lasu

The one local news program (not the one that ambushed the pregnant lady, but the one who was showing all the ailments in different zip codes, that was my local news! I'm glad we made it for something good and not one of the idiotic segments. I was starting to sweat though, because they did 27609, 27607, 27606...and I'm 27605. It just made me laugh because I immediately was like, "wait, that's Monica Laleberty with '5 on Your Side'!" There is an extremely good documentary, The Great Hack, on Netflix that shows how this data mining was used in the Trump election and the Brexit vote (though it is super clear this could happen on either side). I don't know if it's true or not, but they claimed that your phone actually ISN'T listening, but that it has so many data points on you it can correctly identify what you are likely to want or need next. Definitely worth watching if you found this segment interesting/alarming.

It's even worse for Pearl Jam. They really did try. I think they did a full year of these bullshit venues and selling tickets themselves while they brought an anti-trust lawsuit against Ticketmaster. They lost their anti-trust lawsuit...because they sold their own tickets, proving Ticketmaster wasn't a monopoly. How's that for a kick in the shin?

I've continued on with The Kingbridge Trilogy, in for a penny in for a pound. I will say it seems the first book has the highest violence content, but it's not like the latter ones are suddenly G-rated. But, I was just so SHOCKED (I mean that!) when I starting reading the second one and there was a major election coming up, and then the plague rolled through, there was argument over whether or not masks were effective against it, and one side put out misinformation about mask-wearing, and then wearing or not wearing one became a sign of which candidate you supported. It made me feel like I had to be hallucinating the words. So freakin' weird! Also, I have to agree with a previous poster who said Follett recycles his characters. It started to annoy me, but I have now fanwanked that this is actually a story about a power couple being reincarnated over and over again. So it's not that they seem like the same characters, they are the same characters!

I have a house I housesit for that has a private pool and Peacock. I am looking forward to my next stay, lol.

This one is still on Bravo. The All-Stars are on Peacock, and the new season of Miami (I think).

Yeah, I don't think Gina is half as enamored of Heather as she acts like she is. I think Gina is rather mercenary, and would suck up to be rich by proxy. She's not dumb, and it's easy to read Heather. Gina's had no problem at all with any of the other women buying her shit.

So...this isn't The Challenge at all anymore? I'll admit, there are enough BB and Survivor players to intrigue me a bit, but there is not a single vet other than TJ. It's very bizarre (to me).

EXCEPT FOR THAT ONE PART. That part is enough to keep me from ever reading it again or recommending it to others without at least a warning.

https://variety.com/2022/tv/news/the-challenge-spinoffs-cbs-paramount-plus-1235182559/ It looks like it's going to become almost a purely physical competition show to me. Which, for me, is a huge bummer, especially since All Stars is just about as physical. I don't mind athletic challenges, but the whole draw of this show was seeing what the folks I knew from the MTV shows were up to. I totally understand needing new blood since they don't have RW/RR to feed off of, but this is morphing into a totally different show. I'm sure they feel they have an audience for it, but the jury is out for me on if it will continue to hold my interest.

I think Rebecca was just kidding when she said Mrs. Whatever was her father. It's usually men who say, "Just call me John! Mr. Whatever's my father!" so this was just play on that.

The author of that article is one of the two original hosts of the podcast You're Wrong About. If you enjoyed this essay on Harding, I HIGHLY recommend the podcast series.

OK, good to know! I'd been presented Follett more like he was an Amazing Literary Writer, and I didn't feel like he was living up to that. I did decide to go ahead and read the next one since I already downloaded it and lowered my expectations. 10% in and rape free so far!

So I've finally started reading Ken Follett, and just finished The Pillars of the Earth. I really liked it! Except...the graphic depictions of violence, especially detailed rapes on very young girls. There were also come scenes with cockfighting and bear bating. I ended up just skipping through these bits, because I'm just not at all interested in hearing...I started to spoiler and describe, and then, nope. I'm just going to say I don't want to read details that graphic, and IMO, completely gratuitous. But I had decided to start the second book, not realizing it's not a direct sequel - it takes place 200 years later, so I'm going to go ahead and assume the characters I got to know in the first book are dead now. And that makes me wonder...do I want I want to go another round with these books? (Also, just like that, I turned into Carrie Bradshaw, wtf?) I've always heard such great things about these books...does anyone here have thoughts on them? I'm mostly fine just skipping the super graphic parts (which this is the first time I've ever done that, but I suspect it's not going to be the last. I've always been a purist, but I just don't want to read that shit anymore), but wondered if anyone else had the same squeamishness I do.

This was one of the dumbest plays I've seen in Big Brother history. I mean, STUPID. Miesha already laid out her plan. If Cynthia came down, she was going to put up Todd with the expectation that everyone would vote out Carson. So why not have Shanna take Carson down, Miesha puts up Todd, and the house flips and votes out Todd? Seriously, how hard was that? Once you take Carson down, Miesha has to have a new target, and it seemed obvious to me it was going to be Kirkpatrick. They tipped their hand by removing Carson, which gave Miesha time to execute a backup plan - Kirkpatrick. Now, maybe I missed something and Kirkpatrick was going up anyway after he wouldn't flat out say he was going to vote out Carson, but it just seems like if your plan is to fool Miesha into thinking you are going to vote out her target, you actually have to leave said target on the block. Stupid. I think it was in the previous episode, but Carson sealed my love for him forever when he rinsed off his cucumber in the bath and ate it. I died laughing. I've never watched anything with him before, though I definitely knew who he was. I thought he would be to over the top for me, and I stereotyped him as someone who might be catty and mean. But so far, all his little comments are either self-directed, or really not mean-spirited. Random - but Carson shouted out "Darla and Charla." Did he mean the cousins from Amazing Race??? Also, just like Carson, I had a vague negative opinion of Shanna based on very little. Turns out I was wrong again.

She was on the last season.

I don't think Earl was introduced, but I did catch at the end of Season One that they were the Greyhounds. It caught my eye, because of how much teams in the US are identified by their mascots.

I watched this a few weeks ago, right after having watched Red Rocket. SPOILERS FOR RED ROCKET All that said, I do think that LP makes the situation at least interesting. They really stack the deck - the actors visually don't look so much like a grown up and a child. I thought Alana was also a high school student when she first appeared on screen. Gary is someone who has already had success, has at least somewhat financial stability, and his mother works for him. Alana lives at home with her parents and has a curfew. She has a dead end job and no prospects. One of the reasons (ONE of MANY) these situations aren't ok is because of the power imbalance, but there is clearly less of a power imbalance between Alana and Gary than there is between Alana and Sean Penn's character. They were also smart to keep it just on the edge of becoming a truly physical relationship. If they had slept together, game over I think. And then of course, the final card in the stacked deck is that the child is male, the adult female. As a society, we tend to view this differently than when the genders are reversed, which is where I DO have a problem with this movie as well. Because no matter how much you stack the deck, I'm not going to sign off on something between a 25/28 year old and a 15 year old, and I think it's problematic that we do not view this as being as bad if the child is male. I think this movie fed into that a bit, and I think that's a shame. They did a good enough job overall that I still liked the movie (I literally laughed out loud more than once in the theater) and wasn't overly troubled by the relationship. It was definitely interesting to watch the two movies back to back.

Tamar wasn't a housewife; I think you're thinking of Kandi Buress. Teddi might be better in this context, but she was fairly bland on Housewives. If she tones down her behavior, she'll disappear. She'll probably fit in well with any older celebrities who live fairly normal lives outside of this at this point in their lives.

I'm surprised we haven't heard any rumors yet. I'd imagine they're in quarantine now, yeah? While I'm always excited to see who they'll dredge up, it's not so much the "celebrity" aspect that makes me like this version so much - it's the age of most of the contestants. This skews WAY older than the regular edition, and even though a lot of them are trying to rekindle their careers, it's not as bad as the thirst traps just there for the instagram followers. It just changes the whole dynamic of the show, in a way I enjoy.

This SO PERSNICKITY, but Penn's hometown is Durham. He's not a Raleigh native. (We are weird about the two being confused around here.)

Ugh, I'm from Raleigh, and I good naturedly despise this family! lol. I say good naturedly, because I honestly wish them no ill will, but they are SO THIRSTY. Their first video was kinda cute, but this over the top twee family stuff isn't my scene. I also used to be the executive assistant for the CEO of a company, who now is the president of their PR firm, so only degree of separation. I saw Penn once in Target, and actually said NO out loud like he was a new video, lol. He was far enough away he didn't hear me. And that MF is TALL. If they have a challenge of getting things off the top shelf, they are going to have it in the bag. All that said, I...didn't hate them on this. They seem less ON, which makes sense, and I tend to root for the "older" couple, and they're also from my town...I've gone from going in ready to HATE, to...well, they're not so bad. Their age and being from Raleigh would definitely have me ruling for them if I didn't already know of them, so maybe they can turn me around. Not on their videos though. Not my jam[mies].

Yes. This is where the problem comes in for me. Mary said something that Jennie and other people find offensive. If she meant it as a compliment, and truly didn't know it was offensive, then it would have shown - she would have apologized to Jennie and said she wouldn't use that word again. It's ok to say the wrong thing - but when someone tells you you've said something offensive, the answer isn't just to tell them they are wrong to be offended. If you step on my toes, shit happens. But if you continue to just stand there and tell me I'm wrong to be upset you are just hanging out on my feet, then we have a problem. For example, about million years ago, I called something "gay" in front of a group of my friends. It sounds dumb now, but I never made the connection, and in my heart, I can tell you I didn't mean to offend anyone. My INTENT wasn't to offend anyone...but I did offend someone. It was super embarrassing and didn't line up with the way I thought of myself. But I didn't tell my friend he was wrong to be offended. I apologized and never used "gay" in a negative way again. Why would I want to debate my friend on whether or not he had the right to be upset at my choice of words?

Dangerous Liaisons: a single word..."war." Gives me chills.

FWIW, I disagree about it not being cinematic. I actually think it will get nods for cinematography. Although in a lot of ways, it's incredibly sparse and obviously in B&W, I thought some of the shots were phenomenal and then huge sweeping architectural designs were breathtaking. I thought it did an excellent job of making it feel like I was watching a play on the biggest stage known to man. Very little of what was done couldn't have been designed for a stage, but at incredible scale. As far as the acting, I don't see how Frances and Denzel don't get Lord and Lady Matching Set Oscars, but it's also a boring choice. I am rooting for other actors over them, but if it was just on strength of performance and nothing else, I haven't seen better performances. (I haven't seen everything in contention, to be fair.)

Hell, I'm not over watching[/b] Dancer in the Dark twenty years later. But I considered her a plus to this movie. I can't tell if it's going to be really good or really bad. Seems like it'll be one or the other - not middle of the road.