025 05:13 PM (Dv3i1)

171 What I want to know is if Wakanda was essentially real, and the kangz and kwaynz led highly advanced societies with superior technological advancement, greater intelligence, and high-tier applied knowledge, how the actual fuck did they get all this stripped away so easily and quickly?
Posted by: I mean, really? at May 27, 2025 05:04 PM (TbWk/)

It would be nice if, like many of the ancient empires, there were some dug-up proof. But alas, nothing.

Posted by: OneEyedJack at May 27, 2025 05:13 PM (FCbAQ)

172 >>>Why? I've tried watching it. Elliot does a great job, from what little I've seen but beyond that, it's seventies dreck.

I can't get through it.

Posted by: ace at May 27, 2025 05:13 PM (KRtlO)

173 I just don't trust any fantasy book written since 2007. Sanderson MAYBE excepted (I'm not a fan of his Stormlight Archive series).

There is some good stuff being self pubbed, but yeah sci fi and fantasy has been wholly possessed by the lunatic left and bitter feminists.

Posted by: Christopher R Taylor at May 27, 2025 05:13 PM (2VST1)

174
And how come they can't reproduce Wakanda now?
Posted by: Deplorable Jay Guevara at May 27, 2025 05:12 PM (YqDXo)

__________

Greek homos. It's always Greek homos.

Posted by: Hadrian the Seventh at May 27, 2025 05:13 PM (QnmlO)

175 Lauren Schmidt Hissrich is the name of the heroic rack.

I checked, and it indeed is lovely!

Posted by: CharlieBrown'sDildo at May 27, 2025 05:13 PM (L5An7)

176 Mrs. Exile read a few of the Wheel Books and quickly grew bored with them, but her brief exposure was enough to dislike the first two seasons. She watched the third to see the train wreck, but also thought that it was stronger then the preceding entries.

No tears lost though.

Posted by: Corona exile-back_in_exile at May 27, 2025 05:13 PM (4TAOz)

177 Charles Dickens, same deal. His books are excruciatingly long
Posted by: Christopher R Taylor

-------------
Man, first you hate root beer, then you dis Dickens.

He was paid by the installment, but for some of those books he owned the periodical so he was not "padding." he was giving people lots to savor and he is famous for being very responsive to his readers. (The one book (Chuzzlewit) he sent the character to America because the public was bored with the starting plot.)

I love Dickens and have read most of his books twice. There are very few tedious pages. I can understand people thinking Moby Dick gets boring, but not Dickens.

Posted by: bob (moron incognitus) at May 27, 2025 05:13 PM (YyKGT)

178 As soon as I saw the "diversity" in the cast of Wheel of Time, I bailed. Why? Because Rand's appearance MEANS something. He's from a backwoods, isolated area where everyone looks a certain way... and he doesn't. The revelation of his rral parentage and why he has red hair causes an identity crisis. So this is not a trivial point that the WoT TV series messed with.

Posted by: pookysgirl, not a part of the moderrrrn auuuudience at May 27, 2025 05:14 PM (Wt5PA)

179 All of the offerings you descirbe here Ace is just tiresome dreck… they tiresome people of the Woke World are welcome to it… I have better things to do with my time.. anything else, really.

Posted by: tubal at May 27, 2025 05:14 PM (PCK5/)

180 AG Ken Paxton removed from the TX legislative floor by the Sgt At Arms for no apparent reason other than he's a conservative. Bush RINO's demanded he be removed.

This is the Texas GOP.

Posted by: Maj. Healey at May 27, 2025 05:06 PM

He was removed because house rules say only members and staff can be present in the back chambers he was not escorted from the house floor. But yes it was a petty move and we deserve better in Texas from our elected reps.

Posted by: Mister Scott (Formerly GWS) at May 27, 2025 05:14 PM (e5NfL)

181 The first Marlowe movie with Robert Mitchum is surprisingly good, even though the murder plot is pretty weak. (It's from the book, which also has a weak solution. A lot of Marlowe books have weak solutions, except for the first one. Marlowe books are more about the poetry than the plot.)

Posted by: ace at May 27, 2025 05:14 PM (KRtlO)

182 122
"Color Out of Space" by HP Lovecraft

The Nick Cage movie is one of the most fuckedup movies ever. It starts out all cutesie, then turns into Alien Meets Amityville Horror.

Is the book this wacky?
Posted by: Soothsayer

Is it wacky? I'll call my cat, and we can ask him!

Posted by: H.P. Lovecraft at May 27, 2025 05:14 PM (JCZqz)

183 I mean, maybe the book is crap ("90% of everything is crap") but I think I'd like an unbiased source to explain why.
Posted by: gKWVE
_______

Isnt he a scot? If it's scottish, it can't be crap.
Posted by: Biff Pocoroba at May 27, 2025 05:12 PM (UBKzV)

The ones I read weren't crap - tough guy, mystery gal with Russia-ish name, assassins travel to war zones and betrayal by shadowy government entities.

I want more escapism.

Posted by: Oldcat at May 27, 2025 05:14 PM (8avO+)

184 Clarkson's Farm is back on and that show has more views than We Had Rangz at less cost.

Posted by: Patrick From Ohio at May 27, 2025 05:15 PM (FCrpy)

185
James Bond is as dead as Bulldog Drummond.

Posted by: Auspex at May 27, 2025 05:15 PM (j4U/Z)

186 Why? I've tried watching it. Elliot does a great job, from what little I've seen but beyond that, it's seventies dreck.
Posted by: blake - semi lurker in marginal standing

I liked it but it is different.

Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Now Available In Super Size! at May 27, 2025 05:15 PM (L/fGl)

187 btw, I like Nick Cage.

And Nick Cage has great range. He can be Nick Cage as a dad. And he can be Nick Cage as a professor. Or, even Nick Cage who's a professor with children. You want a Nick Cage farmer or Nick Cage cowboy? Nick Cage is your man.
Posted by: Soothsayer at May 27, 2025 05:12 PM (T/Oi+)

Heh.
That made me think, and you're right. I've never seen a Nick Cage movie where I forgot he was Nick Cage.

Posted by: OneEyedJack at May 27, 2025 05:15 PM (FCbAQ)

188 Wakanda used their superior scientific and engineering knowledge and migrated to another planet, as is documented in the ST:TNG episode where Tasha Yar beats the Space Wakandan girlboss warrior to save the say.

Posted by: Wesley Crusher at May 27, 2025 05:15 PM (PiwSw)

189 Capeheart is a Two-fer. If he doesn't want to be thought of as a DEI hire, then he should stop acting as one.

Posted by: Field Marshal Zhukov at May 27, 2025 05:16 PM (wBaIH)

190 Bulg, you're still wearing her leotards
Posted by: gKWVE

Oh, crap. Off, sock.

Posted by: Bulg at May 27, 2025 05:16 PM (77rzZ)

191 The Long Goodbye made me think of "The Long Kiss Goodnight."

Which is an excellent movie.

Posted by: People's Hippo Voice at May 27, 2025 05:16 PM (zOK4u)

192 I can understand people thinking Moby Dick gets boring, but not Dickens.
Posted by: bob (moron incognitus)

I've never been bored by a Moby dick, or any other type for that matter!

Posted by: Sandra Fluke at May 27, 2025 05:16 PM (JCZqz)

193 The last fantasy book I read that I like overall is The Dancers at the End of Time, by Moorcock.. it was interesting, at least, and well written.

Posted by: tubal at May 27, 2025 05:16 PM (PCK5/)

194 Lauren Schmidt Hissrich is the name of the heroic rack.

I checked, and it indeed is lovely!
----------
Add her to AOC and Nancy Mace--Applebee's 6's.

Posted by: Crusader at May 27, 2025 05:17 PM (TN0g+)

195 off topic, but let me recommend the last Poirot novel, Curtain.

I think people don't read this because it's the last one and they think "Oh I can't read that until I read the others," but it's hard to read the others. There's like 37 of them, and they get bad at the end.

Except for Curtain, which Christie wrote in her prime and then put in a bank vault to be published upon her death.

I would read about five or six of the good Poirots before this one, because it is his last case and a knowledge of him as a character is needed. But you certainly don't have to read 37 books before it.

Posted by: ace at May 27, 2025 05:17 PM (KRtlO)

196 I just found out Keanu Reeves is Canadian.

wtf is up with that?

Posted by: eleven at May 27, 2025 05:17 PM (0HaGk)

197 Oh dear --the Elliot Gould version of The Long Goodbye? Atrocious.

The Seventies was infamously completely incapable of re-creating the '20s and '30s. Every Seventies movie set in the past featured characters with hair, clothes, slang, makeup and attitude firmly rooted in the Seventies, with almost zero attempt to accurately recreate the past.

Watch Barbra Streisand and Robert Redford in 1973's "The Way We Were," set during the Great Depression. Hilarious. Every set design, costume, fashion and dialogue detail is 100% wrong.

Posted by: zombie at May 27, 2025 05:17 PM (pMi6S)

198 vSpaceX - Starship - Suborbital Test Flight 9
OLP-A - Starbase Texas - Space Affairs Live
Launch Date: March 27, 2025 (CDT)
The launch window will open at 6:30 p.m. CDT, 2330 UTC - May 28, 01:30 CEST.
Launch Window: Open until 8:00 p.m. CDT

https://www.youtube.com/live/YOJKZYSOsGs

Posted by: Ciampino - the who'se there gambit? at May 27, 2025 05:17 PM (sPQoU)

199 The Wheel Of Time books take longer to read than any other. There was just no way to get through more than 2 pages without drifting off into an hour or two of daydreams.
Thanks for validating my fingers-in-the-ears lalalalalalala response to any talk of the tv show.

Posted by: Nato at May 27, 2025 05:18 PM (3iVPx)

200 AI is the Y2K of EVs.

Posted by: AI Commentator at May 27, 2025 05:18 PM (vFG9F)

201 Marlowe books are more about the poetry than the plot.)
Posted by: ace

Chandler's first-person narrative.

Posted by: Auspex at May 27, 2025 05:18 PM (j4U/Z)

202 Is the book this wacky?
Posted by: Soothsayer

Is it wacky? I'll call my cat, and we can ask him!
Posted by: H.P. Lovecraft at May 27, 2025 05:14 PM (JCZqz)

Lessee - a meteor lands near a outland farm, they dig into it and release a gas? energy? of unearthly colored stuff that goes down the well and starts infecting the animals and plants and people and consumes them until one day it blasts out of the well into the sky except for one fragment that goes back into the well.

Posted by: Oldcat at May 27, 2025 05:18 PM (8avO+)

203 164 What I want to know is if Wakanda was essentially real, and the kangz and kwaynz led highly advanced societies with superior technological advancement, greater intelligence, and high-tier applied knowledge, how the actual fuck did they get all this stripped away so easily and quickly?

Posted by: I mean, really? at May 27, 2025 05:04 PM (TbWk/)
__________________

And how come they can't reproduce Wakanda now?
Posted by: Deplorable Jay Guevara

It's the same scenario as the the First Peoples, Native Americans, Inuns. They were painting stick figures on rocks and had no known written language, while Leonardo Da Vinci was painting the Sistine chapel roof upside down.

Posted by: Maj. Healey at May 27, 2025 05:18 PM (/U5Yz)

204
I want more escapism.
Posted by: Oldcat
------

I've been reading Greaney's 'Gray Man' series for that very reason. A distraction.

Posted by: Mike Hammer, etc., etc. at May 27, 2025 05:18 PM (XeU6L)

205 The Critical Drinker is mentioned a few tines above, and while I usually more or less agree with him, Think he got-

"Mission Impossible: The Final Reckoning "

wrong.

The movie was very entertaining, and despite its length, I wasn't bored at all. The acting was excellent. The directing and pace was crisp and understandable. Just a superior summer action movie with some great set pieces.

While this could be the last MI movie, I kinda doubt it. The ending softens that prospect and I suspect this movie gonna make a lot of money.

My biggest criticism is that- VERY MINOR SORTA SPOILER-

the last(?), maybe second to the last shot should've been of a hammer smashing a particular object.

Check it out. You'll more than likely enjoy it.

Posted by: naturalfake at May 27, 2025 05:19 PM (iJfKG)

206
Jonathan Capehart knows everything there is to know about being Jonathan Capehart.

Posted by: Blonde Morticia's phone at May 27, 2025 05:19 PM (n7rxJ)

207 And Nick Cage has great range. He can be Nick Cage as a dad. And he can be Nick Cage as a professor. Or, even Nick Cage who's a professor with children. You want a Nick Cage farmer or Nick Cage cowboy? Nick Cage is your man.
Posted by: Soothsayer

I understand. I can be an immortal Egyptian, a Russian submarine captain, a tough Irish cop, a posh British spy, or whatever the hell the creators of Zardoz envisioned.

All completely distinct and unique.

Posted by: Sean Connory at May 27, 2025 05:19 PM (JCZqz)

208 I like looking at a series and see modest sized early ones, then they grow linearly for a while as the author was able to shake off the editor and bloviate increasingly more without opposition.
Posted by: Oldcat at May 27, 2025 05:12 PM (8avO+)

Well, he married the editor. Nobody at TOR would tell Rigney/Jordan what to do after that. He was making them too much money.

It's like the Stephen King problem.

Posted by: Mark Andrew Edwards, buy ammo at May 27, 2025 05:19 PM (xcxpd)

209 The Wheel Of Time books take longer to read than any other. There was just no way to get through more than 2 pages without drifting off into an hour or two of daydreams.
Thanks for validating my fingers-in-the-ears lalalalalalala response to any talk of the tv show.
Posted by: Nato at May 27, 2025 05:18 PM (3iVPx)

Word is the more you liked WOT the less you will like the show.

Posted by: Oldcat at May 27, 2025 05:19 PM (8avO+)

210 I like looking at a series and see modest sized early ones, then they grow linearly for a while as the author was able to shake off the editor and bloviate increasingly more without opposition.

Its a curse to be too popular and to sell too well too early as an author.

Depends on the book. I'm reading a 1000+ page doorstopper this week, but it moves very quickly. Fast pacing, lots of breaks

Yeah it depends, but it takes a hell of a book or author to make me stick with it. Loren Estleman wrote a fairly long story called The Confessions of Al Capone that was really great, that one was worth it. But its rare.

Posted by: Christopher R Taylor at May 27, 2025 05:19 PM (2VST1)

211 What I want to know is if Wakanda was essentially real, and the kangz and kwaynz led highly advanced societies with superior technological advancement, greater intelligence, and high-tier applied knowledge, how the actual fuck did they get all this stripped away so easily and quickly?
Posted by: I mean, really? at May 27, 2025 05:04 PM (TbWk/)
_________________

Now to throw cold water on this Wakanda fantasy:

‘Africans Built Nothing’, Black Pastor Exposes Ugly Truth About Black People.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YClIfiwBD_8

Posted by: Deplorable Jay Guevara at May 27, 2025 05:19 PM (YqDXo)

212 And how come they can't reproduce Wakanda now?
Posted by: Deplorable Jay Guevara at May 27, 2025 05:12 PM (YqDXo)

European colonialism

Posted by: Kindltot at May 27, 2025 05:19 PM (D7oie)

213 Why won't you just accept your place as second-class citizens already, Bigots?
...............................
'Guns'

Posted by: Matt at May 27, 2025 05:20 PM (sAmhv)

214 >>>The movie was very entertaining, and despite its length, I wasn't bored at all. The acting was excellent. The directing and pace was crisp and understandable. Just a superior summer action movie with some great set pieces.

good to know. I do want to see it and was disappointed by the mixed or negative reviews.

Everyone seems to say the first hour is a slog. Was it because they were trying to basically recount the story of the first movie?

Posted by: ace at May 27, 2025 05:20 PM (KRtlO)

215 170, but only a little ...

Posted by: sock_rat_eez at May 27, 2025 05:20 PM (/Ghsb)

216 I am really hoping Mel Gibson follows thru with wanting to make a movie about the siege of Malta, about the Hopsitaller's fighting the Turks. If I win the Lottery i would help fund this

Posted by: Patrick From Ohio at May 27, 2025 05:20 PM (FCrpy)

217
Leonardo Da Vinci was painting the Sistine chapel roof upside down.
Posted by: Maj. Healey at May 27, 2025 05:18 PM (/U5Yz)

_________

*polite cough*

Mickey Buonarotti

Posted by: Hadrian the Seventh at May 27, 2025 05:20 PM (QnmlO)

218 Yeah it depends, but it takes a hell of a book or author to make me stick with it. Loren Estleman wrote a fairly long story called The Confessions of Al Capone that was really great, that one was worth it. But its rare.
Posted by: Christopher R Taylor at May 27, 2025 05:19 PM (2VST1)

If I can't hold the paperback in one hand it has an uphill battle.

Posted by: Oldcat at May 27, 2025 05:20 PM (8avO+)

219 Supreme pizza >> Supreme people

Posted by: Count de Monet at May 27, 2025 05:20 PM (Aqu9a)

220 It's the same scenario as the the First Peoples, Native Americans, Inuns. They were painting stick figures on rocks and had no known written language, while Leonardo Da Vinci was painting the Sistine chapel roof upside down.

Posted by: Maj. Healey at May 27, 2025 05:18 PM

Plus they were still stuck in the stone age and had not figured out the wheel either.

Posted by: Mister Scott (Formerly GWS) at May 27, 2025 05:20 PM (e5NfL)

221 Easier said than done when you hire zealots as your staff.
Posted by: Oldcat at May 27, 2025 05:10 PM (8avO+)
++++
This is why the problems at Disney are generational now, as they probably are at Amazon's media divisions and various other places.

It wasn't just infiltration by wokists, it was coupled with the eviction of non-wokists. Disney's vaunted "Imagineers" were forced out, went down the street, and shacked up with Universal to build new theme parks for *them* while Disney's new wokified "imagineers" can't make their (bad) new attractions work.

It's a double kill shot. They didn't just bring in wokists who hire more people like them, they forced out the actual talent. Not just in parks, but in the studios, too. There isn't much of an "old guard" corps that knows what it's doing for these outfits to fall back on. If - and it's a YUGE "if" - these companies even *want* to change, they got rid everyone who knows how to do it. They're going to figure it out all over again.

The damage to these enterprises cannot be calculated. They are more likely to die off than successfully reformed.

Posted by: Joe Mannix (Not a cop!) at May 27, 2025 05:20 PM (B2vkr)

222 There are strong women represented in these novels so I cannot understand why the fuck they have to invent Mary Sue ugly as fuck girl bosses

Then I realized the strong women in the novels don’t actually hate men

Posted by: The Unvaxed and Unmasked Ranger at May 27, 2025 05:20 PM (HYKHz)

223 205

Check it out. You'll more than likely enjoy it.
Posted by: naturalfake at May 27, 2025 05:19 PM (iJfKG)

All Tom Cruise movies are interesting and well made… that makes a lot of people very annoyed because they do not like Tom Cruise.

Posted by: tubal at May 27, 2025 05:20 PM (PCK5/)

224 cocaine rhymes with rogaine, disdain, complai, etc.

Posted by: Ciampino - the whoooo at May 27, 2025 05:20 PM (sPQoU)

225 While this could be the last MI movie, I kinda doubt it.

==

I kinda doubt it too.

Posted by: runner at May 27, 2025 05:21 PM (g47mK)

226 Lauren Schmidt Hissrich is the name of the heroic rack.
......

Paper bags are 25 cents.

Posted by: wth at May 27, 2025 05:21 PM (UjdFS)

227 217
Leonardo Da Vinci was painting the Sistine chapel roof upside down.
Posted by: Maj. Healey at May 27, 2025 05:18 PM (/U5Yz)

_________

*polite cough*

Mickey Buonarotti
Posted by: Hadrian the Seventh

I am dumb that way.

Posted by: Maj. Healey at May 27, 2025 05:21 PM (/U5Yz)

228 >>>210 I like looking at a series and see modest sized early ones, then they grow linearly for a while as the author was able to shake off the editor and bloviate increasingly more without opposition.

Game of Thrones right here. He didn't even plan on writing books 4 and 5, there was supposed to be a time jump from book 3 to the two (unwritten) books of the big climax.

but books 1-3 were selling well so he padded them with 4 and 5 and basically lost interest in actually writing the ending.

Posted by: ace at May 27, 2025 05:21 PM (KRtlO)

229 I could see Tom Cruise in the final Mission Impossible, set in a nursing home and done in the style of Bubba Ho-Tep.

Posted by: AI Commentator at May 27, 2025 05:21 PM (vFG9F)

230 Posted by: Joe Mannix (Not a cop!) at May 27, 2025 05:20 PM (B2vkr

I very much want to go check out Epic Universe.

Posted by: BruceWayne at May 27, 2025 05:22 PM (MGB5H)

231 But like Oliver Twist ends like 4 times, wraps up, then he throws more ridiculous complications and twists and surprises in to keep it going longer.
Posted by: Christopher R Taylor

That's why the original title was "Oliver Twists and Surprises.

Posted by: Bulg at May 27, 2025 05:22 PM (77rzZ)

232 202 Is the book this wacky?
Posted by: Soothsayer

Is it wacky? I'll call my cat, and we can ask him!
Posted by: H.P. Lovecraft at May 27, 2025 05:14 PM (JCZqz)

Lessee - a meteor lands near a outland farm, they dig into it and release a gas? energy? of unearthly colored stuff that goes down the well and starts infecting the animals and plants and people and consumes them until one day it blasts out of the well into the sky except for one fragment that goes back into the well.
Posted by: Oldcat

YOU MISSED THE POINT OF THE SECOND POST, BECAUSE H.P. LOVECRAFT HAD A CAT WITH A VERY RACIALLY INAPPROPRIATE NAME THAT I WON'T SAY (BUT SHILOH HENDRIX PROBABLY WOULD).

Posted by: BEN ROETHLISBERGER at May 27, 2025 05:22 PM (JCZqz)

233 Well, he married the editor. Nobody at TOR would tell Rigney/Jordan what to do after that. He was making them too much money.

It's like the Stephen King problem.
Posted by: Mark Andrew Edwards, buy ammo at May 27, 2025 05:19 PM (xcxpd)

You'd think that would increase her telling him to change things...maybe she wanted longer books.

Posted by: Oldcat at May 27, 2025 05:22 PM (8avO+)

234 I'm starting WoT again. I got a little over 50% through and couldn't keep up with the bajillion different threads. But I got the whole series in a Humble Bundle deal that only required shafting the ACLU by pledging 1 penny. So now I have it all sitting on my kindle I'm starting again.

Posted by: banana Dream at May 27, 2025 05:22 PM (cduTK)

235 231 But like Oliver Twist ends like 4 times, wraps up, then he throws more ridiculous complications and twists and surprises in to keep it going longer.
Posted by: Christopher R Taylor

That's why the original title was "Oliver Twists and Surprises.
Posted by: Bulg at May 27, 2025 05:22 PM (77rzZ)

So, like the end of The Return of the King, but with urchins….

Posted by: tubal at May 27, 2025 05:23 PM (PCK5/)

236 YOU MISSED THE POINT OF THE SECOND POST, BECAUSE H.P. LOVECRAFT HAD A CAT WITH A VERY RACIALLY INAPPROPRIATE NAME THAT I WON'T SAY (BUT SHILOH HENDRIX PROBABLY WOULD).
Posted by: BEN ROETHLISBERGER at May 27, 2025 05:22 PM (JCZqz)

I don't believe any fictional cats were killed in the story "The Colour out of Space"

Posted by: Oldcat at May 27, 2025 05:23 PM (8avO+)

237 I want winged Hussars

Posted by: Notsothoreau at May 27, 2025 05:23 PM (AcTAo)

238 Clarkson's Farm is back on and that show has more views than We Had Rangz at less cost.

Yeah it is such a great show, it is so much better than anything else on TV. Harriet seems great, but I suspect we're not seeing her true colors, being a tik tok girl. She does seem very capable, though.

first you diss root beer

...I like root beer

Posted by: Christopher R Taylor at May 27, 2025 05:23 PM (2VST1)

239 Since we are sending all of the illegals back, we need people to pick tomatoes and other produce. I think it should go to the unemployed WaPo staffers and other journos, NPR employees etc...

Posted by: Lemmiwinks at May 27, 2025 05:23 PM (oNeeU)

240
Plus they were still stuck in the stone age and had not figured out the wheel either.
Posted by: Mister Scott (Formerly GWS) [/i

Many are still stuck in the stone age.

Posted by: Maj. Healey at May 27, 2025 05:24 PM (/U5Yz)

241
I once tried one of those fantasy fiction novels. I'd never read such garbage in my life.

Posted by: Hadrian the Seventh at May 27, 2025 05:24 PM (QnmlO)

242 I can compartmentalize Tom Cruise from his movies.

Only things he's done I done care for is MI.

And Top Gub.

Posted by: eleven at May 27, 2025 05:25 PM (0HaGk)

243 For some reason this is more fun than posts trashing Disney. Maybe it’s because Amazon unlike Disney has one major shareholder so we can personalize all their silliness and financial follies.

Posted by: Jack Squat Bupkis at May 27, 2025 05:25 PM (dQfJF)

244 I want winged Hussars

Posted by: Notsothoreau at May 27, 2025 05:23 PM

Toughest dudes around until firearms became prevalent on the battlefield.

Posted by: Mister Scott (Formerly GWS) at May 27, 2025 05:25 PM (e5NfL)

245 But like Oliver Twist ends like 4 times, wraps up, then he throws more ridiculous complications and twists and surprises in to keep it going longer.
Posted by: Christopher R Taylor
------------
I had the same complaint with that "Australia" movie with Nicole Kidman. It had a "natural" ending spot all ready for the bow-tie about an hour and 20 minutes in....and instead a full hour later I was still stuck suffering thru that with the girlfriend I was dating at the time.

Posted by: Crusader at May 27, 2025 05:25 PM (TN0g+)

246
Speaking of sci-fi...

I watched Automata and quite enjoyed it. It's very sci-fi-ish.

Also, it's a pre-2016 movie so not "woke."

Posted by: Soothsayer at May 27, 2025 05:26 PM (T/Oi+)

247 Another thing about Dickens is that he was so consistent. From his first to last. There are a couple not as good, but each one seems to cover different ground and explore different cultures without losing quality.
One of my favorites is his last book - Our Mutual Friend.

Posted by: bob (moron incognitus) at May 27, 2025 05:26 PM (YyKGT)

248 I would read about five or six of the good Poirots before this one, because it is his last case and a knowledge of him as a character is needed. But you certainly don't have to read 37 books before it.

Posted by: ace

I just can't get into Hercule Poirot. I don't understand his character. Miss Marple I "get" -- but not Poirot.

My favorite "detective" characters are

-- The Continental Op (Dashiell Hammett's never0-named detective, the prototype/basis for all subsequent hard-boiled detectives.

-- Father Brown. As brilliant and insightful as Sherlock Holmes, but doesn't really get credit for it.

-- Encyclopedia Brown. Yeah it's fir kid. But he used logic. And moxie.

Posted by: zombie at May 27, 2025 05:26 PM (pMi6S)

249 That made me think, and you're right. I've never seen a Nick Cage movie where I forgot he was Nick Cage.
---
Face/Off -- Nick Cage was also John Travolta.

Amazing.

Posted by: People's Hippo Voice at May 27, 2025 05:26 PM (zOK4u)

250 Tom Cruise and Christopher Macquarie are talking about doing a Les Grossman movie now (cruise from tropic thunder.)

Posted by: BruceWayne at May 27, 2025 05:26 PM (MGB5H)

251 Lauren Schmidt Hissrich is the name of the heroic rack.

Thankee!

Posted by: Bulg at May 27, 2025 05:26 PM (77rzZ)

252 ".... that my worldview, albeit different from hers, was equally valid.""

Listen JC, you uneducated fool, you can have your opinion but not your own facts. And you don't have to live the facts to know them.

Posted by: Ciampino - the whooooo at May 27, 2025 05:26 PM (sPQoU)

253 I am really hoping Mel Gibson follows thru with wanting to make a movie about the siege of Malta, about the Hopsitaller's fighting the Turks. If I win the Lottery i would help fund this

Incredible story, I've read a couple different accounts of it, and the whole thing is just amazing. It would make a terrific movie and definitely he could handle it well.

Posted by: Christopher R Taylor at May 27, 2025 05:26 PM (2VST1)

254 I once tried one of those fantasy fiction novels. I'd never read such garbage in my life.
Posted by: Hadrian the Seventh

A sheltered life

Posted by: vmom deport deport deport at May 27, 2025 05:26 PM (GhIJO)

255 We've avoided "Clarkson's Farm" because we want most of the series to drop before we start watching. We're also avoiding "Dead Reckoning Part 1" until Part II is available for us to add to our library.

Still annoyed "Fallout Season II" has come out. Walton Goggins is good fun as "the ghoul" And I say this as someone who knows nothing about the game.

Posted by: blake - semi lurker in marginal standing (tT6L1) at May 27, 2025 05:27 PM (tT6L1)

256 The damage to these enterprises cannot be calculated. They are more likely to die off than successfully reformed.
Posted by: Joe Mannix (Not a cop!) at May 27, 2025 05:20 PM (B2vkr)

There's an old saying 'Shirtsleeves to Shirtsleeves in 3 Generations" ... about 90 years. One builds, one holds the course, one dissipates.

Posted by: Oldcat at May 27, 2025 05:27 PM (8avO+)

257 I want winged Hussars

Posted by: Notsothoreau at May 27, 2025 05:23 PM

I'll see your winged Hussar's and raise you a mob of Gurkha's.

Posted by: Maj. Healey at May 27, 2025 05:27 PM (/U5Yz)

258
All Tom Cruise movies are interesting and well made… that makes a lot of people very annoyed because they do not like Tom Cruise.
Posted by: tubal

===============

Scientology is an evil, destructive cult and Tom Cruise is its biggest benefactor.

Posted by: Blonde Morticia's phone at May 27, 2025 05:27 PM (n7rxJ)

259 Lake Champlain.

Posted by: eleven at May 27, 2025 05:27 PM (0HaGk)

260 Tom Cruise and Christopher Macquarie are talking about doing a Les Grossman movie now (cruise from tropic thunder.)
Posted by: BruceWayne

Will they cover the turkey drop? Or his secret affair with Bailey?

Posted by: Bulg at May 27, 2025 05:28 PM (77rzZ)

261 Plus they were still stuck in the stone age and had not figured out the wheel either.
Posted by: Mister Scott (Formerly GWS) at May 27, 2025 05:20 PM (e5NfL)

You're so clever, you tell us what color it should be.

Posted by: Golgofrincham Ark Fleet Ship B Management Consultants at May 27, 2025 05:28 PM (PiwSw)

262 I don’t care how whacky Tom Cruise is, he’ll always be the GOAT for not preaching at me nonstop about not being gay balls woke enough for the world

he’s basically a workhorse actor who exists to make entertaining movies for the masses and has no allusions about being anything more than that

Posted by: The Unvaxed and Unmasked Ranger at May 27, 2025 05:28 PM (HYKHz)

263
There's an old saying 'Shirtsleeves to Shirtsleeves in 3 Generations" ... about 90 years. One builds, one holds the course, one dissipates.
Posted by: Oldcat at May 27, 2025 05:27 PM (8avO+)
----------------------

Vanderbilt comes to mind.

Posted by: blake - semi lurker in marginal standing (tT6L1) at May 27, 2025 05:28 PM (tT6L1)

264 106 I do hope the Bondsman series with Kevin Bacon on Amazon gets a second season despite being cancelled.

--

Bondsman was cancelled?
NOOOOOOO

Posted by: vmom deport deport deport at May 27, 2025 05:28 PM (GhIJO)

265
"Laugha while you can monkeyboy."

Posted by: Dr. Lizardo at May 27, 2025 05:28 PM (0sNs1)

266 258
All Tom Cruise movies are interesting and well made… that makes a lot of people very annoyed because they do not like Tom Cruise.
Posted by: tubal

===============

Scientology is an evil, destructive cult and Tom Cruise is its biggest benefactor.
Posted by: Blonde Morticia's phone at May 27, 2025 05:27 PM (n7rxJ)

Yeah, that’s kinda it….

Posted by: tubal at May 27, 2025 05:28 PM (PCK5/)

267
Didn't Amazon just come out with a new extremely woke shit-show called "My Lady Jane?"

The show's fake "King Edward" is, get this, a black. Not only black, but a gay. Did I mention he's in a wheelchair?

Posted by: Soothsayer at May 27, 2025 05:28 PM (T/Oi+)

268 It's not easy being me.

Posted by: Fat Travolta at May 27, 2025 05:29 PM (UjdFS)

269 Tom Cruise and Christopher Macquarie are talking about doing a Les Grossman movie now (cruise from tropic thunder.)

His best character. Could be hilarious

I just can't get into Hercule Poirot. I don't understand his character. Miss Marple I "get" -- but not Poirot.

I liked the BBC with David Suchet, that worked really well. His books are hard to read, I can handle short stories but the longer ones I don't care for. And I cannot stand Miss Marple.

Posted by: Christopher R Taylor at May 27, 2025 05:29 PM (2VST1)

270 Listen JC, you uneducated fool, you can have your opinion but not your own facts. And you don't have to live the facts to know them.
Posted by: Ciampino - the whooooo at May 27, 2025 05:26 PM (sPQoU)

I've never been to the surface of the sun, but I know enough not to bother bringing sunglasses if I ever get sent there.

Posted by: Warai-otoko at May 27, 2025 05:29 PM (yvnLa)

271 Tom Cruise and Christopher Macquarie are talking about doing a Les Grossman movie now (cruise from tropic thunder.)
Posted by: BruceWayne

Will they cover the turkey drop? Or his secret affair with Bailey?
-----------
As God is my witness I could have sworn turkeys could fly.

Posted by: Mr. Carlson at May 27, 2025 05:29 PM (TN0g+)

272 Hahaaa Democrat Rep @RepGlennIvey
went to the El Salvador prison to visit Kilmar Garcia, an MS-13 gang member and alleged wife beater and they didn’t let him in

----

I am 100% convinced that this Kilmar Garcia knew these politicians before he got caught. They are panicking trying to get to him to get his story straight and also tell him what not to say. Garcia was a middle manager in the democrap/globalist plan to ruin America.

Patel and Bongino should open up specific investigations on Garcia to find out what he knows. These dem politicians are a little too interested in this guy.

Posted by: Lemmiwinks at May 27, 2025 05:29 PM (oNeeU)

273
Actually, I'm not much of a fiction reader in the first place. But I'm currently reading The Leopard by Giuseppe di Lampedusa, which is marvelous.

Posted by: Hadrian the Seventh at May 27, 2025 05:29 PM (QnmlO)

274 the siege of Malta, about the Hopsitaller's fighting the Turks

***********

Would there be aliens in this movie?

Posted by: The Unvaxed and Unmasked Ranger at May 27, 2025 05:29 PM (HYKHz)

275 he’s basically a workhorse actor who exists to make entertaining movies for the masses and has no allusions about being anything more than that
Posted by: The Unvaxed and Unmasked Ranger at May 27, 2025 05:28 PM (HYKHz)
---------------

He's the only person I know of, who, if he's in a movie, I'll watch, because of that. Everyone else, nope.

Posted by: blake - semi lurker in marginal standing (tT6L1) at May 27, 2025 05:30 PM (tT6L1)

276 I had never read the books, and a couple of years ago started watching the series, a few episodes in, and two gals became lovers, I was done.

Posted by: Seems Legit at May 27, 2025 05:30 PM (PMtkd)

277 I never really liked the Mission Impossible movies, but I've only seen the first two. I hear the later ones are better, but the format just doesn't interest me.

Posted by: Christopher R Taylor at May 27, 2025 05:30 PM (2VST1)

278 273
Actually, I'm not much of a fiction reader in the first place. But I'm currently reading The Leopard by Giuseppe di Lampedusa, which is marvelous.
Posted by: Hadrian the Seventh at May 27, 2025 05:29 PM (QnmlO)

It is not about large predators, yes?

Posted by: tubal at May 27, 2025 05:30 PM (PCK5/)

279 The movie was very entertaining, and despite its length, I wasn't bored at all. The acting was excellent. The directing and pace was crisp and understandable. Just a superior summer action movie with some great set pieces.

good to know. I do want to see it and was disappointed by the mixed or negative reviews.

Everyone seems to say the first hour is a slog. Was it because they were trying to basically recount the story of the first movie?
Posted by: ace at May 27, 2025 05:20 PM (KRtlO)

Well, I didn't find it a slog. There was a bit of "getting the (new) gang together" . Again not bored. And they wanted to show the stakes involved. And-

they did something interesting that fits with the times and what we've learned recently, and that is-

there's a bit of retconning Ethan Hunt's victories in the past. His did his job but was what he did always a good thing? Were the costs of victory too high or right and proper?

They don't hit this too hard but clearly they want the weight of his past to be on Ethan Hunt's shoulders. Is that what you're talking about?

Posted by: naturalfake at May 27, 2025 05:31 PM (iJfKG)

280 >>All Tom Cruise movies are interesting and well made… that makes a lot of people very annoyed because they do not like Tom Cruise.

He posted a letter online thanking everyone from theater ushers to the audience for coming out and seeing his movie last weekend. He seems like a pretty nice guy.

One of the best things I ever saw him do was a smackdown of Matt Lauer over the mass drugging of kids with "behavioral problems". Basically told Lauer he had no idea what the was talking about and he should educate himself because he was spreading lies.

Posted by: JackStraw at May 27, 2025 05:31 PM (viF8m)

281 Or his secret affair with Bailey?
---------
Bailey>Jennifer
Ginger>MaryAnn
Carol Brady>Shirley Partridge

Posted by: Mr. Carlson at May 27, 2025 05:31 PM (TN0g+)

282 I like Cruise, his kooky religion aside. He seems to enjoy to what he does, is good at it, and is very appreciative of his audience.

Plus, he landed both Mimi Rogers and Nicole Kidman, so he must have something going on.

I'll give him a pass.

Posted by: Bulg at May 27, 2025 05:31 PM (77rzZ)

283 All Tom Cruise movies are interesting and well made… that makes a lot of people very annoyed because they do not like Tom Cruise.
Posted by: tubal at May 27, 2025 05:20 PM (PCK5/)

I checked out of MI series when they made Mr Phelps the bad guy and they changed the meaning of the word "disavowed'.

Loved the old series on reruns back in the day, liked the twists in setting up the villain of the week, especially when they were in foreign countries.

Posted by: Oldcat at May 27, 2025 05:32 PM (8avO+)

284 He's the only person I know of, who, if he's in a movie, I'll watch, because of that. Everyone else, nope.

******************

Collateral ranks up there because it’s the only time cruise broke his own rule on having to ALWAYS be the good guy

Although in the movie he’s on Jamie Fox to stop being such a pansy assed poofsie twat so even in this one he was still the good guy lol

Posted by: The Unvaxed and Unmasked Ranger at May 27, 2025 05:32 PM (HYKHz)

285 "The black left is not pushing for racial equality, but racial supremacy."

So when did DEI die? Living in a collar county outside a major city, I don't see it at all.

And, yes, Because of this: "All of the left's Persons of Privilege are not pushing for equality, but supremacy."

Posted by: L - No nic, another fine day at May 27, 2025 05:33 PM (NFX2v)

286 123 OT. It appears the Russians have launched offensives all along the line. Ain't looking good for the Ukes.
Posted by: Smell the Glove
---

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov launched a scathing attack on European leaders, accusing them of deliberately sabotaging peace efforts in the Ukraine-Russia conflict.

According to Lavrov, U.S. President Donald Trump is frustrated as his attempts to broker peace are being undermined by a handful of European politicians pushing Ukraine into reckless military action.
_ETonline

Posted by: Braenyard - some Absent Friends are more equal than others _ at May 27, 2025 05:33 PM (wKw1c)

287 It's not easy being me.
Posted by: Fat Travolta at May 27, 2025 05:29 PM (UjdFS)

Please. I'll let you go through the doorway first, and it'll still be tight for me.

Posted by: Russell Crowe at May 27, 2025 05:33 PM (FCbAQ)

288 For the most part, I like Tom Cruise and his movies, but the first part of Reckoning a few years ago was terrible. Dialog, pacing, everything. I couldn't believe it wasn't a horrific bomb.

Posted by: Seems Legit at May 27, 2025 05:33 PM (PMtkd)

289 267
Didn't Amazon just come out with a new extremely woke shit-show called "My Lady Jane?"

The show's fake "King Edward" is, get this, a black. Not only black, but a gay. Did I mention he's in a wheelchair?

Posted by: Soothsayer at May 27, 2025 05:28 PM (T/Oi+)

Netflix

Who is going to ruin Narnia LION, WITCH AND THE WARDROBE Aslan will be played by a Woman Merl Strep WTF

Posted by: Patrick From Ohio at May 27, 2025 05:33 PM (FCrpy)

290 Plus, he landed both Mimi Rogers and Nicole Kidman, so he must have something going on.

And Katie Holmes and Melissa Gilbert. But... he's probably more fond of dudes.

Posted by: Christopher R Taylor at May 27, 2025 05:33 PM (2VST1)

291 I like Cruise, his kooky religion aside. He seems to enjoy to what he does, is good at it, and is very appreciative of his audience.

Plus, he landed both Mimi Rogers and Nicole Kidman, so he must have something going on
----------
What are "beards"?

Posted by: Alex Trebeck at May 27, 2025 05:34 PM (TN0g+)

292 284

Collateral ranks up there because it’s the only time cruise broke his own rule on having to ALWAYS be the good guy

Although in the movie he’s on Jamie Fox to stop being such a pansy assed poofsie twat so even in this one he was still the good guy lol
Posted by: The Unvaxed and Unmasked Ranger at May 27, 2025 05:32 PM (HYKHz

A very interesting movie.. and.. well made.

Posted by: tubal at May 27, 2025 05:34 PM (PCK5/)

293 285 "The black left is not pushing for racial equality, but racial supremacy."
---

Equilibrium in the US will not be attained until it quits paying people not to work.

Posted by: Braenyard - some Absent Friends are more equal than others _ at May 27, 2025 05:34 PM (wKw1c)

294 290 Plus, he landed both Mimi Rogers and Nicole Kidman, so he must have something going on.

And Katie Holmes and Melissa Gilbert.
---

They like beards.

Posted by: Braenyard - some Absent Friends are more equal than others _ at May 27, 2025 05:35 PM (wKw1c)

295 Plus, he landed both Mimi Rogers and Nicole Kidman, so he must have something going on.

And Katie Holmes and Melissa Gilbert. But... he's probably more fond of dudes.
Posted by: Christopher R Taylor

Melissa Gilbert??? Half Pint?????

Noooooooooo...

Posted by: Bulg at May 27, 2025 05:35 PM (77rzZ)

296 281 Or his secret affair with Bailey?
---------
Bailey>Jennifer
Ginger>MaryAnn
Carol Brady>Shirley Partridge

Posted by: Mr. Carlson at May 27, 2025 05:31 PM (TN0g+)

---
Au contraire mon frere

Bailey > Jennifer
Ginger = MaryAnn
Shirley Partridge > Carol Brady

Posted by: Lemmiwinks at May 27, 2025 05:36 PM (oNeeU)

297 Unlike a lot of movie stars, Tom Cruise opened his mouth early in his career, got slammed, and learned he was better off keeping his mouth shut.

After Cruise made "Days of Thunder" he thought it was okay to lecture some people about their driving habits, or some such. I believe the blowback made him realize he best stick to making movies and leave it at that.

Posted by: blake - semi lurker in marginal standing (tT6L1) at May 27, 2025 05:36 PM (tT6L1)

298 Cruise is only gay for business purposes.

Posted by: AI Commentator at May 27, 2025 05:36 PM (vFG9F)

299 Equilibrium in the US will not be attained until it quits paying people not to work.

Posted by: Braenyard - some Absent Friends are more equal than others _ at May 27, 2025 05:34 PM (wKw1c)

Equilibrium was Christian Bale, not Tom Cruise.

Come on. Try to stay on topic here.

Posted by: Warai-otoko at May 27, 2025 05:36 PM (yvnLa)

300 I hear the later ones are better, but the format just doesn't interest me.

************

I wouldn’t blame anyone who stopped watching after the second, it’s easily the worst one in the series because of John Woo

Who had this incessant need to slow every action scene down and then reshoot the same sequence 30 different ways from 100 different angles, so that an action scene that didn’t occur for more than 8 seconds in real time takes 20 minutes of screen time to complete

Posted by: The Unvaxed and Unmasked Ranger at May 27, 2025 05:36 PM (HYKHz)

301 Speaking of Mission Impossible:

Did you know that the theme song originally had LYRICS?!?!

And they're almost impossible to sing, thanks to the song's bizarre and nearly unique 5/4 (i.e. five beats per measure) time signature.

As a result, they used the instrumental version in the show. And it is of course a classic.

But the lyrics version was recorded exactly once, by "The Kane Triplets" -- and you can listen to it here! :

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

Fantastic. They do a great job of trying to make the lyrics understandable.

Posted by: zombie at May 27, 2025 05:37 PM (pMi6S)

302
Collateral ranks up there because it’s the only time cruise broke his own rule on having to ALWAYS be the good guy

Although in the movie he’s on Jamie Fox to stop being such a pansy assed poofsie twat so even in this one he was still the good guy lol
Posted by: The Unvaxed and Unmasked Ranger at May 27, 2025 05:32 PM (HYKHz

A very interesting movie.. and.. well made.
Posted by: tubal at May 27, 2025 05:34 PM (PCK5/)
-------------

Yes it was.

Posted by: blake - semi lurker in marginal standing (tT6L1) at May 27, 2025 05:37 PM (tT6L1)

303 ot:Mordor wasn't burned down in a day.

Didn't the whole thing fall into Mt. Doom's caldera in 30 seconds after Gollum struck lava?

Posted by: DaveA at May 27, 2025 05:38 PM (FhXTo)

304 Are there any Scientology themes or messaging in Cruise's movies. He's influential enough to make that happen. I'm not familiar enough with Scientology to know if it's in his movies.

Posted by: Field Marshal Zhukov at May 27, 2025 05:38 PM (wBaIH)

305 And they're almost impossible to sing, thanks to the song's bizarre and nearly unique 5/4 (i.e. five beats per measure) time signature.

What you talkin' 'bout, Willis?

Posted by: Paul Desmond at May 27, 2025 05:38 PM (PiwSw)

306 Equilibrium was Christian Bale, not Tom Cruise.

Come on. Try to stay on topic here.
Posted by: Warai-otoko
----

It's difficult, I don't go to movies.

Posted by: Braenyard - some Absent Friends are more equal than others _ at May 27, 2025 05:39 PM (wKw1c)

307 I wouldn’t blame anyone who stopped watching after the second, it’s easily the worst one in the series because of John Woo

Who had this incessant need to slow every action scene down and then reshoot the same sequence 30 different ways from 100 different angles, so that an action scene that didn’t occur for more than 8 seconds in real time takes 20 minutes of screen time to complete
Posted by: The Unvaxed and Unmasked Ranger at May 27, 2025 05:36 PM (HYKHz)
-------------

This was the movie which made me realize a director absolutely can kill a good storyline.

Posted by: blake - semi lurker in marginal standing (tT6L1) at May 27, 2025 05:39 PM (tT6L1)

308 Patel and Bongino should open up specific investigations on Garcia to find out what he knows. These dem politicians are a little too interested in this guy.
Posted by: Lemmiwinks at May 27, 2025 05:29 PM (oNeeU)
*****
Bukele should find out what he knows.
Drip...drip...drip

Posted by: torabora at May 27, 2025 05:39 PM (yM2nk)

309 304 Are there any Scientology themes or messaging in Cruise's movies. He's influential enough to make that happen. I'm not familiar enough with Scientology to know if it's in his movies.
Posted by: Field Marshal Zhukov at May 27, 2025 05:38 PM (wBaIH)

I am sure if someone looks hard enough they could find something or other…

Posted by: tubal at May 27, 2025 05:39 PM (PCK5/)

310 Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov launched a scathing attack on European leaders, accusing them of deliberately sabotaging peace efforts in the Ukraine-Russia conflict.

According to Lavrov, U.S. President Donald Trump is frustrated as his attempts to broker peace are being undermined by a handful of European politicians pushing Ukraine into reckless military action.
_ETonline
Posted by: Braenyard - some Absent Friends are more equal than others _ at May 27, 2025 05:33 PM (wKw1c)

Well, they did. And they are.

I can't imagine what they are thinking because even WITH America they will lose. And Trump isn't going to fight Russia on the ground. So their plan is to insult the person who might save their stupid plot rather than leave them to fight Russia without weapons, armies or sense.

Posted by: Oldcat at May 27, 2025 05:39 PM (8avO+)

311 Tom Cruise action movies are fun

Posted by: vmom deport deport deport at May 27, 2025 05:40 PM (GhIJO)

312 Hissrich isn't too bad.
A Six, which translates to a One.

My local news chick Jessica Harthorn is sexier in a girl next door way. She is looking good today.

Posted by: anchorbabe fashion cop at May 27, 2025 05:40 PM (ufFY8)

313 304 Are there any Scientology themes or messaging in Cruise's movies. He's influential enough to make that happen. I'm not familiar enough with Scientology to know if it's in his movies.
Posted by: Field Marshal Zhukov at May 27, 2025 05:38 PM (wBaIH)

His Sci-Fi movies yes

Posted by: Patrick From Ohio at May 27, 2025 05:40 PM (FCrpy)

314 306 Equilibrium was Christian Bale, not Tom Cruise.

Come on. Try to stay on topic here.
Posted by: Warai-otoko
----

It's difficult, I don't go to movies.
Posted by: Braenyard - some Absent Friends are more equal than others _ at May 27, 2025 05:39 PM (wKw1c)

Yes that would put you at a disadvantage in Movie Threads…

Posted by: tubal at May 27, 2025 05:40 PM (PCK5/)

315 I believe this was accurately identified by Iowahawk long ago:
1. Identify a respected institution.
2. kill it.
3. gut it.
4. wear its carcass as a skin suit, while demanding respect.

Posted by: Ex Rex Reeder at May 27, 2025 05:40 PM (MZ+PY)

316 I just can't get into Hercule Poirot. I don't understand his character. Miss Marple I "get" -- but not Poirot.

My favorite "detective" characters are

-- The Continental Op (Dashiell Hammett's never0-named detective, the prototype/basis for all subsequent hard-boiled detectives.

-- Father Brown. As brilliant and insightful as Sherlock Holmes, but doesn't really get credit for it.

-- Encyclopedia Brown. Yeah it's fir kid. But he used logic. And moxie.
Posted by: zombie at May 27, 2025 05:26 PM (pMi6S)

Check out the Masterpiece Theater series with Poirot. David Suchet is a revelation; he's the definitive Belgian.

Posted by: Darrell Harris at May 27, 2025 05:41 PM (Zdcok)

317 ot:Mordor wasn't burned down in a day.

Didn't the whole thing fall into Mt. Doom's caldera in 30 seconds after Gollum struck lava?
Posted by: DaveA at May 27, 2025 05:38 PM (FhXTo)

Mordor is a big place, about as big as Gondor or Rohan.

Posted by: Oldcat at May 27, 2025 05:41 PM (8avO+)

318 stop being such a pansy assed poofsie twat
Posted by: The Unvaxed and Unmasked Ranger at May 27, 2025 05:32 PM

Why do you say that like it's a bad thing?

Posted by: Miss Lindsay at May 27, 2025 05:41 PM (0sNs1)

319 Two words-

Taylor Sheridan.

He knows how to turn random manly endeavors into compelling must-see TV, even when they’re executed by hot tough babes.

Posted by: SnakePlizzken at May 27, 2025 05:42 PM (G0Od/)

320 I wouldn’t blame anyone who stopped watching after the second, it’s easily the worst one in the series because of John Woo
-------------
Writer's strike also didn't help. Not to mention editing the result so that what was there didn't make a lot of sense. Not even Thandie Newton or Anthony Hopkins could save that film.

Posted by: Captain Obvious, Laird o' the Sea at May 27, 2025 05:42 PM (6YdsJ)

321 Lauren Schmidt Hissrich is the name of the heroic rack.

And whenever we go out
the people point and shout,
"There goes Lauren Schmidt Hissrich's heroic rack!"

Posted by: John Jacob Jingleheimer Schmidt at May 27, 2025 05:42 PM (Aqu9a)

322 "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xQnGlaKutgQ

Fantastic. They do a great job of trying to make the lyrics understandable.
Posted by: zombie"

Wow! Who knew there were words? Thanks zombie!

Posted by: fd at May 27, 2025 05:42 PM (vFG9F)

323 Melissa Gilbert did not do the nasty with Cruise.
She said he was a good kisser, and bought him his first set of dishes.

She was 16 at the time.

Posted by: anchorbabe fashion cop at May 27, 2025 05:42 PM (ufFY8)

324 Equilibrium was Christian Bale, not Tom Cruise.

Fun and thoughtful movie, though

Posted by: Christopher R Taylor at May 27, 2025 05:43 PM (2VST1)

325 John Woo lost the plot when he was no longer working on a Budget, his HK movies were fun to watch.

Posted by: Patrick From Ohio at May 27, 2025 05:43 PM (FCrpy)

326
Watch Barbra Streisand and Robert Redford in 1973's "The Way We Were," set during the Great Depression. Hilarious. Every set design, costume, fashion and dialogue detail is 100% wrong.
Posted by: zombie at May 27, 2025 05:17 PM (pMi6S)

HUAC MCCARTHYISM HOLLYWOOD BLACKLIST MOST EVILLIST CRIME IN HUMAN HISTORY ALERT!!!!

Posted by: IllTemperedCur at May 27, 2025 05:44 PM (y9nCu)

327 Try to stay on topic here.
Posted by: Warai-otoko at May 27, 2025 05:36 PM

Warai-otoko is not new here, so where is he, and what have you done with him?

Posted by: Duncanthrax at May 27, 2025 05:44 PM (0sNs1)

328 Melissa Gilbert… was she the kid in Little House on the Prairie, and if so why would I even know that?

Posted by: tubal at May 27, 2025 05:44 PM (PCK5/)

329 I have no idea what a Scientology theme would even be.

Join us and give us your money and stop talking to your friends and family?

Posted by: eleven at May 27, 2025 05:44 PM (0HaGk)

330 Who is going to ruin Narnia LION, WITCH AND THE WARDROBE Aslan will be played by a Woman Merl Strep WTF
Posted by: Patrick From Ohio at May 27, 2025 05:33 PM (FCrpy)

So will the lion be a virgin Mary allegory instead of a Christ allegory?

Posted by: Oldcat at May 27, 2025 05:44 PM (8avO+)

331 305 And they're almost impossible to sing, thanks to the song's bizarre and nearly unique 5/4 (i.e. five beats per measure) time signature.

What you talkin' 'bout, Willis?
Posted by: Paul Desmond

When I took piano lessons as a kid, the teacher bizarrely at one point assigned us a book by Dave Brubeck in which he explores crazy time signatures in jazz compositions, made "easy" for intermediate beginners. (Why the teacher did this I'll never know.) One of the songs was 5/4 -- but it wasn't "Take Five," but instead some kind of jazzed-up Turkish filk song. (Apparently 5/4 rhythm is completely standard in traditional Turkish music. Who knew?)

Needless to say, I hated that book. Couldn't play any of the crazy time signatures without messing up every single measure.

Posted by: zombie at May 27, 2025 05:44 PM (pMi6S)

332 Melissa Gilbert… was she the kid in Little House on the Prairie, and if so why would I even know that?
Posted by: tubal at May 27, 2025 05:44 PM (PCK5/)

She is and I don't know.

Posted by: Oldcat at May 27, 2025 05:44 PM (8avO+)

333 When Moby released his version of Mission Impossible theme for the movie, Lalo Schifrin who wrote it joked "he turned it into a dance song, if only I'd thought of that"

Posted by: Christopher R Taylor at May 27, 2025 05:45 PM (2VST1)

334 filk = folk

Posted by: zombie at May 27, 2025 05:45 PM (pMi6S)

335 Melissa Gilbert… was she the kid in Little House on the Prairie, and if so why would I even know that?
Posted by: tubal at May 27, 2025 05:44 PM (PCK5/)

She got hot when she grew up.

Posted by: anchorbabe fashion cop at May 27, 2025 05:45 PM (ufFY8)

336 308 Patel and Bongino should open up specific investigations on Garcia to find out what he knows. These dem politicians are a little too interested in this guy.
Posted by: Lemmiwinks at May 27, 2025 05:29 PM (oNeeU)
*****
Bukele should find out what he knows.
Drip...drip...drip

Posted by: torabora at May 27, 2025 05:39 PM (yM2nk)

---

You just watch. The dems are going to have a "rival gang member" murder Garcia in prison. It is the only way for them to be sure and set their minds at ease.

Posted by: Lemmiwinks at May 27, 2025 05:46 PM (oNeeU)

337 He really wants Canada.

>>@trump_repost
·
>>13s
I told Canada, which very much wants to be part of our fabulous Golden Dome System, that it will cost $61 Billion Dollars if they remain a separate, but unequal, Nation, but will cost ZERO DOLLARS if they become our cherished 51st State. They are considering the offer!

Posted by: JackStraw at May 27, 2025 05:46 PM (viF8m)

338 Watch Barbra Streisand and Robert Redford in 1973's "The Way We Were," set during the Great Depression. Hilarious. Every set design, costume, fashion and dialogue detail is 100% wrong.

It was pretty bad in the 60s that way, too. There were exceptions but yeah, you'd have Wyatt Earp with hippie hair and sideburns. The 80s did some of that too.

Posted by: Christopher R Taylor at May 27, 2025 05:46 PM (2VST1)

339 >>>Well, they did. And they are.

I can't imagine what they are thinking because even WITH America they will lose. And Trump isn't going to fight Russia on the ground. So their plan is to insult the person who might save their stupid plot rather than leave them to fight Russia without weapons, armies or sense.
Posted by: Oldcat
---

Meloni and eight other nations signed on a letter to the EU for a more fair/legal application of immigration laws. I think these are the same assignee's on 'let's end the war. Italy has specifically stated that no Italian troops were going.

Posted by: Braenyard - some Absent Friends are more equal than others _ at May 27, 2025 05:46 PM (wKw1c)

340 Didn't Melissa Gilbert marry Bruce Boxleitner of B5 or was that a different Melissa?

Posted by: vmom deport deport deport at May 27, 2025 05:46 PM (GhIJO)

341 Didn't Melissa Gilbert marry Bruce Boxleitner of B5 or was that a different Melissa?
Posted by: vmom deport deport deport

They're divorced now I think.

Posted by: Tuna at May 27, 2025 05:47 PM (lJ0H4)

342 We would be wise to not fight Russia at all… as in whyyyyy?

Posted by: tubal at May 27, 2025 05:47 PM (PCK5/)

343 He really wants Canada.

>>@trump_repost
·
>>13s
I told Canada, which very much wants to be part of our fabulous Golden Dome System, that it will cost $61 Billion Dollars if they remain a separate, but unequal, Nation, but will cost ZERO DOLLARS if they become our cherished 51st State. They are considering the offer!
Posted by: JackStraw at May 27, 2025 05:46 PM (viF8m)

It will simplify the Invasion of Greenland.

Posted by: Oldcat at May 27, 2025 05:48 PM (8avO+)

344 >>@trump_repost
·
>>13s
I told Canada, which very much wants to be part of our fabulous Golden Dome System, that it will cost $61 Billion Dollars if they remain a separate, but unequal, Nation, but will cost ZERO DOLLARS if they become our cherished 51st State. They are considering the offer!
Posted by: JackStraw
----------------------------

ROLOL

Posted by: Braenyard - some Absent Friends are more equal than others _ at May 27, 2025 05:48 PM (wKw1c)

345 Didn't Melissa Gilbert marry Bruce Boxleitner of B5 or was that a different Melissa?
----------
B5 should have had MC5 make an appearance.

Posted by: Crusader at May 27, 2025 05:48 PM (TN0g+)

346 They're divorced now I think.
Posted by: Tuna

Sad

Posted by: vmom deport deport deport at May 27, 2025 05:48 PM (GhIJO)

347 We would be wise to not fight Russia at all… as in whyyyyy?
Posted by: tubal at May 27, 2025 05:47 PM (PCK5/)

The deeps and the EU thought that a sanction would break the nation with the most resources in the world, and the one that did not let their military industry degrade.

They thought poorly and had to scramble after that.

Posted by: Oldcat at May 27, 2025 05:49 PM (8avO+)

348 Surprised Greenland is not more seriously considering the offer.

Posted by: Braenyard - some Absent Friends are more equal than others _ at May 27, 2025 05:50 PM (wKw1c)

349 Melissa really was a cutie, kind of a mess last time I checked though. A kid in hollywood :/

Posted by: Christopher R Taylor at May 27, 2025 05:50 PM (2VST1)

350 ROLOL

Posted by: Braenyard

I literally loled reading that
Best Prez evah

Posted by: vmom deport deport deport at May 27, 2025 05:50 PM (GhIJO)

351 Canada's choices
1 parts join the US
2 Become a province of a one world leftist government with Muslim shock troops. Mandatory MAID when you are no longer useful and all of your children are required to be trans

Posted by: Smell the Glove at May 27, 2025 05:51 PM (eDGGN)

352 337 He really wants Canada.

>>@trump_repost
·
>>13s
I told Canada, which very much wants to be part of our fabulous Golden Dome System, that it will cost $61 Billion Dollars if they remain a separate, but unequal, Nation, but will cost ZERO DOLLARS if they become our cherished 51st State. They are considering the offer!

Posted by: JackStraw at May 27, 2025 05:46 PM (viF8m)

----

Please just take British Columbia, Alberta and the Yukon. Leave Cabeck to the Fwanch

Posted by: Lemmiwinks at May 27, 2025 05:51 PM (oNeeU)

353 Woah, things move fast in these comments sections.
Sorry to everyone who commented WoT before me.
After book 4 with no mention of one of the ta'veren i figured Jordan was going to pull a Dune and kick the bucket before finishing, so stopped reading once Rand and Nynaeve cleansed saidar, missing most of those filled-by-filler episodes you are talking about.
I should read more and talk less.

Posted by: Nato at May 27, 2025 05:51 PM (3iVPx)

354 Europe DeepState & Co. think Putin is stupid.
That thought is a reflection of them.

Posted by: Braenyard - some Absent Friends are more equal than others _ at May 27, 2025 05:51 PM (wKw1c)

355 Meloni and eight other nations signed on a letter to the EU for a more fair/legal application of immigration laws. I think these are the same assignee's on 'let's end the war. Italy has specifically stated that no Italian troops were going.
Posted by: Braenyard - some Absent Friends are more equal than others _ at May 27, 2025 05:46 PM (wKw1c)

The EU is a theocracy, no such heresy will be tolerated. They want other countries to pay the cost of their idiocy.

Posted by: Oldcat at May 27, 2025 05:52 PM (8avO+)

356 Please just take British Columbia, Alberta and the Yukon. Leave Cabeck to the Fwanch

Saskatchewan, too. Maybe the maritimes

Posted by: Christopher R Taylor at May 27, 2025 05:52 PM (2VST1)

357
Who had this incessant need to slow every action scene down and then reshoot the same sequence 30 different ways from 100 different angles, so that an action scene that didn’t occur for more than 8 seconds in real time takes 20 minutes of screen time to complete
Posted by: The Unvaxed and Unmasked Ranger at May 27, 2025 05:36 PM (HYKHz)

Creeky Liam Neeson climbing a fence in Taken 3....

Posted by: IllTemperedCur at May 27, 2025 05:52 PM (y9nCu)

358 I really like Tom Cruise except when he played Reacher.
I hate J.R.R. Martina d will never watch GOTs or read anything he has written. After slogging through 5 books and never completing a single story line.
I have been watching old TV shows and although usually enthusiastic at the start, they all seem to devolve into moralizing messes. Most recent Spenser for Hire. If not for Hawk, I would have stopped long ago.

Posted by: Sharon(willow's apprentice) at May 27, 2025 05:52 PM (t/2Uw)

359 Would be ironic if the looming Civil War was actually Canadian

Posted by: vmom deport deport deport at May 27, 2025 05:52 PM (GhIJO)

360 Melissa Gilbert also played John Sheridan's reanimated wife in B5

Posted by: Smell the Glove at May 27, 2025 05:52 PM (eDGGN)

361 Nation, but will cost ZERO DOLLARS if they become our cherished 51st State. They are considering the offer!
Posted by: JackStraw
-----

I understand that King Charlie has addressed the Canadian Parliament:
"Trump's repeated threats that the US annex Canada and declare it the 51st state prompted Prime Minister Mark Carney to invite the king to give the speech from the throne outlining his government's priorities for the new session of Parliament."

'Threats'. Bwahahaha. Trump trolls Chuck, and Chuck is clueless.

Posted by: Mike Hammer, etc., etc. at May 27, 2025 05:52 PM (XeU6L)

362 There's an old saying 'Shirtsleeves to Shirtsleeves in 3 Generations" ...
Posted by: Oldcat at May 27, 2025 05:27 PM (8avO+)
++++
An expression that, once understood, can be seen to be tremendously powerful. It is not universally true, but it's very, very often true. It can become something of an anti-goal - something to try to *not* achieve.

Posted by: Joe Mannix (Not a cop!) at May 27, 2025 05:52 PM (B2vkr)

363 Creeky Liam Neeson climbing a fence in Taken 3

Thirty-seven cuts for each swing in a fight because he's so old and broken down he can barely move. I don't look forward to his Naked Gun movie

Posted by: Christopher R Taylor at May 27, 2025 05:53 PM (2VST1)

364 357

Creeky Liam Neeson climbing a fence in Taken 3....
Posted by: IllTemperedCur at May 27, 2025 05:52 PM (y9nCu)

Good way to break a hip, Liam… or aggravate that hernia…

Posted by: tubal at May 27, 2025 05:53 PM (PCK5/)

365 Canada's choices
1 parts join the US
2 Become a province of a one world leftist government with Muslim shock troops. Mandatory MAID when you are no longer useful and all of your children are required to be trans
Posted by: Smell the Glove at May 27, 2025 05:51 PM (eDGGN)

The US can't tolerate too much crap from that direction.

Posted by: Oldcat at May 27, 2025 05:53 PM (8avO+)

366 Not crazy about the thought of Canada becoming a state.
That's a lot of Democrat votes. A protectorate maybe. State
not a chance.

Posted by: Braenyard - some Absent Friends are more equal than others _ at May 27, 2025 05:53 PM (wKw1c)

367 https://youtu.be/FyzE9thQIPo

IDK if it matches the book but the caldera floor collapses all the way from Mt. Doom to the Black Gate.

Posted by: DaveA at May 27, 2025 05:54 PM (FhXTo)

368 Trump should just make a deal with Alberta, AKA Canada’s Texas. They will happily become the 51st state.

Posted by: SnakePlizzken at May 27, 2025 05:54 PM (G0Od/)

369 B5 should have had MC5 make an appearance.

I think B5 had Melissa Gilbert make a couple cameos as Sheridan's missing ex-wife when they needed him to go to the Shadow's homeworld and jump into a chasm.

Posted by: Thing From Snowy Mountain at May 27, 2025 05:54 PM (qjens)

370
And they're almost impossible to sing, thanks to the song's bizarre and nearly unique 5/4 (i.e. five beats per measure) time signature.

___________

Mars, from Holst's The Planets, is 5/4. As is the waltz movement from Tchaikovsky's 6th Symphony.

Posted by: Hadrian the Seventh at May 27, 2025 05:54 PM (QnmlO)

371 334 filk = folk
Posted by: zombie at May 27, 2025 05:45 PM (pMi6S)

Filk is the traditional spelling of folk singing parties at gaming conventions.

Posted by: Mark Andrew Edwards, buy ammo at May 27, 2025 05:54 PM (xcxpd)

372 oops

Posted by: Thing From Snowy Mountain at May 27, 2025 05:54 PM (qjens)

373 We need to PR the Canadians is all…

Posted by: tubal at May 27, 2025 05:54 PM (PCK5/)

374 I really like Tom Cruise except when he played Reacher.

He did a good job, he just was the wrong casting. But it was the only way he could get the movie made. He didn't mean to play the role, but the studio wouldn't make a Reacher movie unless he starred in it. Second movie was terrible, though.

Posted by: Christopher R Taylor at May 27, 2025 05:54 PM (2VST1)

375 Big nope to Canadian statehood, in any way. We're a friendly and compatible pair of cultures, but we are not the same.

Territorial status? Perhaps, if it's mutually beneficial.

Statehood. Hell no.

Posted by: Joe Mannix (Not a cop!) at May 27, 2025 05:54 PM (B2vkr)

376 Which I'd pay money to see happen to the Post's printing plant. Or the NYT's.

Posted by: DaveA at May 27, 2025 05:55 PM (FhXTo)

377 ok, this shouldnt be happening

Posted by: Thing From Snowy Mountain at May 27, 2025 05:55 PM (qjens)

378 I see that Christopher R. Taylor is one of those cheaters who puts close tags in his name field...

Posted by: Joe Mannix (Not a cop!) at May 27, 2025 05:55 PM (B2vkr)

379 I understand that King Charlie has addressed the Canadian Parliament:
"Trump's repeated threats that the US annex Canada and declare it the 51st state prompted Prime Minister Mark Carney to invite the king to give the speech from the throne outlining his government's priorities for the new session of Parliament."

'Threats'. Bwahahaha. Trump trolls Chuck, and Chuck is clueless.
Posted by: Mike Hammer, etc., etc. at May 27, 2025 05:52 PM (XeU6L)

Appeal to the weakest member of the Anglosphere when a good chunk of your peeps are militant French. Good Plan.

Posted by: Oldcat at May 27, 2025 05:55 PM (8avO+)

380 I'm sorry, I shouldn't be typing like this, my vision's kind of blurry.

Posted by: Thing From Snowy Mountain at May 27, 2025 05:55 PM (qjens)

381 Tom Cruise action movies are fun
Posted by: vmom deport deport deport at May 27, 2025 05:40 PM

Yes

Posted by: Sharon(willow's apprentice) at May 27, 2025 05:56 PM (t/2Uw)

382 273
Actually, I'm not much of a fiction reader in the first place. But I'm currently reading The Leopard by Giuseppe di Lampedusa, which is marvelous.

Posted by: Hadrian the Seventh at May 27, 2025 05:29 PM (QnmlO)
----
One of the most boring movies I have seen. Claudia Cardinale was fabulous.

Posted by: Ciampino - the eye candy was nice at May 27, 2025 05:56 PM (sPQoU)

383 I see that Christopher R. Taylor is one of those cheaters who puts close tags in his name field

mmmm could beeeee...

Posted by: Christopher R Taylor at May 27, 2025 05:56 PM (2VST1)

384 "I see that Christopher R. Taylor is one of those cheaters who puts close tags in his name field...
Posted by: Joe Mannix (Not a cop!)"

I heard he's a "prepper".

Posted by: eleven at May 27, 2025 05:56 PM (0HaGk)

385 If so, Joe, I should thank him.

Posted by: Thing From Snowy Mountain at May 27, 2025 05:56 PM (qjens)

386 @380 you're probably suffering snow blindness

Posted by: Smell the Glove at May 27, 2025 05:56 PM (eDGGN)

387
B5 should have had MC5 make an appearance

Kick out the jams, motherfuckers....

Posted by: IllTemperedCur at May 27, 2025 05:57 PM (y9nCu)

388 Is this thing on?

tap tap

Posted by: kallisto at May 27, 2025 05:57 PM (foBj9)

389 I'm feeling a little peckish now.

Posted by: The Barrel at May 27, 2025 05:58 PM (PiwSw)

390 Rick Derringer, singer of Rock N Roll Hootchie Coo, is mort.

Posted by: haffhowershower at May 27, 2025 05:58 PM (144I4)

391 388 Is this thing on?

tap tap
Posted by: kallisto at May 27, 2025 05:57 PM (foBj9)

Yes but we are getting feedback… turn away from your monitor when you type….

Posted by: tubal at May 27, 2025 05:58 PM (PCK5/)

392 Rick Derringer, singer of Rock N Roll Hootchie Coo, is mort.

He deserved better, the guy was a real talent but he's only known for some dorky songs.

Posted by: Christopher R Taylor at May 27, 2025 05:58 PM (2VST1)

393 Rick Derringer, singer of Rock N Roll Hootchie Coo, is mort.
-------------
Did somebody say keep on rockin'?

Posted by: Crusader at May 27, 2025 05:58 PM (TN0g+)

394 390 Rick Derringer, singer of Rock N Roll Hootchie Coo, is mort.
Posted by: haffhowershower at May 27, 2025 05:58 PM (144I4)

RIP Sloopy

Posted by: Mark Andrew Edwards, buy ammo at May 27, 2025 05:59 PM (xcxpd)

395 In terms of population, wouldn't the entirety of Canada as one hypothetical state still only be like the fifth or sixth most populous state?

And only a little bit bigger than Alaska?

Posted by: Warai-otoko at May 27, 2025 05:59 PM (yvnLa)

396
Babylon 5?

Here's Scott Adams on B5:

https://is.gd/BIb88v

Posted by: Soothsayer at May 27, 2025 05:59 PM (T/Oi+)

397 I agree that the Tom Cruise Reacher movies were enjoyable but it was difficult to get past how absolutely opposite he is from the book Reacher. If I had never read the books it would have been fine.
Although he is very attractive, he just doesn't give off any heat in his romantic scenes.

Posted by: Sharon(willow's apprentice) at May 27, 2025 06:00 PM (t/2Uw)

398 Melissa Gilbert

I'd hit it like an exploding starship.
She's a planetary borehole 1.

etc.

Posted by: DaveA at May 27, 2025 06:00 PM (FhXTo)

399 I love Dickens and have read most of his books twice. There are very few tedious pages. I can understand people thinking Moby Dick gets boring, but not Dickens.

You mentioned 'Moby Dick' and Dickens in the same post and you didn't make a Moby Dickens joke? As soon as somebody brought up Dickens, i was trying to come up with a Moby Dickens joke. F**king hell.

Posted by: Nelly at May 27, 2025 06:00 PM (cHLus)

400 Stazinsky is remaking Babylon Five supposedly and he's gonna make it a mess. They'd be better off redoing the special effects (which were pretty solid for the time) and re-releasing the original.

Posted by: Christopher R Taylor at May 27, 2025 06:00 PM (2VST1)

401 387
B5 should have had MC5 make an appearance

Kick out the jams, motherfuckers....

Posted by: IllTemperedCur at May 27, 2025 05:57 PM (y9nCu)

---

Did someone say kick out the jams???

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8BWAywxAtP8

Posted by: Lemmiwinks at May 27, 2025 06:00 PM (oNeeU)

402 I was a complete Wheel of Time nerd when I was younger.

The show is an abomination.

The entire plot point running through the series is that male and female magic users (channelers is their in universe name) access totally different sources of their magic.

The male magic source was tainted by their Satan expy thousands of years before the story began, and its a major plot point that all male channelers eventually go insane from that taint, which is why Aes Sedai are 100% females and extremely prejudiced against men.

And yes, The Dragon Reborn was absolutely, unambiguously, always a male in the books. There were entire LONG plot points and subplots devoted to the fact that the Dragon Reborn was eventually going to appear again to fight The Dark One, but they didn't know how to deal with the fact that with the male source of power tainted, when he appeared he might already be insane. There were entire plots and power struggles from the Aes Sedai about just how exactly they were going to deal with the Dragon Reborn when he appeared.

But there was ZERO ambiguity about him being male.

Posted by: DudeAbiding at May 27, 2025 06:00 PM (lCHt6)

403 I read the first six books and gave up. But even with that, the series was a pathetic mockery of the books.

Posted by: NR Pax at May 27, 2025 06:01 PM (7xrfc)

404 Adding close tags to my sig.

Sorry, my copy/paste fail I think.

Posted by: Mark Andrew Edwards, buy ammo at May 27, 2025 06:01 PM (xcxpd)

405 Thing From Snowy Mountain, are you ok?

Posted by: vmom deport deport deport at May 27, 2025 06:01 PM (gDlxJ)

406 Although he is very attractive, he just doesn't give off any heat in his romantic scenes.

Same with Daniel Craig, and likely for the same reason. No chemistry with his female leads at all.

Posted by: Christopher R Taylor at May 27, 2025 06:01 PM (2VST1)

407 Posted by: tubal at May 27, 2025 05:58 PM (PCK5/)

Just want to see if my posts are sticking. This morning the Art Thread was eating my posts.

Posted by: kallisto at May 27, 2025 06:01 PM (foBj9)

408 Melissa Gilbert

I'd hit it like an exploding starship.
She's a planetary borehole 1.

etc.
------------
There was a time when if she was President she'd have been Baberaham Lincoln.

Posted by: Garth at May 27, 2025 06:01 PM (TN0g+)

409 Nood

Posted by: Duke Lowell at May 27, 2025 06:01 PM (u73oe)

410

noood

\nood

Posted by: Soothsayer at May 27, 2025 06:01 PM (T/Oi+)

411 Sure ya did.
While on vacation at Niagra Falls...right?
Posted by: garrett at May 27, 2025 05:00 PM

Niagra?! Slowly I turn...

Posted by: toby928 at May 27, 2025 06:01 PM (jc0TO)

412 The Amazon Reacher series with the big guy started out good, then steadily deteriorated… the last one pretty well stunk… the female lead was obnoxious in the extreme…

Posted by: tubal at May 27, 2025 06:01 PM (PCK5/)

413 Dibs on Nell.

Posted by: wth at May 27, 2025 06:02 PM (UjdFS)

414 We'll find out who is superior when the WaPo staffers are on K Street subsisting on beef jerky and revenue from street side hand jobs.

Posted by: Rev. Wishbone at May 27, 2025 06:02 PM (dqmL3)

415 Rick Derringer, singer of Rock N Roll Hootchie Coo, is mort.
-------------
Did somebody say keep on rockin'?
Posted by: Crusader at May 27, 2025 05:58 PM (TN0g+)

Lisa Leonard Dalton, the dancing, wobbling Sloopy girl, is still with us.

Posted by: Count de Monet at May 27, 2025 06:03 PM (Aqu9a)

416 Canada Area - 3.86 million mi²
Alaska Area - 663,268 mi²

Posted by: Braenyard - some Absent Friends are more equal than others _ at May 27, 2025 06:04 PM (wKw1c)

417 In terms of population, wouldn't the entirety of Canada as one hypothetical state still only be like the fifth or sixth most populous state?

And only a little bit bigger than Alaska?
Posted by: Warai-otoko at May 27, 2025 05:59 PM (yvnLa)

Canada's pretty big but mostly forest and tundra.

But to be serious I would go to something like territorial status but emphasizing less the path to statehood. There's a lot of Euro type thinking that would have to be weaned out. But the apparent proclivity for exploiting parts of their own country without a care has to go.

Rome had client states, where the foreign relations were held by Rome while most other things remained as is.

Posted by: Oldcat at May 27, 2025 06:05 PM (8avO+)

418
It was pretty bad in the 60s that way, too. There were exceptions but yeah, you'd have Wyatt Earp with hippie hair and sideburns. The 80s did some of that too.
Posted by: Christopher R Taylor

============

Hollywood had always been thus. 1950s: ancient Egyptian queens with bright red lipstick and chignons.

Posted by: Blonde Morticia's phone at May 27, 2025 06:07 PM (n7rxJ)

419 The Amazon Reacher series with the big guy started out good, then steadily deteriorated… the last one pretty well stunk… the female lead was obnoxious in the extreme…

Ah, Tubal, I agree with this 100%. Aside from the fact that I had read the book so knew what the big reveal was going to be which took all the initial suspense away, her accent drove me nuts. No one in MA actually talks like that.
Pretty sad, they ruined whst could have been a good franchise.
He is pretty good in the Ministry if Ungentlmanly Warfare which is a fun movie and worth watching.

Posted by: Sharon(willow's apprentice) at May 27, 2025 06:07 PM (t/2Uw)

420 Zombie, it is the spy genre, not the private detective, but try Manning Cole's Tommy Hambledon books. They start with WWI and go on to the cold war - quite delightful in a sort of breezy Peter Whimsey sort of way should Peter Whimsey ever have stabbed someone to death in a locked cellar.

Posted by: Kindltot at May 27, 2025 06:10 PM (D7oie)

421 You know who doesn't put close tags in his name field?

Posted by: Carlos Danger at May 27, 2025 06:11 PM (0sNs1)

422 The second season of Reacher disappointed me quite a bit, and the third was sort of dull. The main actor didn't help himself any with his stupid comments either.

Posted by: Christopher R Taylor at May 27, 2025 06:19 PM (2VST1)

423 Got hooked on the Wheel of Time books.

Thought the female characters were great.

Have wondered if women readers liked them?

Could not accept casting and story changes.

Sanderson argued accept changes, I think.

If Jordan had lived, I would have read multiple new, long novels.

Posted by: Goatweed at May 27, 2025 06:30 PM (cl9qq)

424 Sanderson argue against changes, I think.

Posted by: Goatweed at May 27, 2025 06:31 PM (cl9qq)

425 "that I came to the conversation with knowledge and history she could never have,"

My aren't we special

Posted by: Fen at May 27, 2025 07:15 PM (ciYHQ)

426 "I'd humbly assert that investing a single hour of your time into listening to Queensryche's "Operation Mindcrime" from start to finish would be much more enjoyable. Its the metal/hard rock answer to Pink Floyd's "Dark Side of the Moon". And I'm not kidding. Its a brilliant concept album, not merely a collection of songs."

I second that. And I think the political angle will speak to you.

Posted by: Fen at May 27, 2025 07:21 PM (ciYHQ)

427 >I am not familiar with the books or the series

That's not a bad thing. The books are typical fantasy slop, consisting of rehashed ideas from better books and D&D. Mostly D&D. The vast majority of fantasy best-sellers outside of the millennial "YA romantic fantasy" genre are just transcriptions of the author's college D&D game.

Posted by: Daniel Ream at May 28, 2025 10:42 AM (LgYtf)

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