StatisticalOutlier

One of my hearing aids uses batteries faster than the other because it has significantly more gain. I counteract that by swapping the batteries every night, to even out the usage.

And he lives in Boulder, where housing is even harder to find and is more expensive. I absolutely 100% believe Emily's assertion that Brennan threw stuff at the wall in response to something she said, and have never even implied otherwise. What I'd like to know is what she said and what he threw. She's refused to answer the former and the latter hasn't been presented to her as a question. So there's nothing to believe or disbelieve there, bringing me back to 100% believing her assertion that Brennan threw stuff at the wall. No disbelieving going on at all.

I identify as a pedant when it comes to proper use of "disinterested." I acknowledge we're losing that battle, but I was still surprised at this: "So many movies are either mindless or completely disinterested with engaging the intellect of their audiences that 'Freud’s Last Session' offers a welcome bit of brain stimulation..." https://variety.com/2023/film/reviews/freuds-last-session-review-anthony-hopkins-1235771657/ As if "disinterested" isn't wrong enough, he says "disinterested with"? Jesus.

That's what I'd assume, although I'm just guessing that there's no over-arching pattern to doing black-and-white re-releases. I've seen articles where the director said "The black-and-white images make Godzilla look very realistic and documentary-like, which leads to even more fear." Nightmare Alley is another one that had a black-and-white re-release. Here's an article about that one: https://www.thewrap.com/nightmare-alley-black-and-white-version-explained-guillermo-del-toro-dan-laustsen/ ETA: The black-and-white Godzilla is scheduled to run for only one week, so don't tarry, in case they really mean it.

This is being re-released in a black-and-white version called Godzilla Minus One/Minus Color. I'm a fan of black and white and I loved the color version, so I'll definitely go. (I also saw the black-and-white re-release of Parasite)

I have Spectrum on my Roku and have been fiddling with it to try figure out how it works. As with all of this streaming shit, it's unnecessarily difficult. When I turn on Spectrum, sometimes it starts on Channel 1 and sometimes it starts on the last live channel I was watching. I haven't figured out a pattern, but maybe it depends on how long it's been since I had it on, or maybe it depends on whether the last thing I watched was something on demand; if the last thing I watched was on demand, then it defaults to Channel 1 as the live channel. Also, on the home screen, I get a list of previously viewed channels and can just click on that. Of course sometimes I get the home screen when I turn on Spectrum, and sometimes it goes automatically to live TV. Grrrrrr. However, if it DOES go to live TV, I can hit that BACK arrow and get to the home screen with the previously viewed channels. I'm annoyed by the lack of a number pad on the Roku remote, but the scrolling isn't all THAT slow, and it's a hell of a lot faster than the volume control on that thing. Most of the channels I watch are in the lower range, like below 100 or so, except the CSPANs, which start at 225. So scrolling isn't a huge deal for me. What bothers me more than that is how on live TV now, there's a significant delay when you change the channel before the new channel comes in. It's been that way for years, of course, but I recall the olden days when you tuned into a channel and it appeared instantaneously. Also on Spectrum, I haven't figured out why there are two different channel numbers for a lot of the networks. Like TCM is channel 64 and channel 631, and ESPN is Channel 52 and channel 301. But CSPAN is only channel 225. A charitable view would be that it makes it possible to use their slow scrolling because you can be in a "range," but that's not the case because there's no pattern to the "sister" channels. AMC is channel 63 and TCM is channel 64. But the higher channel for AMC is 105 and the higher channel for TCM is 631. That's not going to assist anyone in scrolling. Finally, the captions are persistent on my Roku. With DirecTV, if I hit the VOLUME button the captions would disappear briefly, but not with Roku. And they cover up all the chyrons, so when I'm watching House Hunters I can't see all the stuff they put on the lower part of the screen, like the price of the house, the city they're in, who someone is, etc. SOMETIMES I can go frame-by-frame and there might be a millisecond gap in the caption that allows me to see the chyron, but that's extremely time consuming and it doesn't always work.

I don't remember if they were clear how he ended up on the ground. I think they weren't, and there are people who don't like that kind of ambiguity. I'm not one of them. (I obviously don't care about the resolution if I can't remember it.)

And?

If she made an innocuous comment, then you'd think she'd want people to know what it was. I think it's a pretty big leap from someone accusing him of throwing unspecified things to concluding he did it to scare and intimidate her, never mind positing that he's a closet rage-aholic who gets to a point of boiling over inappropriately.

I don't think it's the same. He apparently didn't hit her, which would be an automatic "I don't care what she said, you don't hit her" for me. But he threw stuff, and I would find it useful to know what kind of comment would lead a given person to do that. And actually, I'd like to know what exactly he threw. Pillows? Her favorite stuffed animal? Sure, that would still be alarming to me, but a lot less alarming than glasses or cast iron skillets.

She did give specific facts and details--Brennan got angry and threw things at the wall as a reaction to something she said. What did she say that made him react like that? She refused to say, and it's not because she's protecting Brennan.

Thanks for the idea--anything to annoy annoying drivers is a plus in my book. But in my case it's not going to work because the car is so low, my rearview mirror points straight back into the tailgater's own lights, and if it's a pickup, probably not even that high.

Several years ago I was in the Chicago suburbs seeing movies in a theater all day. When I got out, it was dark and it had unexpectedly (to me, anyway) snowed and was still snowing. Oops. I was driving Mr. Outlier's rear-wheel drive sports car with wide tires on the rear that were street tires but not made for weather (he likes to race around). A more snow-unworthy car can hardly be imagined, but I'm a good, and confident, driver. It was a 20-mile drive on surface streets, and the beginning wasn't bad because there was enough traffic that the snow on the streets wasn't sticking. But the final 8 miles was on a perfectly straight farm road through cornfields, which hadn't been recently plowed and the falling snow was covering any tracks that might have been left by a previous driver in either direction, so it was a challenge to know where the asphalt ended and the ditch on the side began. So I'm driving along, not going fast, and not maintaining a steady speed, like you'd think I should, but the road isn't entirely flat and I need momentum to be able to get up the rises, so I'm having to calculate how fast to go down the downhill parts to be able to get up the uphill parts without spinning my tires. It's a delicate balance, but I'm pretty good at it. All is fine until a pickup comes up from behind me and gets right on my ass, with his headlights shining right in my eyes because I'm lower to the ground than he is. And he stays on my fucking ass for miles, as my speed goes up and down. Whyyyyyyy? And not only that, this obviously ill-equipped sports car driving in the snow has Texas plates on it. I have never understood how this moron didn't see this combination and think, "Jesus. This is an accident waiting to happen; I need to stay as far away as possible. I'll either pass them or drop behind, but it's a terrible idea to be anywhere near them when they start spinning." We finally got to an intersection with a red light and I stopped and he came up around me and turned right, depriving me of the chance to ask him what good he thought would come from tailgating a Texan in a sports car in a snowstorm.

You mean like how the HH Spencer parked in the driveway and blocked it, while dismissing Kevin's concerns about a shared driveway because he doesn't drive? Sure, a shared driveway is no problem...if you're the asshole who blocks it. Also, Kevin needs to work on his math. He said over half of the first house had a garage door on the front of it. Uh, more like a quarter. Half of it was a nice patio, and the remaining quarter was brick with a window in it. I've never been a fan of houses that are all garage on the front (once someone pointed it out to me), but this one didn't ping that irritation at all, and I think the garage was more nicely integrated into the facade than the one they picked.

Emotional support dogs hold no special status similar to that mandated for service dogs, which are trained to perform a task directly related to a person's disability. Service dogs are allowed wherever their owner is allowed, with very narrow exceptions (like perhaps a sterile operating room). No business is ever required to allow emotional support animals, which are no different from pets when it comes to access to public accommodations. If you see one at Home Depot, it's because Home Depot allows it to be in the store as a pet--no law requires them to allow it. No law requires any business to allow any animal other than a service animal. There is an exception for housing, though. Under the Fair Housing Act, there are situations where a landlord may not refuse to rent to a person with a support animal if certain conditions are met. This is broader than in other places of public accommodation, where service dogs have to be allowed and emotional support dogs don't. You say that like it's a bad thing. When I was growing up, my mother used to put our jeans on stretchers and hang them on the brick above the fireplace to dry. A teacher at my brother's junior high once asked him if he brought a barbecue sandwich with him to school every day.

I lived there for about 25 years, and it's still been my "home base" while traveling fulltime for the last 20. I remember usually getting one or two hard freezes a year, but not being followed by temperatures pushing 80 a few days later. Then again, I was younger and I didn't really notice the weather that much--I just dealt with whatever it was, as young people do. I used to make fun of old people talking about the weather, but now that I'm an old person myself, I get it. It's interesting. I spent last summer in the Chicago area and a friend who was broiling in Houston asked me if it was cooler where I was, since it's farther north. I had to think about it, because usually northern latitudes ARE cooler that southern latitudes. Or maybe that's just the average temperatures? Because it gets hotter than hell in Chicago in the summer, and the humidity can rival Houston's. But the season doesn't last as long as it does in Houston, and the winters obviously bring down the average temperature in Chicago a lot. Sounds like someone who's never been skunked after driving to a windsurfing launch based on the forecast. 😀

I find her hard to look at. Julia did especially right in her choice of a sweater and pants (except when it made her sweat 😀). It's always bugged me how the men can just sit there but so many of the women wear outfits that don't allow that. I'm watching the Emma Stone episode right now. What the hell was she thinking? I find him very appealing. He's seems very mature for his years, while still seeing like a kid. And I love his lankiness.

I'm kind of a hybrid. I took Zoology for Non-Majors at the University of Texas. I always pronounced it zoe-ology, but also thought the class would be about animals. It turned out to be one slide after another of chromosomes with a nick in them or something, and nothing about elephants or zebras. The only thing I remember from that class is a condition called Cri du Chat, which makes afflicted people cry like a cat. It was also the first French I ever learned. And another Texas homophone I was just reminded of. Hill and heel, which might be a double homophone? I had a Jazzercise teacher who would say, when we were jumping, "Make sure your hills come all the way down." While a rancher would be likely to say, "My property extends past those heels out there."

Brennan's refusing to talk at all is different from what Emily did on the aftershow. Emily said Brennan got mad and threw things, and then said it was because of something she said. So the host asked her what she said, and Emily refused to answer. The host pressed, pointing out that Emily's presenting her version of what happened, and there are facts related to that version that viewers need to be able to have a fuller picture. Emily refused to respond, apparently believing that her version shouldn't be challenged or even subject to any doubt. Brennan is just saying nothing, instead of presenting a version of an event and getting pissy when somebody wants some more facts, especially facts that you've alluded to but not actually stated. Then again, Becca barely even knows Emily, so maybe she should have called on an actual friend to be vulnerable with. I'm sure the producers pressed her to talk to Emily about it, and I know they can be persuasive, but everything that she told this person she barely knows was uttered voluntarily. I liked the scene of two of the women out by the pool/hot tub, because I was watching the people behind them getting into the water and then disappearing (did he drown?!?) and then reappearing (whew!). The fact that these shows let their editing hijinks be on such blatant display tells me they don't really care if they look sheisty.

I've spent winters in Seattle/Tacoma, in Olympia, and in Portland, Oregon, and I never felt warm. It wasn't cold by thermometer standards--usually within 10 degrees either side of 42 degrees--but it was persistent and a different kind of bone chilling. Plus the sun went down early, and even when it was up, it was almost never sunny. So no radiant heating like in Denver, where if the sun is shining on the windows in my motorhome, I have to open them to keep from roasting, even when the outside temperature is in the 30s. I remember once on May 1 in Tacoma, I decided, "It's time to quit wearing long underwear." I went out that day, and the next day, put it back on. I'm in Austin right now, and the high on Monday was 24 degrees, and the high on Thursday, three days later, was 77 degrees. Crazy.

Almost perfect description. She also turns her eyes into little slits. I also think she looks rough, which is about the only way I can describe it. Just kind of not bright and fresh, and I associate that with people who drink a lot. (That said, I liked seeing her play soccer. She's got real skills.) But adding to the shallowness: I laughed during the obstacle course because Becca said her eyes are her best feature and told Austin he couldn't see them when she was wearing a blindfold. I find her eyes to be buggy, not the least bit attractive, bordering on repellent. I also noticed that on the aftershow, Emily said their apartment is below Becca's and Austin's apartment, and said they can hear what goes on up there. Austin looked alarmed. And I was alarmed when Emily said they could hear when they were doing the obstacle course, because Becca was slowly tiptoeing or crawling around. They can hear that? But actually, I think it's more likely they heard them moving the furniture around and later found out it was for the obstacle course.

I love that super light snow. Denver gets it in the earlier part of the winter, and the heavier stuff in March. We got about a foot of the light snow once and I got all of it off the car with a whisk broom, and dug out the car with the plastic dust pan thing that came with the whisk broom. All while the sun was shining. It was by far not the worst day I've ever had.

I pretty much stick to theaters, and managed to see the original Godzilla a couple of times in past years, and liked it (obviously, if I saw it and went back a few years later). Then I saw Shin Godzilla, and it was great, so I thought I was a fan of Godzilla movies. Then I saw Godzilla vs. Kong and it was okay--nothing to write home about, but I enjoy spectacle every once in a while. So I figured I should stick to the Japanese Godzillas, and did manage to see Godzilla Minus One today. I thought it was fantastic. I didn't think any of the acting was weak. I understood why the lead might be troubled, although I realized he really isn't responsible for all those deaths because even if he'd shot, it wouldn't have killed Godzilla, and it no doubt would have just made him madder, and wished he'd realized that himself. The kamikaze thing, well, he did chicken out on that, but to no known huge effect. But the combination of the two no doubt worked against his mental health. One thing I really liked was the music. Those choppy strings just really work for me. During Godzilla's first visit to Tokyo, the music heavily referenced the original in style and sound, but didn't duplicate it, which I thought was a nice touch. And then in the last battle, it was the exact music from the original for just a little bit, which to my mind is some of the best music in a movie ever. And even better, I understood the plot completely. I don't see a lot of "spectacle" movies, but when I do, I almost never get really involved in the plot, and I never remember it afterward. This one I did, I think because they didn't throw money at every frame of the movie, and allowed it to breathe a little. Whatever...I'm super glad the stars aligned and I got to see it before it leaves theaters entirely. As it was, I had to make a pretty good trek, but it was totally worth it.

Did they say it was for Barbie? Wednesday was some sort of wear pink for the new Mean Girls movie promotion.