Darkpool

Hugs and support to Boliver.

Put me in for Secret Santa as well.

"There was a Riley one in Season 5 that was boring" doesn't really narrow it down much, does it?

Nope, unless you consider carpet cleaning interesting. I did take a break to see the recent X-Men movie today. It was a generic special effects-laden superhero action film. Not awful or anything, but nothing stood out about it either.

Welcome back, KPC. I hope you'll feel no need to fake it here. I saw Zootopia. I recommend it. I thought it was surprisingly good on a number of levels, and with a lot more thematic depth than I normally expect from a Disney feature. One of the folks I follow on Twitter called it one of the best films about racism Hollywood's ever made. I don't know that I'd go that far, but the story did go to some metaphorical places I didn't expect. Really interesting world-building too. I found myself wanting to see it on DVD just so I could freezeframe and look at all the background details of the fantastic world they created for the film. Also I laughed out loud at

With the break in continuity and the mods and fan community all dispersed, TWoP is nothing more than a brand now. Maybe the new owners can create something new with it. But I doubt I'll be hanging out there.

No, me too. Well, that and I don't have much to say.

Having been in men's rooms when one or more women crashed them because the line to the women's was too long ... I don't care either. My reaction has always been essentially: "Women? In here? Really? ... okay." And that was it. Yeah, it can be a little surprising, but I don't see anything worth getting upset about.

In a vague way. I knew they were out there, but I never met any. I noticed that even a few of the people at MW who loved the show freely concede its flaws, and that it could have been a lot better than it was. Voyager is the only Trek series I've never watched all the way through, and I'm a big enough Trekkie to support fan films on Kickstarter. I gave up on Voyager early in the fourth season, when I realized the writers/producers simply had no idea what they were doing. I later heard, third-hand, that executive meddling from UPN was also a huge problem. A shame; it really was a fantastic premise with so much potential. In the right hands, it could have been the best Trek.

Vibes to KPC.

Calming serene vibes to Harvester.

I'm even less excited about the new Star Wars than I'd thought. I was planning to see it last weekend, then today, but stuff keeps getting in the way, and instead of getting annoyed I'm just telling myself, fine, wait a few more days if I have to. So maybe tomorrow or Wednesday? But if things continue to come up, it might be after Christmas. Still remaining mostly spoiler-free, though. I've picked up a couple of character names and a hint about who the new lead character is, but not much else so far.

Fury Road impressed me. Despite being basically one long car chase interrupted by some shorter car chases, it managed to hold my attention all the way through. Not many car chase movies could do that. Plus, I loved the dynamic between Furiosa and Max as the story progressed, including the way the film didn't try to force some ridiculous romance onto them. That said, I didn't believe the world the movie was set in, but then I never did in the previous films either. That many years after civilization collapsed, there wouldn't be the infrastructure to refine and distribute gasoline for their cars, or manufacture bullets for their guns. They'd all be riding horses and fighting with crossbows and hand weapons. But I was able to suspend disbelief enough to just accept that stuff.

Not specifically, but Rule 34 says it has to be.

I don't think even that would do it. Ronald Reagan, patron saint of American movement conservatives, was shot by a deranged loner and the lunatic right barely budged on guns. I think the response to a politician's kid getting murdered would be the same response every time a child is murdered: "more guns."

Only after verifying the keyboard's "O" key doesn't stick.

Hugs and condolences to trudi. Even when you know it's the right thing to do for them, it's never easy.

I'm in.

I don't get adding 10% to the bill. Doesn't that mean you just increased the price of everything on the menu, and then lied about the price to your customers?

The only time I ever got bothered by someone forgetting my birthday was when they were bothered I forgot theirs. Sauce for the goose ... AFAIK, the novels and such were canon pre-Disney, but were tossed by the wayside when the new Abrams film was greenlit. I remember a lot of SW fans were really annoyed by that. I probably would have been too, if I were a fan who'd spent time and money and energy following this vast shared universe for decades, only to have the new management throw it all out the window so a hack director can have the sandbox all to himself. (But I'm much more of a Trek guy, and haven't cared about what happens to Star Wars for a long time now.)

About 2/3rds of the way through Agents of SHIELD. It's much better than the first season. Not happy that they killed , though. That was a pretty amazing movie, but was indeed depressing as hell.

My weekend plan includes Doctor Who at our local Doctor Who/scifi-themed English pub, plus I'm finally getting around to watching last season's Agents of Shield courtesy of Netflix. And I might grab some food at the Polish Festival.

So sorry for your friend, Boliver, and for your loss, and for what SF had to go through. Vibes to everyone who needs them. May everyone life become less sucky. Welcome, jaytee. Come on in; the water's fine. I understand that Disney stopped doing that a couple of years ago because of widespread abuse of the system. Too many wealthy visitors were hiring disabled people to pose as "family members" so able-bodied rich folks could jump the lines. I think they replaced it with a timed ticket arrangement.

My weekend plans are (1) volunteering at back-to-back Weird Al concerts tonight and Sunday, (2) getting some paying work done, which finally showed up after a two-week dry spell, and (3) possibly seeing Shakespeare in the Park on Monday; I'll have to see how work and weather look. Plus movies and/or some TNG episodes, time permitting. Enjoy Denver, AnnieF. I want to visit there myself one of these days. No hints for insomnia, valny. I get it too, but my approach is "freelance work lets me nap whenever I want, so who cares if I'm up at 3 am?" That's not an option for people with real jobs. Sort of an Angry Housewives thing?

The problem with the BtVS Parkers of the world is they can be hard to spot until after the damage is done. (That goes for the Leverage Parkers too, I suppose, but they're only a problem for about 1% of the population.)