serai | Entries tagged with gimme a break

.
Went to see The Martian yesterday. Man, that is quite a film. Incredibly beautiful, and a really, really well-written script. Matt Damon was fantastic, as usual. Just an all-around excellent film.

But...

( There were a couple things that bothered me... )

So yeah, wonderful movie. Too bad it got tripped up for me by such silly, obvious points. I still enjoyed it, though, and would recommend it to anyone. Just don't think that because it gets so much right, that it gets everything right. It is Hollywood, after all. ;)

P.S. Phil Plait, who writes science articles for Slate, has a great little post on the movie here, where you can see a funny little deleted scene, as well. Enjoy!

.

For the Birthday...

------------------------

"Are you shitting me?"

"No."

"You've actually read this?" Casey's holding up Zeke's ancient, water-stained copy of The Lord of the Rings.

"I was bored at camp and it was the only book around." Zeke sounds annoyed. "What's the big deal?"

"I dunno," Casey replies, ( thumbing the browned pages... )

.
At one of the Youtube videos from the PD Comic Con appearance, I posted this comment in response to someone who said they preferred not seeing the Ethan/Dorian scene continue because SEX EWW and it's-better-implied, yada yada, and then said the Ethan/Brona scene was EWW, and yeah - am I supposed to just listen to that?

( Ah, your perspective on sex scenes is rather different from mine... )

It's rather off-the-cuff and may contain some inaccuracies about exact things that happened on the show, but it's how I see it, basically. Because bitch, you do not throw down on my boy. Ever.

.
David Gerrold takes a dimwit to task for using Star Trek to prop up his bigotry and ignorance.

William Lehman (whoever the fuck he is) claims that ST was all about the STEM TECH GODDAMMIT and not at all about the "SJW". Gerrold very rightly takes the little shit out back to the woodpile and reddens his ass with a 2x4.

I was there. I know what Gene Roddenberry envisioned. He went on at length about it in almost every meeting. He wasn't about technology, he was about envisioning a world that works for everyone, with no one and nothing left out. Gene Roddenberry was one of the great Social Justice Warriors. You don't get to claim him or his show as a shield of virtue for a cause he would have disdained.

Many, MANY thanks, David. I always knew you were cool.

So last night I watched the new Sherlock. Christ, I was EXHAUSTED afterwards. All that bling-bling sparkle-sparkle LOOK AT US AND HOW CLEVER WE ARE. It was a relief to get back to the more story-and-character-focused calm of Elementary.

I did like the little hat-tip to fanfic writers, though. Cute!

.
Am watching the Oscar broadcast re-streaming on Hulu. Jesus Christ, what are so many people getting so het up about? The ginned-up pseudo-controversies are ridiculous. This isn't anywhere near as horrible as all the agenda trolls are claiming. In fact, a lot of it is funny.

Too many people on the internet need a life.

Current Mood: amused

[Error: unknown template qotd]

Excuse me, who?

.
Good morning! On this, the last day of existence, I hope you're all having a nice day. As we wait for the Rapture - got your popcorn handy? - here's a little video exploring the ramifications of this greatly awaited Event:

The End of the World - from The Secret Policeman's Ball
"Will this wind be so mighty as to lay low the mountains of the earth?"

Peter Cook and Rowan Atkinson discuss the coming of the Apocalypse.

Please remember to wear your galoshes and keep an umbrella handy to protect yourself from the torrents of Joyful Tears raining down from the flying faithful!

.

Q: Why don’t you approve of the Libertarians, thousands of whom are loyal readers of your works? [FHF: “The Age of Mediocrity,” 1981]

Ayn Rand: Because Libertarians are a monstrous, disgusting bunch of people: they plagiarize my ideas when that fits their purpose, and they denounce me in a more vicious manner than any communist publication, when that fits their purpose. They are lower than any pragmatists, and what they hold against Objectivism is morality. They’d like to have an amoral political program.

So the next time some libertarian asshole tries to claim Rand as an "inspiring influence" or espouses the idea of "going all Galt" on someone, you'll know exactly how full of shit they really are.

.

I am opposed to the building of the "mosque" two blocks from Ground Zero.

I want it built ON Ground Zero.

Why? Because I believe in an America that protects those who are the victims of hate and prejudice. I believe in an America that says you have the right to worship whatever God you have, wherever you want to worship. And I believe in an America that says to the world that we are a loving and generous people and if a bunch of murderers steal your religion from you and use it as their excuse to kill 3,000 souls, then I want to help you get your religion back. And I want to put it at the spot where it was stolen from you.

( Read on )

"The man who speaks of the enemy / Is the enemy himself." -- Bertolt Brecht

I donated $10 as soon as I got this email. Please consider doing the same. It's time we drew a line in the sand and said, "No farther."

[Error: unknown template qotd]

I don't think it's possible to express how utterly ignorant, blinkered and just plain STUPID a person would have to be to even begin to doubt this.

Simple answer, really.

.

...it's a $20,000 fine!!

The ridiculous story of the balloon boy hoax just keeps getting better. Today, the Heene's attorney talked to the press and revealed the motivation behind the whole fiasco:

"Heene believes the world is going to end in 2012," she said. "Because of that, he wanted to make money quickly, become rich enough to build a bunker or something underground, where he can be safe from the sun exploding."

So here's a little challenge for you: how many bits of bugfuck insanity and/or logicfail can you pick out of that paragraph? I mean, holy shit. I thought the guy was just a con artist trying to get on TV. I had no idea he was COMPLETELY DELUSIONAL.

For the record, I was suspicious of the whole thing from the moment I saw the first picture of that balloon. Come on, how stupid did this guy think people are, anyway? Imagine my chagrin when I realized he was actually right - most people really ARE that dumb.

.

Gacked from

ontd_startrek

GodDAMN. This here's some real, according-to-Hoyle MORONIC CRAP.

The War on Science Fiction and Marvin Minsky

The blogger (I'm not going to dignify him with the term "author") of the above post, who very bravely blogs under the name "Pro-Male/Anti-Feminst Tech", spews out a screed that can basically be boiled down to this:

DEM NASSSSTY GURLZ BE MESSIN UP SCIFI OH NOEZ OMGWTFBBQ!!!11!!!

Here's a taste of his "wisdom":

With women killing science fiction on television, the current generation of boys won’t have this opportunity to be inspired to work in these fields. There is still a great deal of written science fiction that is real science fiction so all is not lost. However, many boys who would have gone on to make scientific discoveries and invent new technologies will not do so since they will never be inspired by science fiction as boys.

There's more. Oh much more. It seems that the entire genre of science fiction has been permanently run down, ruined, had all its inspiration sucked away (nudge-nudge) by TEH EBUL WIMMINS & GHEYS!!! No intelligent person can possibly get any enjoyment out of it anymore because we've gotten out ICKY GURL COOTIES all over it. There will never be any more men in science and engineering because...well, I'm not sure. Apparently he thinks that science fiction is, what? The only way that anyone would ever think of becoming a scientist?

This is so ridiculous. And the funniest thing about it, to my mind, is that he seems to think it's original. That nobody has ever said any of this before. Dude, this shit has been whined and puled and ranted for DECADES. Every time there's a new inclusive slant to SF, the whiny fanboys start going on about how it's the end of the genre, and nobody will ever want to be scientists again, and the world will end as we know it. It's funny, but it's also pathetic and sad. Funny, too. And misogynistic and homophobic and ugly. Did I mention it's also funny as hell? Because it is.

So, let's all get together for yet another chorus, shall we? Maestro Denis, care to lead the choir?

Asshole - Denis Leary

No, whatever your real name is, you're not a trail-blazing critic bemoaning the loss of a precious intellectual art form. You're just AN ASSHOLE.

P.S. You can let go of your dick now, Sparky.

.

Are you getting as sick as I am of all this OMG THE WRLD WILLEND WTFBBQ!!!11!!! nonsense? Well apparently, so are the Maya:

( 2012 isn't the end of the world, Mayans insist )

Hoo-boy. What is it with the constant insistence that disaster is just around the corner? Not only is it infantile and melodramatic, it's a prime example of how infinitesimally short modern memory is. As the article points out, people never seem to remember the LAST time we all ran around like chickens with our heads cut off. Remember Y2K? Civilization as we knew it was gonna collapse!!! What happened? A few toasters stopped working. WOW.

I find it especially amusing that nobody is listening to the REAL Mayans, who are all shrugging their shoulders and saying the gringos are nuts. It's a classic case of Western cultures projecting their own fixations onto other people - the Mayas never said the world was going to end in 2012. They just said that a particular era would end, but that doesn't mean the world will stop, for gods' sakes. That's like saying the planet will be destroyed in 2050 (or whenever) because we'll stop using petroleum then. It's nonsense, just an outcropping of the fascination with doomsday scenarios that was put into motion by the Book of Revelation, that bizarre afterthought add-on to the Christian Bible. (Why anyone would put any store in what are clearly the ravings of a lunatic mind is beyond me, but that's a whole other kettle of fish.)

So we can all relax. The world isn't going anywhere, the Mayans are more interested in whether they'll get good rain for their crops this year, and all this doomsday hoo-hah is just a PR storm drummed up for what appears to be yet another badly-written mediocre FX movie. *yawn*