Pretty fun world-building, I think.
“John Wick 4’s success raises obvious questions”
Friday Afternoon Links
About The Author
Riven
[riv-uhn]
noun
1. a gaming, lifting, shooting, intoxicated, ravenous, and happily-taken nerd.
2. often aims to misbehave.
3. and though she be but little, she is fierce.*
And rumor has it that she (and her husband) are also delightful dinner companions. You didn't hear it from me, though.
I always enjoy your FEE links, Riven.
*curtsy*
Many thanks!
“The greatest unintended consequence of Prohibition however, was the plainest to see,” said historian Michael Lerner. “For over a decade, the law that was meant to foster temperance instead fostered intemperance and excess.
And the greatest unintended consequence of passing the nineteenth amendment was Prohibition (and all the attendant nonsense that has plagued us to this day).
Don’t forget growth of organized crime and the Kennedys.
And the FBI (if you didn’t include under organized crime).
They weren’t so open about it in the past.
Isn’t the eighteenth amendment prohibition?
Quite the trick by the 19th amendment, going back in time and passing the 18th.
The amendments were as you stated, but the suffrage and temperance movements were always hand in glove.
Then as now, a bunch of humorless scolds trying to tell us how we should live our lives.
[golf clap]
I agree they went hand in hand, but that’s not what you’d said.
It wasn’t unintended at all.
Hell, at least the citizens and government understood they needed a constitutional amendment to ban something.
/looks at the war on some drugs.
kinetic police action
I always take my Apple Watch off before “relaxing.”
*nudge, nudge*
“Another set of Apple patents show that the tech giant is using existing devices to determine your every muscle movement and location in a room.”
Not mine. I don’t own any Apple devices, or any “wearables”.
Second
Is that what you kids are calling it these days?
I’m glad I’m not the only pervy guy that took it that way.
Heh heh heh…
“every muscle movement”
So my Apple device knows when I’m beating off? Wonderful…now if I can just get Siri with the South African accent involved…maybe somebody will write an app for that.
I have one, but all it says is “Diplomatic immunity!!!”
A Lethal Weapon 2 (?) reference?
Nice.
Yeah, it’s pretty much the only detail I remember about that movie.
https://youtu.be/J-PYqUHfTMA
Someone will have to update the Clippy suicide meme gif with “So it looks like you’re trying auto-erotic asphyxiation!”….
😆
You’re going to be a millionaire.
With internet money
TikTok or OnlyFans?
Also, was first introduced to “Little Fugue in G” from the second Styx album. Enjoyed this take.
Have some Vulfpeck doing Bach.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vJfiOuDdetg
Inject it directly into my veins
The euphemisms around here are just getting weirder and weirder.
Re: E3 — can’t bring myself to care, honestly…. most of the big conferences aren’t really needed, imho. Then again, most of the “gaming press” isn’t really needed — look at the high quality of stories we get like “what’s BLink’s age again?”
Re: Apple — that may be stuff they’re thinking of doing… it seems up their alley with the medical / health initiatives. If they have that as explicitly opt-in, there’s probably value. That said, I’m in no rush to add tracking devices to my freerange lifestyle.
Re: John Wick… think I’ve said it before — but Parabellum was already pushing the boundaries of belief for me… and the fights just seemed to be spiraling into crazy-town. So I really don’t feel the urge to watch 4, much less worry about where it is headed as a franchise. Frankly, if they’d just done the first, I would have been happy enough.
Have a good weekend, fellow reprobates!
I had the same reaction to Parabellum. Mrs. Dean and I are planning to see JW4, though. We have a movie theater here with comfy seats and beer and good bar food and beer that we enjoy, but very few movies are released that we want to see in a theater any more. Maverick was the first we had gone to see in years. JW4 makes the cut, so, sure.
Drinker says
You really pulled out all the stops on that one!
My son is headed to regional competitions in NY this summer. One of his pieces is this one.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8pxQZVBlnbA
That is a wonderful performance of a ferric piece! Thank you Riven!
And best of fortune to your son, scruffy!
That’s a nice one, hope the lad kills it.
Strong start, lousy finish, story of my life
Daily Quordle 431
3️⃣8️⃣
2️⃣6️⃣
No, it died a slow, tortured death of irrelevance.
A microcosm of mainstream journalism as a whole? We can only hope.
I’m a little torn. When I was young and fell for hype easily, I eagerly awaited this every year. The industry has become so vapid and void of creativity that there’s nothing much to look forward. All “new game” announcements are for sequels it seems. All the innovation is in indie games that had never really been present at this show anyway.
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/yellen-warns-next-crisis-could-come-shadow-banks-and-regulators-must-act
:We need to make sure we have access to your private funds when we go in and take them cause we are broke” is how that all reads.
I had the original gold cartridge Legend of Zelda on the Nintendo. I got to where I would start a game without first getting the sword from the old man in the cave. I figured out how to get bombs, as I recall, and would win the first couple of dungeons until I could get the white sword, in the graveyard.
Also the ending music when winning the “second quest” was kind of catchy.
(Starts at 4:00 mark)
https://youtu.be/ytfZ6afnUTk
I am shockling bad at the Legend of Zelda series.
The first and third are the only games that I’ve won, myself.
The tax deductions won the Twilight Princess one, on the Wii.
I’ve beat every 3D Zelda, most of them more than once. I’ve only played half of the 2D games since I haven’t had a Nintendo handheld since the GB Color.
I was pissed at the Tears of the Kingdom reveal this week. They spent 6 years adding a crafting system and a vehicle building system to BotW. Same overworld map, same HUD, largely the same enemies. No talk whatsoever of whether there’s new shrines or dungeons. I enjoyed BotW, but Zelda games ARE the dungeons. If you don’t want to make Zelda games anymore, that’s fine, but please don’t skinsuit it into something else entirely like every other property that used to be worth a damn.
I spun my gears in BotW for 10 or 20 hours looking for a dungeon and all I got was a couple of those mini-shrines. I *hate* crafting shit. They turned it into a generic FPS and the press orgasmed with rave reviews.
PS. I thought BotW already had crafting.
It does. You’d have to watch the video. You can basically put any two things together to make the weapons. They make a hammer out of a stick and a rock. It looks kinda cool, but so far the whole thing really just looks like a $70 DLC to a six year old game. If this was a $30 dollar expansion four years ago, it might have been cool. Right now it just looks like a swindle. If it does really well, get ready to read think pieces in three years lamenting how many game “sequels” are coming out using basically the exact same game as before.
Rumor is that they’re going back to regular dungeons with this one. There are supposed to be seven of them, based on the number of “tears” seen on one of the screens.
If I’m wrong and they have some sweet dungeons I’ll buy this immediately and happily eat my words. I’m just saying they’ve made no effort so far to show either dungeons or whatever will stand in for shrines. Most people are speculating that we’ve seen all promo material that will be released before the game. I want to believe Nintendo cares enough about the reputation of the franchise to do more than release a $70 DLC, but the silence in this case is pretty deafening.
An “orchestral” version: https://youtu.be/TTPGLVCosXQ
Continuing from the dead thread, if you like KJV but want the deuterocanonical books, try Douay-Rheims.
It’s a Friday (I think… the days of the week are already starting to blur into irrelevance) and I’m at home tonight, so I give you the Zoom/Happy Hour/Rumor mill which I’ll kick off at 2000 Eastern.
I will not be around tomorrow night, as the girlfriend and I are heading out for a date night.
When do we get to meet the girlfriend? It would be a good test of how much she likes you.
She’s got an account here (ChaiGirl), and she’s posted a couple of times. She’s even met quite a few of you lot in person.
She also quite regularly jumps in on my connection and yells in my earballs at the microphone.
She’s been on the Zoom a bunch, unless we’re talking about a different one.
I missed it, because I was at work, but March 25 (a week ago, tomorrow) was a significant date, I’ve discovered.
According to medieval legend,
*It was the day Adam and Eve were created
*It was also the day of the Fall of Man
*It was the day that Abraham offered Isaac as a sacrifice
*It was the day that Israel crossed the Red Sea
*It was the day that the angel, Gabriel, visited Mary, and so…
*It was the day that Jesus was miraculously conceived
*It was also the day, thirty-three years later, that Jesus was crucified
*it was also the day that the One Ring fell into the fires of Mt. Doom, causing Sauron’s defeat
*it became the first day of the new year in the kingdom of Gondor, when Aragorn took the throne
Apropos the Bach link (and if you haven’t listened, you should!), would there be interest in a piece on the mechanics of the pipe organ? Organs are something of a passion of mine and I find the complexity of mechanical action organs (I.e., all instruments prior to the 1800s) absolutely fascinating.
When you watch the video, notice what’s going on with the keys on the keyboard above the one he’s playing.
I didn’t until midway through the piece; it’s worth noting.
You have to have a ghost assist you when playing an organ
Sigh. Not to take away from Riven’s link, but the performance I was enthusing over was the one Scruffy linked, that his son will be playing in competition. That’s where the keyboards reference points, or would if I weren’t easily befuddled and distracted ;-\
Yes, please.
Bach’s organ pieces are my favorite classical works.
I have no idea what is going on with that upper keyboard.
Older organs have mechanical linkages between manuals that can be activated by pulling stops.
They’re also notoriously more difficult to play because of the keyboard feel.
Especially when coupled, as here. More on this in my article. (It’s actually about 60% finished; given the interest expressed, I’ll definitely complete it and get it submitted.)
Absolutely.
Hella yes.
Organs are something of a passion of mine
Me, too. Well, one in particular.
Whenever you post your piece, I’ll be sure to bring it to TT’s attention. He helped his piano teacher rebuild an old church pipe organ in an addition onto said piano teacher’s house. (Have I ever told you the Rule For Playing Organ During Communion this teacher relayed to TT?)
No, not that I ever saw. Do tell!
One of my long time friends was subbing, years and years ago, at one of the local Catholic churches. Sitting up in the organ loft, listening to the priest read out the list of ‘prayers for’ and ‘candles for’. At the end of a list of candle numbers/afflictions or benedictions*, he muttered (he thought) ‘Bingo’! His voice echoed through the church as he slid down off the organ bench and hid behind the rail. We laughed and laughed, as did he.
*Catholics would know what this really is, I’m going off decades old memories of funny organist stories Jon had. Sorry for undoubtedly getting it wrong; please insert ‘bingo’ into the properly embarrassing moment of silence.
Timing is everything in this business! 😄
Anyway, per TT’s piano teacher, you can play any daggone tune you want during Communion… as long as you play it in a minor and at about one-eighth of the original tempo. After he learned that, TT would sit in church and pay attention to what Charlie was playing during Communion, and he started picking out old pop standards like “Misty,” show tunes, etc.
Had a friend who told the story that in her ward in Virginia, the organist played the Washington Redskins fight song for prelude music—very slowly and with great reverence.
😁👍🏼👍🏼
Riven!
Fell into an organ hole earlier this week, and here we are.
Phrasing!
“John Wick 4’s success raises obvious questions”
“How can we work a tranny into the story arc?”
He killed a tranny in #2.
Turns out every time I was dumping my shitter, I was loosening a connection on the inside plumbing. My undercarriage was dripping.
Take it away, preverts…
My son tells me the new Zelda game lets you fuse things together. So you can make crazy weapons, boats. airships, and who knows what else just from items and stuff that’s laying around.
Oops, that was supposed to be in the main thread.
I’m not touching that.
Yeah… No thanks,
The John Wick article is 100% right. Both about the lessons the movies teach, and that Hollywoke won’t take them.
What’s the over/under on the new Mario movie being woke?
How involved was Nintendo? The Japanese aren’t into that stuff too much.
I’ll let you know my thoughts after I take my 5 year old to see it next week. There’s no way I’m going to get out of it. Hopefully it’s at least entertaining. My hope is that Nintendo is deeply involved and since they’re not American, they won’t feel the need to put in “The Message” and alienate people. I think that’s partially why they cast Chris Pratt. I’m going to guess it will be bad, but mostly just because it’s going to follow the modern trends of not bothering with coherent plots or character development and instead catering exclusively to people with ADHD.
Next week, we are planning for my wife and inlaws to take tax deduction #5 to see “Mario”, while I take the other tax deductions to see “D&D: the Guardians of the Forgotten Realms”.
D&D was fun. Yeah, it was GoTG: Medieval Times, but fun.
Medieval Land Fun-Time World?
Yeah, hard to say how it’s going to go. The caged star in the trailer made me laugh, could be a good sign.
“Anglo-Saxon Gold Pyramid Mount” sounds like something that would pop up when I’m looking for accessories for D&D.
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-suffolk-64860568
For a second, I thought one of the replaceable hands was flipping the bird, and I was, like, “Warduke really *is* a bad guy!”
https://shop.wizkids.com/products/pre-order-dungeons-dragons-7-scale-action-figure-ultimate-warduke-figure
This storm is awful. Be careful Iowa peeps:
https://twitter.com/MyRadarWX/status/1641909952422768641
Arriving now
You in the path?
yes.
Severe Thunderstorm arriving shortly.
Tornado warning in the county next door.
Par for the course in mid-summer. Unusual for March.
Be safe.
And, there is our tornado warning.
Chat later.
Back up from the basement. The last squall line just passed over. Diminishing rain from here on.
Who knows what will pop back up hours from now.
But I think we are expecting a 40-degree drop in temperatures overnight.
Glad at least the first wave passed through without incident for you. We’re under a wind advisory here in SW OH, with the worst predicted around midnight/early wee hours. Drinking coffee so MAYBE I can avoid my usual Friday evening early conk-out and be awake & alert in case it becomes necessary to wrangle cats to the basement.
Our temps are rising all night from mid 30s this morning to 70 tomorrow.
Stay safe.
Yikes!!! 😳 Please be weather-aware, all Midwestern Glibs!!!
Ryan Hall Y’all on YouTube is a good source. He’s livestreaming now
https://www.youtube.com/live/uFJmw4xyG9c
Thanks so much for this! Watching now.
We had pea-sized hail here (twice), but missed the bad stuff (tornados), which is mostly off to the southeast.
It will likely get overturned, but this is fucking sick.
https://thepostmillennial.com/breaking-nyc-jury-finds-douglass-mackey-guilty-in-first-ever-meme-trial-after-making-memes-that-disparaged-hillary-clinton-in-the-2016-election?utm_campaign=64483
The federal government should be barred from selecting its own venue. Instead all cases should be randomly assigned across the country in an equitable manner.
It’s all about equity, isn’t it?
More than ever, the process is the punishment. The new plan is to railroad people with this constantly and load up the appeals courts while these people sit in a cell thinking about who they shouldn’t have fucked with.
If he’d done it to Trump voters he’d be getting a medal pinned to him during an elaborate ceremony paid for by tax payers.
Outrageous but not unexpected in current year.
The important thing is they made their point and how they feel about you perfectly clear.
Nothing shady there, not one bit.
It’s not witness tampering or interference with a court proceeding that’s for sure.
Pretty sure witness intimidation in a federal trial is an actual on the books crime.
When it gets overturned, the lawyers for the prosecution should have to serve the sentence that Mackey was expected to serve.
Grumpy Cat hardest hit.
Honestly, If someone voted by text instead of a normal process I don’t want their vote to count. They’re too stupid to know who is capable of good governance.
SLD: All politicians are not capable of good governance.
Anyone who loses an election should have to spend a year in jail.
Anyone who wins an election should be publicly shamed and be forced to ten years’ hard labor.
Your newsletter……how does one subscribe?
How is what he did different from regular political attack ads?
Looks like if he had put something like “parody message”, then he’d have been fine. Not that what he did is truly wrong. Free speech, after all. In any case people stupid enough to think they are voting by texting shouldn’t be voting in the first place.
I’m surprised by that verdict even in NY. That is chilling.
I was out in my garage, or shop, or whatever the fuck it is, trying to do something which should be completely simple and straightforward. But it wasn’t. It’s cold and dark out there, and everything is still in a massive unorganized jumble from just being randomly dumped in the corner during the “move”. Where the fuck is spring, so I can dig myself out of these winter doldrums and try to get my life back on track?
Waah waah waah. Maybe I’ll have some left over clam chowder for lunch.
“left over clam chowder for lunch.”
That won’t make it better.
Sounds like you’re having your stomach pumped for dinner.
This storm is awful. Be careful Iowa peeps:
I don’t know about that one, but we’re on about a ten day or longer run of an inch or three of snow every night and not much sun. Maybe we’re on the edge of the California storms.
The snow cam up the road from me has posted under its blank screen. ‘the cam is out of service as it is buried under 15 feet of snow’ or something like that. This year has been ridiculous. I am sure they will say we are still in a drought though.
20 Nights in the ice is a long time.
That channel is awesome.
Don’t know if this has been brought up. Paltrow won. One dollar in damages. And legal expenses. I bet that guy’s feeling pretty sorry, right about now.
She only asked for the $1 to make a point. And rest assured her expenses weren’t insignificant.
She’s an absolutely vile person, but that doesn’t excuse him trying to take advantage of her.
And apparently going to donate the reimbursed fees.
What’s interesting is this is insurable.
However if they wanted to settle and she chose to fight she’s on her own. So she may directly get the reimbursements to be able to donate.
I was wondering if there was an umbrella policy for negligence events that wouldn’t be covered by the usual auto/home insurance, like for rich & famous that would be more likely to be sued.
Yes, there are.
I think she’s hilarious. She’s a PT Barnum, cleaving stupid affluent white women from their money.
That’s not her intention. I’m pretty sure she’s dumb enough to think that she’s hawking things that actually help people. Either way, the people dumb enough to buy it are definitely getting what they’re paying for.
Rumor is she is miserable to work with.
When I lived in California, she had a reputation for “ Don’t you know who I am ?” behavior.
*shocked face*
You mean like most of the freaks?
I think it would be easier to create a list of the ones that are nice.
“Does anyone know this woman? She doesn’t seem to know who she is.”
Imagine having a reputation for being a standout insufferable cunt. In Hollywood.
She’s an absolutely vile person, but that doesn’t excuse him trying to take advantage of her.
He ran into her. Uphill skier is responsible. End of story.
I thought the only witness (a friend of the dude suing so take that for what it’s worth) said otherwise. Was there some other evidence that showed he ran into her or is it just she said , they said.
Other witnesses on the scene who had no obvious reason not to be impartial, including employees, said he was uphill of her before the wreck, although they did not see the wreck itself.
Thanks, I only skimmed one article about it and hadn’t heard that.
The new drum for the wind-up monkeys to beat seems to be “greedflation”. Because if you sell gasoline by the gallon (or dog food by the case) and you peer into your crystal ball and see that pricing your current inventory at historical cost is not going to bring in enough money to restock, you’re a price gouging robber baron.
Price-gouging laws are evil. Lawmakers would rather people go without basic necessities rather than pay market price. What do they care? Lawmakers aren’t affected.
Well we know that it has absolutely nothing to do with the Fed running the money printer at full capacity and shooting $12 trillion out of a cannon directly into the bank accounts of the companies that make the biggest campaign donations to the Uniparty. That’s so obviously not a factor that it is not worth discussing.
That won’t make it better.
But I like clam chowdah.
The snow cam up the road from me has posted under its blank screen. ‘the cam is out of service as it is buried under 15 feet of snow’ or something like that
Nice. Which makes me wonder: will they get Independence Pass open by July 4? They had marker poles for the snow plows which must have been at least fifteen feet tall. I wonder if they’re sticking out of the snow.
I doubt any of the passes that close for winter will open this year.
How much snow do you have at your place?
On the ground nothing now had an inch this morning. I live in what is called the banana belt and it usually melts off quickly. Hence why I live here. 20 minutes up the road they have been hammered with 534″ this year. It is crazy. Record year.
Insane. Yeah, it’s my favorite part of living where I do. We get the occasional inch or two, but it’s gone by noon at this time of year. I may be done with snow.
April and May can pack some pretty good snowstorms along the Front Range.
I think I can safely say we won’t get any more snow in Tucson.
Incredibly, for us anyway, there is still snow visible on the mountains. We got enough rain/snow in AZ this year that they are expecting a banner year for wildflowers. I’ve seen bluebonnets alongside the road, and after living here ten years I didn’t even know they grew here.
Snow on the foothills around here. We still have a little bit in the backyard from clearing the deck. If it lasts for another couple of hours, it will be snow on the ground in April.
napalm
And this is how westernsloper is crowned twerking champion of the world!
So are they actually doing this or is it a claim in the patent application? The claim doesn’t actually have to work or be used.
Who knows. As is custom, I didn’t read the article.
👍
Agent Heroin Hotpockets!
https://www.freetochoosenetwork.org/newandimproved/
White pills for free!!
Bookmarked. Looks like a lot of good articles.
Thanks, Hayek, I tuned in and learned something in 2 mins and 28 secs
Daily Quordle 431
4️⃣5️⃣
3️⃣7️⃣
Very late to the game today
But it was a good score