A Glibertarians Exclusive: Blood and Gold, Part IV
19 September 1987 – Marseille
The phone finally rang. Belos picked up the receiver.
“Yes?” He listened for a moment. Hess was seated in a chair at the suite’s small table, idly flipping through a French magazine. Alex van Helsing was lying on the couch, staring at the ceiling. Both turned and watched Belos.
“Yes, all right. We can meet to make the exchange. At your place of business, yes. Tonight? At midnight? Certainly, what could possibly be wrong with that?” Belos looked at the other two and rolled his eyes. “Very well. We shall see you then.” He hung up.
“It took him two whole weeks to figure out how to rip us off?” van Helsing asked the ceiling.
“Thugs are not cheap,” Hess pointed out. “And he probably had to arrange for several.”
“You know,” Belos pointed out, “if he breaks faith with us – if he should seek to take our gold and give nothing in return – we would be perfectly justified in turning the tables. Take the Swiss gold and the gold from the cache. Find another way to convert the Nazi gold.”
“Maybe we should have just melted the Nazi gold down and re-cast it,” van Helsing groused.
“It is not so simple,” Hess said, “to simply appear at a financial institution with several million dollars in unmarked gold ingots for deposit.”
“I suppose so. What are we going to do, then?”
“We will meet him to make the exchange, of course,” Hess said easily. “Belos – or Braxton, I should say – would you care to take a stroll with me through the area first, say around eleven-thirty, to see what we might see?”
“I think that is prudent, yes.”
At the agree-upon hour, Belos and Hess left van Helsing in a late-night winery and went walking, all about the tiny, run-down storefront where the little Frenchman Bouchard had his ‘business,’ but were surprised when that reconnaissance was complete.
“Nobody,” Belos said.
He spoke in a low tone, so quietly that a passerby could not possibly hear, but Hess had no such trouble. “Quite so. I can hear Bouchard inside.” In fact, he could hear the Frenchman’s heartbeat. “There do not seem to be any others in there with him.”
“Agreed.”
“We proceed, then?”
Belos looked thoughtful for a moment. “I can see no reason to do otherwise. We collect van Helsing from that dive, then – I hope he’s still sober – and make our appointment.”
Van Helsing proved to still be sober, seated at a small table nursing the same glass of wine Hess and Belos had left him with.
“See anything?” the young American asked.
“Nothing to concern us. This Bouchard, he appears to be on the up and up, at least, for a fence. Come along,” Hess said. “We’ll go and make the exchange.”
Belos picked up the heavy leather knapsack from the floor next to van Helsing’s chair; neither he nor Hess had been happy about trusting van Helsing with the gold, but neither did they want to take it out on their scouting mission.
They walked quietly through the darkened Marseilles streets. Several times locals, with the looks of thugs, looked them over. One followed them for a block, until Hess stopped and started pointedly at him. The two older men cast a distinct “you don’t want to try anything” aura, and Marseilles’ criminal caste seemed to pick up on it very quickly.
Outside Bouchard’s place of “business,” the three stopped. Hess, again, listened closely.
“He’s alone,” Hess said at last.
“We proceed, then?” van Helsing seemed oddly anxious, drawing a sharp look from Hess.
“Yes,” Belos replied. “Let’s have done with this.”
Inside, Bouchard was enthusiastic. “Ah, friends,” he greeted them. “I have the very thing you asked for; Swiss gold francs, in the amount we discussed.”
“Let’s see them,” Hess ordered. The Frenchman quickly complied.
Hess picked one of the heavy coins up. He examined it, closely, tapped it against his yellow teeth, and then, finally, pulled a small vial from the pocket of the battered old navy peal-jacket he wore. Extracting a dropper from the vial, he laid the coin on the counter, dripped a vinegary-smelling solution on it, and watched it for a few minutes.
“What are you doing?” van Helsing asked.
“Just wait.”
Bouchard fidgeted. Van Helsing stood, tapping one foot nervously. Belos stood very still as Hess, ignoring the others, watched the gold coin.
Finally he picked it up, examined if closely. “Very well,” he said. “This is real gold.”
“We will watch you count the coin out,” Belos announced.
Nobody objected, least of all Bouchard. He counted the coins out slowly.
“The number is as we agreed,” Belos said when this was done. “Here,” he said, handing across the leather knapsack. “You may inspect the bullion.”
Bouchard did so, extracting the ingots one by one, subjecting them to a different test that involved rubbing them on a rough ceramic tile. “Very fine,” he said at last.
“It is good,” Hess said, “to have trust in such an enterprise. It is, also, if you will permit me, unusual. You, Bouchard, are to be congratulated. You have earned your profit.” He picked up the case containing the Swiss coins.
Hess tensed. Van Helsing’s heartbeat had increased, suddenly, as had Bouchard’s. The Frenchman was suddenly nervous. He reached under the table on which lay the scale and the ceramic tile, touched something…
The room flared into burning heat. Ultraviolet lights, Hess realized. He hunched; his pea-jacket offered some protection, but he had worn no hat on the Marseille night; nor had Belos. Both were driven to their knees, arms over their heads. Hess heard a hiss of agony, and realized it was coming from him. He had spent years building up some resistance to ordinary sunlight – not much, but some – but this was concentrated ultraviolet, and it was agony.
“You two,” he heard Alexander van Helsing say, “you really should have known better. You know who I am. You know who my family is. You obviously know my history. You should have never trusted me. But you did, and now, finally, I can earn my way into the family’s confidence. They didn’t much care for me, you see – thought I was too reckless, too lacking in caution – not a real van Helsing. Oh, and I’ll be taking the gold, too – a two-way split with Bouchard is a much better deal than a three-way with you two assholes.”
“Oui,” Bouchard agreed. He said nothing more.
Hess felt himself burning, almost shriveling in the blast of UV. Damn him, he thought, he hits on one part of the old legends that is actually true.
“What… what will you do with us?” Belos ground out, painfully.
Van Helsing withdrew an object from his pocket. A pistol. “This won’t kill you,” van Helsing said, “but it will hurt. A shot through each of your knees will hold you in place for a while. Then, we’ll burn the building around you. Bouchard won’t be needing it anymore, after all – not with all that gold.”
Bouchard picked up the leather knapsack and the case of Swiss francs, grunting at the weight.
Van Helsing aimed carefully at Belos’ knee.
Hess reached into his jacket. No one had noticed that he had not put the one gold franc back in the case. He wrapped his hand around it. He could see, on the wall, a fuse box.
I can only hope it’s the right one, he thought.
Not killing them was a rookie mistake.
Thanks, Animal! Great chapter!
Tuco approves of this message.
Not wearing sunscreen was a rookie mistake.
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01MQXX9US
Yeah, explaining the plan usually does in the villian in the movies.
Ooh. I like it.
On the one hand, betrayal is bad.
OTOH, immortal bloodsucking Nazis.
And none of them look like Samla Hayek.
So this story is going to end on the toss of a coin, it seems.
Nice as ever, Animal. Thanks.
Hello Animal! Always a great read, I just bought Nova Roma 2, I can’t wait to burn through it, a great story so far.
Animal’s great writing has made me want a Nazi-vampire to win.
I know! I should feel good that the vampire Nazis are getting fried, but somehow I did not.
Meh… I’m perfectly fine with it. At least they’re not kidnapping lesbians and forcing them into weight loss programs.
Oh no… nothing political here. No way this is an attempt to game the primaries or anything (whether that’s motivating the left or trying to ensure Trump is the GOP candidate or thinking it will somehow demoralize the GOP base… I’m really not sure what they’re trying to do. But they’re obviously thinking it will do something.
Completely unbiased judge there.
They are deliberately in your face about what they are doing, and daring the normals to try to do something about it.
Yup… when the judge ignores the defense and the prosecution — you’d think they’d have to lay out a damned good reason for what they’re doing beyond “FYTW”.
In a sane country, this would be a 3-year-old’s T-ball team setup for being thrown out on appeal. In modern America… I’m not holding my breath.
Magically all 4 cases just so happen to be being tried within the same time period – and 3 of them were either scheduled or proposed for the same date right before Super Tuesday.
Yeah…. but there’s not a scintilla of evidence that this is in anyway biased or a coordinated effort.
And these were all things that happened years ago. Totally a coincidence.
And just ignore that Jack Smith’s people met with Biden’s people before indicting Trump.
It’s like they’re trying to start a second Civil War. It won’t go any better for them than the first one they started.
I have seen that tossed around for the last few days – and not a peep anywhere in the regular press.
That seems like a pretty huge deal, if true.
I mean, Nixon went down for far, far less than any of a dozen things Obama/Biden have had their hands in over the last few years. Yet for some reason nobody cares – not even Bob Woodward. In fact, he’s been a prime apologist for the whole thing.
Woodward is a just an outlet for his handlers in the CIA.
At this point, I’m waiting for the J6 judge to literally schedule stuff at the same time as other courts (knowingly), demand Trump be in two places at once in person and claim “It isn’t this court’s problem or the other court’s that the defendant can’t handle it.”
And of course someone will, and a new and even more evil antiterror monster will be born.
Not sure what the fuck we can do about it, though. Other than get ourselves squared away.
To paraphrase what I said in the last thread, if your case requires only jurors from your party, then you don’t really have a crimial case, you have a political case.
The standard counter-argument to your point is also compelling:
“Hey, shut up, racist!”
As a man I once knew said, when yelled at by skin heads “Ok, I am a gay junkie. Now what?”
Best chicken nuggets you ever had, saving money edition:
Lately, meat prices have been out of control. And hard to understand. Chicken breast meat is still pretty cheap, frequently found for $3 or even $2 per pound. Meanwhile, chicken wings cost as much as a decent steak. But the forgotten gem of the chicken is the thigh – and that is the cheapest cut right now. I just found some at Costco for $1.50 per pound, which is 3x as much as I paid for leg quarters recently, but they are in handy little packages and already butchered, so I spent the extra buck a pound.
Now, our go-to for thighs is to marinade in a basic teryaki style sauce overnight and then grill. If you haven’t done this, you are missing out. The extra fat of the thigh makes it delicious, and it also makes it a forgiving reheat for leftovers. It is great with boneless, skinless thighs and great with whole thighs too.
But this is about the nuggets. We have been buying the bagged Chinese chicken dishes – Orange Chicken, Honey Garlic Chicken, General Tso’s Chicken. They are all roughly the same idea – some breaded chicken pieces, fried, frozen and provided with a sauce to toss them in after you heat them in the oven (or air fryer). When we started getting them at Aldi they were $5 per bag. Now they are more like $9… maybe a couple bucks more at Costco.
So – the middle child and I endeavored to learn to make it ourselves. We made bourbon chicken, Thai Spicy Basil Chicken, Honey Garlic, Orange… all using the cheap thigh meat from the $5 10lb bag of leg quarters. In the process we figured out that they are all kinda the same – make some chicken nuggets and toss them in sauce.
But my 16 year old boy is the one who really figured that out – because my daughter and I made a huge batch of over 10 pounds of nuggets to freeze for easy dinners later. And the boy found them and decided they are the best chicken nuggets ever created and he at almost all of them over the next week with Chick-Fil-A sauce and Japanese BBQ sauce.
So, for your eating pleasure – here’s how you make the cheapest, most delicious nuggets ever – no pink slime involved. This is offered in the tradition of how my grandma taught me to cook – no real measurements, just “some”, “a little”, “a pinch”, etc. If it was good enough for grandma, it’s good enough for me.
First, you cube thigh meat. My wife prefers white, but she’s just wrong on this one. Yes, it is also delicious, but it doesn’t stand up to screwing up by overcooking nearly as well as the thighs do. Make them small, as uniform as you can, and single bite sized.
Next, the marinade. Simple – soy sauce, onion powder, ginger powder, a splash of oil that’s it. I whisk it up and “season to taste”. It doesn’t take that much – I made less than half a cup to do that entire 10lb batch. A couple of drops of sesame oil might go nice, but I left it out of the big batch, so I can’t call that “the best ever” (title bestowed by the 16 year old and his girlfriend as they ate a lunch that would have been dinner for a family of 5 on Wednesday). It can sit as long as you like in the fridge – but I went ahead and cooked it as soon as I was ready – so anywhere from 15 minutes to an hour, depending on when each batch hit the frying pan.
Next, you mix corn starch, salt and pepper. I did paprika the first time too, but it isn’t really needed so we skipped it on the big batch. Just mix the corn starch with some salt and pepper and then toss some of the chicken until it is completely coated with fluffy white powder.
Fry in a pan until golden brown on all sides. I used almost no oil the first couple of times when my wife was watching and complaining that a teaspoon is too much oil for a giant frying pan… but we did a full quarter inch deep layer on the big batch when mom wasn’t around. It gave great results. I used both a spatula and a pair of tongs to manipulate the food in the pan.
That’s it. Cooks easy and quick.. makes a bit of a mess with corn starch, and the corn starch does tend to burn in the bottom of the pan, so you have to clear that between batches… but it is pretty quick and easy. They freeze and reheat in the air fryer perfectly. They are great as the protein in chinese dishes like those listed above and they are great as standalone nuggets.
This is a big relief in our house, because the wife wants to have her super-expensive all white meat chicken strips from some premium costco brand for her salads, and the boy will crush an entire $16 bag of those in a day or two if she isn’t looking. Now he is eating the much cheaper (and tastier) homemade nuggets and he only has to deal with dad complaining about how it took 2 hours to bone and dice and cook all that meat. But at least dad isn’t complaining about how an $8 snack is a bit outrageous for a daily occurrence.
That would have made a nice article.
I’m not that smart. On the other hand, I should be helping to row the boat.
But still, it does make a nice lunch.
Sounds delicious. Thanks for sharing!
Cut, paste, submit.
It really is that easy to have an article.
Cut, Paste, Submit.
Sounds like a relationship I had in college with an elementary education major….
Thanks! Have to try that… though my insane son won’t touch soy sauce or teriyaki so I may have to experiment on the marinade. He uses this on all his chicken anyway — so even if I make them basically plain, he won’t care.
I do something kind of similar with chicken thighs, but the marinade I use is equal parts lemon juice, soy sauce, and bourbon.
The bonus to making bourbon chicken is you can pull a Justin Wilson and reserve some for the chef.
For those who never had the pleasure, WIlson was a hilarious cajun chef who was famous for using sauterne wine in his dishes – and adding a good bit extra as well as drinking a goodly amount himself. dude was hilarious.
reserve some for the chef
But of course! Gotta make sure it’s good bourbon.
/the ghost of Julia Child nods approvingly.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EOLlqYyOjPw
So does the Galloping Gourmet.
And he would spin a yarn or two as he cooked. I just watched him for the entertainment value, not for the recipes.
Didnt he also invent “blackened” catfish when he burnt some one day?
You don’t throw it out, you season it up, make it a special, and charge a buck extra.
I though this was a cool story (whether you like Vivek or not). Last week Scott Adams tweeted and mentioned on his daily video that he’s tired of doing all the work of defending Vivek. People contact him with what he knows are BS claims, then he has to look up something to refute them. Trump does the same thing. He suggested one web page that refutes all the fake claims.
Soon after he mentioned it, Vivek’s team contacted him and said they heard about it and liked the idea and it would be up on Monday. And here it is, the “debunking” page. Something all candidates should have. https://www.vivek2024.com/truth-over-myth/
Have Snopes, Politifact and FactCheck.org set up a dedicated “Truth Over Myth” fact check page yet?
Those three? It would be “Narrative over Truth Fact Czeck” page.’
Also, they misspelled psilocybin in the very first item I looked at.
I won’t fault them for that, this was done in a hurry.
Google spell check also doesn’t know that word. How can google spell check possibly not know any word? That is so bizarre.
Nah, bazaar. 😉
Bazaar of the Bizarre?
Have you been reading old issues of the Dragon?
Throwback to last week — bizarre
I notice nothing about the Covid tracking stuff he and his company were involved with.
There’s this on masking:
Maybe that also applies to what you’re talking about…?
Maybe.
I don’t trust him. I pick up too many Obama parallels.
He wont’ be elected. He won’t be nominated. I doubt he makes it through the whole primary schedule.
But it’s good to see in on stage saying things that upset the narrative.
A libertarian in Republican’s clothing?
Not sure how republican those clothes are – he sounds like one of us, just lobbing grenades all over the place… not too worried if some of them are duds, miss the mark or whatever. “Unsophisticated” might be the term of art. Kinda like Trump.
He is definitely a symptom of our national consensus that we are absolutely fed up with bullshit politicians and we want real people. Trump may not be “regular folks”, but he at least reads human most of the time.
Finding someone who has the same views as you all down the line is not going to happen. And straight up Libertarians aren’t going to win, sadly, as we won’t give people enought of what they want. The best any of us can do is to vote, and work for, greater liberty.
Being the Holier Than Thou libertarian is a fools errand.
It apparently gets you into all the cool cocktail parties, though.
To be sure.
I don’t know if a whole party full of holier than thou libertarians would be cool.
Fuck no. Annoying bastards.
Worst chatroom ever
I just like that someone on a big stage is stating my point of view. Same thing with Kennedy. He won’t win, but at least he’s getting some ideas out there.
And compromising principles is how we go here.
Some would suggest that it all comes down to power. Take it before your enemies do.
Being left alone to peacefully exist is a fairy tale.
Meh, that page says he doesn’t support legalizing hard drugs.
The WEF entry is interesting.
Mmmmm, juicy, juicy thighs.
Someone gets it….
Obligatory.
Like cyto’s wife, I prefer breasts.
Not the betrayal I expected.
Speaking of thighs, turkey thighs, if your store has them. Being a lazy bastard, I will toss turkey (preferred) or chicken thighs in the crock pot with a can of chicken noodle soup for moisture and seasoning. Yum.
Ooh. Interesting. I’ve never seen turkey thighs. I’ll have to look for those. I can’t see there being a huge market – probably mostly end up in ground turkey.
Second cheap tip – we buy the Costco rotisserie a couple of times a month. Pick up 1 or 2 when we happen to be there. Every now and again, stuff comes up and we end up with 1/3 of a chicken sitting in the fridge spoiling.
The wife pulls the meat off, sticks the bones in a pot with some spices and veggies for stock, then uses the stock and the leftover chicken to make chicken noodle soup with whatever she has on hand in the fridge. (this makes for great chicken noodle soup, because we almost never have peas on hand. Bleck… I hate peas in my chicken noodle soup. so do the kids. )
I am about to chow down on her latest batch. It is fantastic. She usually uses those wide egg noodles that you use in casseroles – but we didn’t have any so she broke linguine into 3 pieces. It is perfect. Super easy too. Maybe I’ll make her write an article. I’ll just have to disguise it – i can’t tell her about you guys because her case of TDS is terminal. She’s seriously considering self immolation as a less painful alternative for voting for Biden or Trump.
I do things like this with the leftover rotisserie chicken.
https://www.thewholesomedish.com/easy-rotisserie-buffalo-chicken-dip/#recipe
My wife makes enchiladas out of the leftover Costco chicken.
Sam’s makes enchiladas out of the leftover Sam’s chicken.
It’s easier that way.
Sam’s also makes chicken salad out of the leftover rotisserie chicken. Sooooo good! 😋
Any time we are in Costco and dont buy a roto chicken, my daughter points it out and says we are required to buy one.
“It’s the law, Dad.”
Meanwhile, in the UK
HAHA!
#NelsonMuntz
I have it on good authority that this is unpossible. The last go-around of trouble here, everyone assured me that all of the europes and everywhere above Myranmar on the geopolitical landscape had better air traffic control systems than the US.
It was UFO’s wasn’t it.
The climate changes.
But it’s privatised.
Is anything actually privatized in the UK?
Also from Animal
Can’t help but think “And a man who never has to worry about where his next meal is coming from can’t easily be made a pawn of the State.”
At least I can change a tire. In a pinch, I can probably use a kitchen knife enough to make fruit sushi for that matter…. Never learned welding, and I only do electrical and plumbing if I must… I worry too much about consequences if I get something wrong even though I know the fundamentals (okay, I’ll change outlets and switches… but I don’t split circuits / make new runs, etc.)
‘Hey, Look, I Am Smoking A Marijuana!’ Shouts DeSantis At Police In Bid To Get His Own Cool Mugshot
The Bee has been killing it the last week.
I was all set to make a did he know Hillary Clinton, but this is just sad. Fuck cancer!
‘Joe The Plumber,’ who rose to fame after confronting Obama on 2008 campaign trail, dead at 49
We all know who the real killer is
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis was booed and heckled on Sunday while attending a prayer vigil in Jacksonville for the three victims killed in what authorities say was a racially motivated attack at a local Dollar General.
DeSantis, a Republican presidential candidate, and his wife were among those who gathered in Jacksonville’s Grand Park neighborhood to commemorate the victims of the Saturday shooting. But not everyone was pleased that the governor was there.
As DeSantis approached the podium to speak, some people in the crowd began to boo; one person yelled out, “You’re not welcome here.” Later, someone shouted, “Your policies caused this,” according to videos of the event. As governor, DeSantis has loosened the state’s guns laws, and curbed efforts to teach Black history in public schools.
Where do you even go from there?
DiSantis enjoys plenty of support among the florida black community. This race-baiting stuff works though.
When I lived in a mixed-race household in the Atlanta area back in the runup to the 2000 election, we were getting approximately 8 pieces of race-based political mail each day. most was extremely high quality – like full page, heavy stock, full bleed, full color, coated stock fliers that clearly cost a few dollars each. Every day.. Really well funded and really nasty and really relentless.
The one I really remember was a full sheet cutout of the backend of an old pickup truck with Texas plates and bloody chains…. referencing a black guy who was murdered in Texas by being dragged behind a pickup truck. It was targeted at Bush as a racist who supports Klan killings, of course. (please ignore the fact that Bush signed the death warrant for the execution of the killer)
They are really good at it, and the closer team R comes to making inroads, the more vitriolic their nakedly racist attacks become.
Larry Elder as the “black face of white supremacy” should have woken some folks up that the message has gotten stupid. That it hasn’t is Yet Another Black Pill.
The guys below are right… this is a think-tank created, well coordinated effort to recreate a racist society to counter the danger to the DNC that was posed by the “Post-racial society” after the Obama inauguration.
Obama embarked on his subtle reintroduction of racism that peaked with the creation of BLM and the riots in the aftermath of the “hands up, don’t shoot” lie. And years later, here we are. Finally having enough white racists to get one news story a month… maybe. And enough actual progressive, no-shit racists on TV to have an annual convention at Madison Square Garden.
“black face of white supremacy”. In other words; a black man with his own opinions.
Dems want to keep ya’ll on the vote plantation!
That’s what I don’t get. If I wasn’t a pasty, pasty cracker I’d be damned insulted at “black face of white supremacy” and “If you don’t vote for me, you ain’t black!” and all the other shit that makes it plain that “We expect your vote because of your race, and fuck it if we’re going to actually work to solve your problems… THOSE people want to bring back slavery (that our party did the first time)!”
I mean, sheesh… how much more blatant can they be with “Don’t dare disagree with us or you’re a Race Traitor!”
But then again, I don’t get “Study hard, make something of your life and earn a living” == “Acting white”, so since it isn’t my culture obviously there’s something there I’m not privy to.
But the attack has brought renewed scrutiny to the governor’s record both on guns and race.
In April, the governor signed a permitless carry bill into law, which allows people to legally own a firearm without training or a background check. After this weekend’s shooting, the Jacksonville branch of the NAACP urged the state legislature to reconsider the law.
DeSantis has also cracked down on diversity initiatives and the teaching of Black history in public schools over concerns of “woke indoctrination.”
Way to journalism, NPR.
Polarizing everything about race has nothing to do with creating racists.
Yup.. as stated in the ded morning thread — I’m only surprised that their race division and sowing of hatred has only brought a few nuts like this out. They really seem dead set on causing a full fledged race war — and Desantis’s “policies” have nothing to do with that.
Correct. And NPR did not even mention the hate crime bill DeSantis signed in Israel, as I mentioned this morning. I had a chance to link to it. Nobody here particularly liked the bill (no surprise, these things are useless) but not noting this is a grievous misstatement of his commitments.
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2024-election/ron-desantis-signs-bill-combat-hate-crimes-israel-rcna81799
Also…. “Shall not be infringed” is incompatible with the objection to “Allows people to legally own a firearm without training or a background check.” Also… this is conflates carrying and owning, which makes you both stupid and wrong. Well played, NPR.
https://twitter.com/TRHLofficial/status/1695928936675397796
Squinting seems to work, too.
Taking my bifocals off seems to work.
Unnerving.
The blurred version worked for me, now I can’t unsee it.
Woah…
I don’t wear glasses… and I’m not at all sure what I’m missing. The shadow on her shirt looks kind of like a fetus? Is that it?
No, that’s not it.
This kind of vibe (it you can’t see the image because your eyes are too good)
squint
:shrug: Still not getting it, sorry. Just a girl beside another girl. I’ll move on with my life now.
here
Well….
I hear the lizard people can’t see ghostly faces.
*Tinfoil hat crinkles
I don’t see it either.
*licks eyebrows*
OK, now I see a blurry dudes face. So what.
That’s Rudolf Hess.
Nearsighted fam: take your glasses off and pull your phone away from you eyes. Look at the blonde girl.
Is it a sailboat?
It just looks like a little girl to me.
Look more at the whole body – it is the shadows and wrinkles at work.
ROFL
Borrow somebody else’s glasses and look at it.
OMWC porn.
So, really they were only fined $2.05m. And how much of that was “voucher shit” and other amounts which they paid for on a discounted basis. Fuck ’em and the Feds for calling this $4,1m in fines. Also this is over a 3 year period. So under $700k a year. Oh, that will really stop this behavior.
US fines American Airlines for keeping passengers on tarmac
I will continue my 30+ year streak of not flying commercial. *shrug*
::fist bumps Sean::
Must be nice to have your own private jet.
Being stuck on the tarmac is a very unpleasant experience for everybody, including the crew who don’t get paid until the plane takes off.
The fact that we had to get to the point of fines for this is ridiculous.
So after the the airline industry screamed that that this rule was going to bankrupt them it actually cost the them $700k in tax deductible expenses over the course of 3 years.
And this was “record breaking”.
Yeah…. How about we quite having rules that force airlines to do stupid things like load the plane and push back from the ramp so they can be “on time” when they know they aren’t leaving for an hour??
Movie review time:
The Flash.
It isn’t terrible.
It isn’t good.
Would have been really good as a TV season.
The CGI is laughable at times. Like way back in the early aughts or worse. It really looks like they said “nah, we aren’t going anywhere with this – do that scene for 100k instead of a million bucks.” Some of it was literally at fanfic level.
So, there you have it. They had a decent story. Their crazy lead actor was mostly OK. The writing was kinda lame at times, but grading on a “I watched She Hulk” curve, it wasn’t terrible. It seemed too long and rushed at the same time – so doing it as a streaming series probably would have worked better.
I dunno. It wasn’t nearly as terrible as the Disney “message” crap. Keaton got in pretty good shape to play the role. They did scare me for a second by appearing to do a gender swap on Superman – but that isn’t what it was, and what they did worked fine.
So… meh. If superhero flicks are your thing, you can kill some time without throwing a shoe at your TV… but you ain’t really missing anything either.
If you don’t….. well, the wife and my youngest sat down to watch it with me and neither watched more than a minute. The wife didn’t make it 8 seconds, so she probably doesn’t count. But the 6th grader was bored to tears. Her middle school sister left the room before I started it. The boy never even came in the room. So…. yeah… it probably wasn’t that great. But I still maintain that it wasn’t terrible. Just…. barely adequate? Just OK?
Oof.. yeah.. I’m a terrible shill. I’m never getting those studio bucks this way….
I never liked Flashpoint the first 6 times they wrote it (again… and again… and again…). Pass.
This is also a fair analysis.
Actually, I’ll step back from that. If they hewed to the original Flashpoint tie-in series and did the Atlantis/Thermyscira war starting with Wonder Woman sending Aquaman Mera’s severed head — that might be worth seeing given the whole Amber Heard thing. And I’ll bet there’s quite a few at DC / Hollywood that would enjoy that as well.
But otherwise, nope nope nope.
I was holding off on watching the Critical Drinker review until I saw the film. Just watched it. I concur with everything he said. I didn’t despise it – but I didn’t shell out 60 bucks to take a date to it either. I watched it on the couch… and paused it to go to the bathroom, then again to get snacks and once more break up a fight between the little ones.
So…. my “meh” was at a low bar to begin with.
New York and CA so far. Want to see my shocked face…
Citing rising COVID cases, these US hospital systems have now reinstated mask mandates
So… from 3 to 4? How about some actual data there, Fox and CDC?
But it’s on the rise, SDF. ON THE RISE!!!
JHTFC
Bringing back mask mandates are just a conspiracy theory. It won’t happen.
🙄
Does this mean the chemicals really are turning those damned frogs gay? Sigh.
It’s a conspiracy theory and you’re crazy unless it’s happening in which case it’s good that it’s happening so shut up.
The Flash.
It isn’t terrible.
It isn’t good.
And that’s why I watch movies like this.
Mine would be more of this. (Or Jack Frost or The Touch of Satan. That’s some flavorful cheese….
Heh heh.
https://tubitv.com/movies/683034/bikini-girls-vs-dinosaurs
Do Cocktail Glasses Have a Gender? For Some Men, Clearly.
And the jokes just write themselves…
Paywalled version
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/08/25/dining/drinks/cocktail-glasses-gender.html
In a related topic, Timeloose in NYC this past weekend.
https://youtu.be/90eLNO1ojH8
Which led me to this perfection.
Damn, Aretha was great.
Really spectacular. The range, the power everything.
Just give me a Dixie cup and a price break please.
Avoiding the Red Solo cup so you don’t have that stupid song thrown out here?
Fuck the cup. Just pour it in my hand.
+1 Chris Rock reference
Gaia smiles upon you.
Pour it in my hand for a dime.
We’re not going to bring masks back, but when we do, we’re not going to be as easygoing about enforcement this time.
All this time someone was mistranslating John… it was the mask of the Beast to do commerce… Who knew?
And the number of the beast is N95…
Heh…. nice.