The man gives fire squids a bad name. . .

It was II. Meyer has specifically talked about how he did something like 50 takes of Spock’s death scene, because he was kind of locked into an awkward position. With most movie stars, you’re not getting a performance, so much as “Actor (!) playing X”. When you cast Will Smith, for instance, you either get a…

Yeah, unfortunately for everyone, small-a authoritarianism is not so much a political orientation as it is a mindset. Which means that in a small-r republican system, they tend to a) automatically assume that they’re exactly the kind of people who need to be put in charge, b) run for office, and especially in small…

UNCUNNING LINGUIST DEMANDS CUNNILINGUS AT COLONEL COLT’S INSISTENCE!!!

“You are a slow learner, Winston.”

*thinks about Star Trek: The Next Generation*

Well, in our case, it’s that our cat a) loves water, b) is problem-solving intelligent, and c) has figured out that the fridge dispenses water. If he were just a little bit taller on his hind legs, he’d flood the kitchen every day just to give himself a bath.

As a home repair expert, I think Ron Swanson may have missed his calling as a paranormal debunker.

No discussion about creepy, haunted dolls is complete without a mention of Robert the Doll. I invite you all to listen to the linked Lore Podcast, and have some pleasant dreams tonight.

The creators of “The Muppet Show” discussed this exact trope, and how it works. The key, they found, was not to make the joke that Fozzy Bear was a bad comedian; that was just sad. Rather, what they had to focus on how Fozzy Bear, a bad comedian, screwed up the joke. When they did that, they got utter hilarity:

Yeah, this is one of those magical moments where my undergraduate philosophy training helps me out again, because one of the founding concepts in philosophy of language helps you parse out what the racists are doing.

The conservative majority on SCOTUS is not united on the “Fuck it, he’s a Republican” front. Roberts, in particular, is very invested in appearing fair-minded and principled.

“And as much as I respect you, Dr. Fauci, I don’t think you’re the end-all. I don’t think you’re the one person that gets to make a decision. We can listen to your advice, but there are people on the other side saying there’s not going to be a surge and that we can safely open the economy and the facts will bear this…

Have to second (eighth?) what everyone else is saying: running is great for your body, but bad for your joints, especially at the knee and ankle, and the more you do it, the more wear and tear you inflict on those joints.

The judges would have also accepted a thanks to Austin Powers:

Plus, it’s easy to disguise your intent. Walk up to Dick Cheney with a pie, and pretty much every agent he has in range will drift in your direction. Walk up to him with shoes, and that’s just normal.

Er, sort of. It’s important to remember that the show is not the books, and in the books, the only guy who is going around insisting that thirteen year olds be wedded and bedded is Tywin Lannister. Which everyone in the books is subtextually signaling is very weird, and very wrong, and are only textually going along…

“I asked Barron to consult the cyber about the COVID-19 tests, and look what he found out about it!”

Makes sense. I know that one time I got food poisoning surprised the heck out of me. After all, I definitely didn’t have food poisoning before I ate that dodgy bit of leftover Thanksgiving ham, so how could I have gotten it?

Well, to be entirely fair, I think if this current crisis has shown anything, it’s that governance is every bit the discipline medicine or, say, starring in a reality television show is. And because it is its own discipline, it’s entirely possible to be successful at one, but completely incompetent at the other. So on…