Affleck is a brilliant director. Perhaps too Brilliant. I mean, the man is seriously underrated. I sort of prefer him doing the sort of thing he's doing, I don't want him on the blockbuster circuit.

Have you seen this?

I always share this TED talk. Birds are smart, yo.

I think they're referring to the gratuitous sex and nudity... hence the stake grabbed like a penis. I don't remember gratuitous sex and nudity from 30 days of night...

*snip*

I've tried. I've really tried, and I just can't get into this show. The plot/theme is tired, the characters don't really work together (as much as I love the Librarian), and I have a hard time just getting invested in it. I saved the first season so that I could watch it completely (it was airing at a time I couldn't…

The next person to tell me NASA doesn't excite people anymore is going to get smacked on the back of the head and told to STFU.

I fully agree. For my purposes, this whole thing is a non-entity to me. But it had me thinking about times when all available options (not just the top five to vote from) are beneath respect. So it was sort of a tangent.

I'm from the Thread Competition Certification Board (TCCD). I'm here to certify that you have won this thread.

Oh man, I remember that. I apologize, I misunderstood. A lot of people forget the hard times Atlanta had because of how well it bounced back years later.

Can Lifehacker start adding "None" to these polls? Not "Other" (though that's fair too), but none. There are a lot of times when the :best" is just the lesser evil. I want an option that conveys your equal fucktitude in a particular product space. That isn't my feeling in this case though. There are good mice…

"The US tends to survive such things because the US can milk the hell out of it and there are facilities galore around here."

Agreed.

Yup yup. US is one of the few that typically gets by unscathed, and even it takes a pretty large hit. So imagine what places like Greece and London in a recession are going to go through.

1984 Olympics and 1994 World Cup were the last truly profitable ones as far as I can tell. As others have noted, the key seems to be having pre-existing venues, as well as the right sponsorship deals. The US tends to survive such things because the US can milk the hell out of it and there are facilities galore around…

True, true. After writing that, I went to look that up and you're right. You have to go back a long while to find a profitable Olympics, 1994 for a profitable World Cup.

If I were one of the megarich, my money fetish would be things like this, centered arounf Firefly, Doctor Who, and Dune. I'd just have rooms full of these expertly made items that I'd help build and would donate to pop-culture type museums. (they all have a money fetish, like Warren Buffet buying a third of the…

This is disturbingly common for both the Olympics and the World Cup. It's just that when it works out, it works out big, and a lot of places want both the prestige and the chance at getting it to work out.

Awesome! I could kiss you. I didn't even know that existed. In hindsight, googling/binging it I could have learned that. Thanks.

Ha, maybe that's it. No I watched the first three of the first season. I didn't actually finish the 3rd. I just felt like, "oh my, more zombies... cool I guess." I'm there with Vampires right now, too. Not there yet with Werewolves, but werewolves haven't really been done well or much, compared to the other two. I…