“Because you know what’s better than poverty? Having money! And you know what’s better than new money? Old money, stolen from the Saxons by Norman invaders centuries ago in accordance with God’s will! To the extent that we include characters who question these beliefs, it will be for the purposes of either throwing…

Two simple goals, if we’re being honest: Make you laugh and cry, and romanticize the aristocracy.

Sure, but they’ve managed these time jumps before - hell, time jumps are pretty much what “This Is Us” is all about. And we have had time jumps to introduce new destinations that the story will take us through, but there’s one episode remaining! They are putting a hell of a load on that final episode to: 1) build out…

Really enjoyed the episode, but I cannot get past how rushed the Kate storyline has been this season. They took her from freshly divorced to married in the space of a single episode, in the next episode “you’re developing an arts curriculum for the state of California,” and at the next mention “you’re taking your arts…

Either that, or it’s based on a short story with the same title that’s linked right at the top of the article. One of the two.

Looks like he’s using the Marilyn Manson defense.

Lately my YouTube and Reddit recommendations are flooded with stuff slamming Amber Heard. Which poses a whole set of questions:

It wouldn’t be “sporting” otherwise. Not that different, really, from bow hunters today.

It might also be inspired by a separate incident in which a security guy figured out how to game a scratch-off “lottery” promotion run by a fast-food chain and eventually looped in pretty much all of his family, friends, and friends of friends. Those guys ended up in prison, so this would be the more downbeat version.

There’s no mystery to Firestarter fizzling out, because it’s a movie based on a third-tier Stephen King property that got absolutely terrible reviews - it was something like 12% on Rotten Tomatoes when I checked. But, I suppose “Wow, that Marvel movie really crushed a film that no one liked in the first place” isn’t…

Where There’s Smoke There’s Not Firestarter Because Smoke Would Imply Box Office Achievement Whereas Firestarter ... Ehhh, You Get It.

Much like with blood sausage, I imagine the primary lesson learned when making long-abandoned recipes it to realize that people stopped eating that for a reason.

I remember watching some science program on PBS when I was a kid (I think it might have been “Connections”) and it stated that the original formula for gun powder was to take the bark of a certain tree, burn it, and then mix the ashes with pig urine. For many years I wondered who stumbled on that recipe, and how.

“This isn’t how we do it, kid. First, you get through the police academy, and then you start killing unarmed Black civilians. If you had just followed procedure, you’d be looking at a paid ‘administrative leave’ right now.”

It’s so stereotypically an engineer’s approach to social problems (“I can solve that with math!”) that it almost reads like parody. Yes, let’s create social change by quantifying human difference and plotting it all in a really cool graph. That’s the ticket!

I think that possibly the biggest problem here is that the tool embodies a perspective that diversity is something you inject into the product, and not something that you build into the team creating the product. Instead of assembling diverse creative teams that would draw on their diverse histories and perspectives…

It is definitely not a flour mill. No farmers with carts full of grain, no storage vessels, nothing - just the Wheel of Pain, assorted barbarians, and kids chained to it.

My guess is that narcissism was baked into every aspect of this business. “Why would they buy a shirt with my face on it? I don’t understand the question. It’s my face!”

We’re agreed that it’s a shitty workout, but he would at least have massive thighs and calves as well - he’s pushing that wheel around with his legs. My big question about the wheel scene is what were his captors planning? They get a bunch of kids, have them work at something stupid for years and years until only one…

Yeah, Road Warrior is a good comp. Conan isn’t looking for trouble, but trouble keeps coming his way. There are a hundred classic Westerns with the same basic premise. And I would add that the crypto-fascism interpretation doesn’t really work for a character whose preferred mode is solitude - group identity and…