1

(2,575 replies, posted in Sliders Bboard)

Three months ago, my wife had a miscarriage.

It breaks my heart to hear this. I'm so sorry for you and your wife.

2

(2,575 replies, posted in Sliders Bboard)

Yeah, I think I might just stop with political discussion here. There was a lively political crowd back in the day, and it was a good way to push and pull between views. Now, not so much. Probably best to keep things limited to entertainment topics.

3

(2,575 replies, posted in Sliders Bboard)

Did I even express a view since the last time you posted that disclaimer? If you'd like, I could just add the disclaimer to my signature in every post.


But for the record, my views do represent the community as a whole. Sorry.

Administrator's note: ireactions here. I don't like to insert myself into other people's posts, but Informant has no authority to speak for this community and I'm going to ask that this part of his post be seen as a joke. Thank you.

Thus far, I'm the only one whose offered any thoughts. In the absence of other intelligent positions, my views clearly fill the vacuum. I'm thinking of creating a merch store of official Sliders fan community viewpoints, with mugs and t-shirts featuring some of my best quotes.

4

(267 replies, posted in Sliders Bboard)

If they had the option of featuring John more, I could honestly see him on a completely different team than Sam and Dean. Maybe not trying to kill them, but probably trying to stop them... And maybe kill their friends. They live with monsters more than they live with people these days. Even the humans they know aren't of our world. They keep making deals and pushing the line, and while John might not be above those things himself, when it comes to saving his family, I think he would feel a need to correct course if he came back and took it all in. John would not like Castiel. John would not like Rowena. John may warm up to Jack in some ways, but he would always view Jack as a threat.

John would want Heaven to stay in Heaven, Hell to stay in Hell, and hunters to fight monsters, not have them as roommates.

And honestly... I might be on John's side of this fight.

5

(267 replies, posted in Sliders Bboard)

It's not really a secret. The show is (or was) based mostly on urban legends, ancient folklore and religion. All of those things are widely available. The world knows about reports of werewolves going back hundreds of years. Everyone tells ghost stories. We make tons of movies based on those stories.

The thing is, most people will choose to ignore the scary realities of the world until they're in a situation where they have to address it themselves. How many people take part in any charitable 5K when they haven't been personally impacted by whatever disease they're running for? What percentage of the population even joins the military to fight enemies that we know are actively trying to kill us? (0.4 percent. I just looked it up)

Hunters have always been portrayed like the soldiers who are fighting that war. The normal people might toss salt over their shoulder, or go to church on the big holidays, but they're not really interested in the war. They don't want to think about what could be lurking under their bed, or the demon that might take over their body at any moment. Even in our world, we have stories of demonic possession, and you could probably find thousands of people to back up those stories, complete with video evidence and horrible stories of normal people suddenly developing a taste for human faces. At the end of the day, people will laugh off the idea of a demon in favor of something that we can medicate and lock away, but do we really know for sure?


Granted, the show has gone a bit far with their monsters. As I said, they're relying much more heavily on showing us everything in great detail these days, and that doesn't help the show at all. They could easily have Rowena die and come back to life on camera, or Castiel do whatever his level of power will allow him to do this week (I'm still not sure what his deal is this season). But the general idea is that people know, but they'd rather not.

6

(267 replies, posted in Sliders Bboard)

The storyline with Nick is interesting because Lucifer corrupted him. Lucifer's whole shtick is that he is appealing and following him makes people feel good as they head toward Hell. That said, I don't really get the story. This isn't Nick's body. Nick shouldn't be in there any more than Jimmy is in Castiel. It's another example of the show contradicting established mythology this season, and why I think it is time for a new showrunner.

I don't think that it would work to reveal the supernatural stuff to the world. Supernatural works as a truckstop horror story, but whenever they try to go bigger, it falls apart. Kripke understood this about the show, but others don't seem to. The more you see, the less scary something is. The bigger you go, the less impact it has. The more you bring people back from the dead, the less anyone cares about life or death on the show. This is why the Heaven/Hell stuff became almost comedic and silly after a while. People in suits talking about how powerful they were while accomplishing nothing. It was so much more powerful when we got bits and pieces, but never saw what was really going on.

Season 7 was the closest we've come to seeing the world let in on the big secret, and it was a mess. We later had the President and big government agencies, and it looked ridiculous. Whereas one FBI agent tracking Sam and Dean in the early seasons felt like a real threat.

One of the most overlooked parts of storytelling these days is just establishing boundaries. Now that we can show anything on screen by using computer animation, everyone wants to show everything.


The 300th episode had some good moments, but I'm not sure it was really on the mark. It captured how far Sam and Dean have come, but it didn't capture where John was at that time. He didn't act like the John Winchester of that era. I don't think that he needed to be all angry and abusive, but I think that he definitely would have questioned some of the decisions that his boys have made.

It did feel rushed (maybe we didn't need the whole storyline with the kids and the town). Parts felt too wacky (Sam's Steve Jobs costume). There was some good emotion, and I think that Samantha Smith did a great job of making us feel a connection with someone whom she barely worked with 14 years ago. That said, the overall execution of this scenario didn't feel... real. It seemed more fanfic-y than, say, the time travel episodes where Sam and Dean interacted with their parents in earlier seasons.

I get that they probably didn't have JDM for very long and it was easier to play it out on one stage, but it felt off to me.

7

(2,575 replies, posted in Sliders Bboard)

Why make a post specifically about not wanting to take part in this conversation?

And really, seriously, please explain to me how the abortion of a fully formed human being is a women-only issue. As I said, I want to understand the other side. So if you think that I shouldn't have a say because I am identifying as a man at the moment, I'd love to know why. I could understand-but-disagree with that argument when it comes to abortions wherein the baby is dependent on the mother's body for its survival, but this isn't that. This isn't a women's issue. Part of this debate is about whether or not to kill a baby that is in an entirely different room than the mother. If we don't count babies as alive when they're fully developed and functional members of society, when exactly do we start the clock?

I assume you've seen, or held a newborn baby at some point in your life, right? Are you telling me that you'd have no opinion on the subject of someone stabbing them in the head, because it's woman's work to think about baby stuff like that?


I get it if you don't want to discuss the topic. It's not a great topic to discuss. But if you're going to reply just to imply that I don't have a right to an opinion, because my role in all of this is just to look pretty and make sandwiches, please at least explain why.

8

(2,575 replies, posted in Sliders Bboard)

I am specifically talking about fully formed children who no longer depend on a woman's body for their survival. It has nothing to do with whether or not we can get pregnant. It has to do with whether it is acceptable to kill a fully formed child for no good reason. No medically necessary reason. No issues with the woman's body (the kid is coming out either way. We're just talking about whether we should pop it open and suck out its brain first).

And I'm also talking about the fact that people cheering for such things, even if they do think it should be legal, is disgusting and not just a little bit evil.

The matter of who should be allowed to discuss what is a whole separate topic. Spoiler alert: I think everyone can have an opinion on everything. I would never tell a woman to sit down and keep her mouth shut while the men talk, and I'd expect the same respect in return.

Does this mean that I should stop posting all of those racist, homophobic, alt-right comments? Can I stop man-spreading and misgendering people now? Because nobody told me that the prank had been called off.

10

(2,575 replies, posted in Sliders Bboard)

ireactions wrote:

I cannot stress enough in the name of the Professor's slide-rule, Rembrandt's AIDS ribbons and Jerry O'Connell's damaged liver that the views in any one post in this thread do not reflect those of Sliders.TV as a whole.


True. I take full responsibility for any post that suggests that a fully formed and functioning human baby should not be partially birthed, only to have its head cut open and its brain sucked out at the last second.
I take responsibility for also opposing the method wherein a fully formed and functioning human is poisoned with a drug that will bring about a massive heart attack, then either birthed normally (though dead), or dismembered during birth.
I take responsibility for any suggestion that there is no situation wherein this would have to happen in order to save the life of the mother, because the mother is still enduring the birthing process regardless of whether or not they kill the fully formed and functioning child.
I take responsibility for the suggestion that a C-section is the proper course of action when the life of the mother is in danger, just because it's the fastest, safest option.
I take responsibility for any and all suggestions that a child who manages to survive such a procedure and who manages to survive outside of the womb should be given the same respect and proper medical care that any human being deserves when they are in distress.
I take full responsibility for suggesting that any environment that offers such invasive medical procedures should be held to the same medical standards as the places that provides colonoscopies or mole removals.
And finally, I take responsibility for any suggestion that the killing of a child who has actually been born and is resting comfortably in the other room would by definition be infanticide.


I apologize if there was any misunderstanding in regards to my ownership of these comments, and hope that I did not offend any passersby who are in favor of the above-stated actions (as long as we don't do any of it to rabbits, because that'd be animal cruelty and nobody wants to hurt bunnies, so I don't care if I offend the people who want to hurt cute bunnies).

In the future, please consider any comments posted by me to be my own personal comments, and not the comments of anyone else (unless otherwise stated or quoted). I am merely seeking to understand the other side of the argument as best I can, and hope that we can have a calm and rational discussion in this thread.

11

(2,575 replies, posted in Sliders Bboard)

Okay, so this hasn't been a good year for the left side of the spectrum, thus far. We have they calling for physical violence against kids, we have them bullying a little kid who was at the State of the Union specifically because he was being bullied, we have a legitimately crazy politician calling for the elimination of airplanes and farting cows (no joke or exaggeration here), and we have what seems to be a pretty solid chunk of politicians openly admitting to dressing in blackface costumes (and I mean real blackface, and not the Jimmy Fallon/Joy Behar kind).

I could probably pick any one of those topics and run with it for a while, but I wanted to discuss something a little bit less "heavy". So...





Abortion!


As anyone who has been following my comments for the past 20 years can tell you, I'm opposed to abortion in general. My position hasn't changed much over the years. However, another thing that you will have heard me say over the years is that a person should be able to argue the other side. You should always know the best argument for the other side, because you can't really know what you believe if you aren't willing to look at the whole issue. And for a long time, this was working for me. Now, I am struggling to understand the other side.

Let's map this out. (I'm not using any specific dates, just general ideas of the timeline)

2000 - The general (though not universal) argument from the pro-abortion side of the debate was that abortion wasn't ending a human life. It was ending a clump of cells that could potentially become human life at some point. There was no consciousness, there was no viability outside of the womb. It simply was not a life, and until that potential life became a life, the mother should have the right to decide whether or not she wanted to carry that child to term. It was her body.

2010 - The argument evolved over the years, as our understanding of a baby's development and our overall medical capabilities advanced. By this point, most people that I encountered had dropped the "clump of cells" argument and had adopted the "parasite" argument. This being that yes, the unborn baby is technically a human life, but it was entirely dependent on the mother to sustain that life, and she had the right to decide whether or not she wanted to put her body through carrying that baby to term. She wasn't beholden to the child and the child didn't have the right to demand the woman's willingness to be used as an incubator. Those with this opinion usually believed that a child at the legally-aborted stage was still too young to be conscious or aware, or what they would consider "life", though they understood that it was technically alive in a scientific sense. Ultimately though, it came down to the fact that it was the woman's body and her choice.


And with these arguments, I strongly disagree, but I understand the position. What it seemed to come down to was one side advocating for the baby and one side advocating for the woman. And while I personally believe that what has occurred over the years with abortion is nothing short of an atrocity, it was at least something that I understood on some disconnected level.


2019 - We have people standing and cheering for the killing of fully viable, fully developed babies. This is no longer about a clump of cells, or the mother's body. We have human beings who could live outside of the womb, being killed for no reason other than the fact that someone wants them dead. Something that would have people brought up on murder charges two hours later.
And I get that the argument is that it's about the life of the mother, but that's not what it's about. A C-section is about the life of the mother, because that's the best course of action for those situations. There is no reason to kill the baby. And you could say that it's for babies that are going to die anyway, but that's not what these new policies are about. They've been expanded to the point where the woman's stress would be counted as a good enough reason to kill a fully developed baby.

We even have people talking about birthing a child and keeping it comfortable while it's fate is discussed by doctors and the mother.


I'm disgusted. This isn't unusual for an abortion discussion, but with this one I don't even have the luxury of knowing the logic behind the support for this evil. And I don't get why anyone with a soul would stand and cheer for it. And I don't get how anyone who claimed to be fighting for the health of the mother constantly supports reducing regulations on the conditions under which these acts are carried out. We're talking about pretty invasive procedures under the best of circumstances, and yet those who keep pushing the boundaries of these laws keep pushing for less and less regulation. The people who used to say that they didn't want to see back alley abortions being performed are inching ever closer to that very thing!

And what has me completely baffled at this point is that the dude who was talking about killing the kid whose sleeping in the other room is making more headlines for his 30 year old racist costumes and nickname. Which is bad, don't get me wrong. But it's not "infanticide" bad.


So help me out here, because it's a sad day when the farting cow thing makes more sense to me than the current leftist position on late term abortions. I want to know if there is a logical point of view here, but I haven't heard any. There is simply no reason to kill a baby that can be born and live outside of the womb. Killing that baby does absolutely nothing to save the life of the mother.


A long while back (early 2000's, if I recall, but I'm not sure), there was an article about a professor. I think he was at Princeton, but that part's not relevant. Anyway, he was arguing that newborn babies weren't really alive because they weren't aware enough to qualify as life, in his opinion. So basically, he was cool with abortion up to a year after birth (or something along those lines. It was a long time ago). At the time, this wasn't even as shocking as it was ridiculous. People could laugh off the concept, because it was so absurd and he was just a crazy man who should never be allowed near children.

Today, he's about normal for the far left. Mind you, I don't think that everyone on the left agrees with these policies. I'm not going to use this as a means of dehumanizing everyone who disagrees with me, because I think the last number I saw was something like 80% of Americans oppose late term abortion. However, there are clearly people who think that this is an acceptable practice. I don't get that. I don't understand how any people are cheering for it. Can someone help me understand?

From a politician side, I get it. If I'm a far left politician, I push for these things so that Trump eventually pushes back. Even better if the republicans try to push new restrictions on abortion, because then it becomes a huge platform in the next election. What I don't understand is how any normal citizen would support this. That's the part I need help with.

Sorry if I'm rambling. I'm trying to be more logical than emotional about this right now, and my efforts aren't entirely working.

12

(742 replies, posted in Sliders Bboard)

Roku has a variety of different products. The one I've been looking at for my next upgrade is the Roku Ultra (currently $99, but it was about half that price around Black Friday). I don't think that it plays AVI files, but it does have a USB port, for local playback, so there's always the option of converting files to a supported format, if you don't mind the long process of doing so (find a converter that can batch process and I suppose you could set up several conversions at a time)

My Samsung smart TV works pretty well. I guess it comes down to the model, since the technology is always progressing. I can even mirror my Note 8 screen on my TV without any trouble.

13

(742 replies, posted in Sliders Bboard)

I have a smart TV, but I probably do most of my streaming through my Roku. It has more apps/channels available and it's easier to upgrade over time than a TV. I've been using Roku devices for about ten years now. I'd definitely recommend them, and there are good deals on them pretty often.

I have one of their boxes, not one of the streaming sticks. I can't vouch for the sticks.

I watched another video from Midnight's Edge, regarding the Star Trek rights, how the Prime universe isn't really the original canon universe, and how Star Trek could potentially be saved in the future.

Is the video legit? I have no clue. At least 50% of it is unverifiable supposition. But I have to say, it's some of the best Trek-related storytelling that I've seen in years! Drama! Suspense! Intrigue! Deep, philosophical and moral questions! And all with a hint of hopeful optimism for the future. It may or may not be BS, but if CBS All Access put this much effort into their series, maybe I'd be more of a fan!


https://youtu.be/ojtX_Oz4WsU

Overall, I'm fine with the tone of the Netflix shows. I think that some of the writers/producers struggled to work with that style though. Luke Cage was just horrible. It was one of the worst shows I've seen in a while. It was so bad that they actually needed to use slow jazz elevator music as the inspiration for the series. Oof.

I'll agree that the downfall for many of these shows was their lack of stand-alone episodes or short mini-arcs to fill out the season, and this caused them to repeat a lot of things. Jessica Jones was very guilty of this. However, I'm fine with the "stand around and talk" element, because it's an interesting corner of the Marvel world to explore. I don't necessarily need incredible action in every episode, as long as the episodes are still compelling in some way. It's tricky to accomplish, and these shows certainly didn't always succeed. But I prefer this style to, say, Agents of SHIELD, or even the Marvel movies.

Sorry for my delay in responses. I've been sick. Again. Ugh.

Since I'm not in the mood to keep quoting people here, I'll just give my thoughts on topics in general.


Snyder producing Suicide Squad 2:

Doesn't really surprise me. The Snyders produced the first movie, and they'd probably be listed as producers on the sequel, if only because they developed the world that those characters are playing in, and the characters that have appeared. Even if they don't do anything on this movie, they've already done a lot of development on the movie. And while people are saying "relaunch" and not "sequel" for some reason... it's a sequel. The first one made a good amount of money and while people love to talk as though the DCEU is being remade/relaunched/rebooted in the press, it's just not happening. Even Affleck's "departure" isn't as much a departure as it is just him not fitting in with the timeline of the movie.

Also, Snyder was helping to steer the character development of Aquaman, so he's still in there, even if he's not in here.

Sounds like a mess, but I'm sure it makes sense to someone.



Justice League sequels:

Some of the plans don't sound great to me, but it's hard to judge any story based on a third-hand blurb.



The budgets and box office of DC movies:

Again, I don't think we can judge the movies based on what was spent making them. We have to judge the movies based on how they performed. And all of the DC movies have performed well. Whether or not Warner Bros. has managed their money well is another story. If I made a million dollars on a book, but blew all of that money on cover art and Facebook ads, I wouldn't see the profits, but the book would have still done its job. So the movies did their job, but Warner Bros. failed to do theirs. However, they seem to be correcting things a bit. Shazam and Birds of Prey are spending way less money.  Hopefully Warner Bros is learning to spend their money wisely. A movie like The Batman doesn't need to be expensive to make (and casting a younger actor to play a younger Bruce Wayne, rather than trying to de-age Affleck is a smart move, but I do think they should maybe put in some Affleck bookends or something). They just need to learn when it's worth spending the money and when it's not. It seems like they might be learning. Maybe. Hopefully.


Batman killing:

The funny thing about the whole "Batman killing people" issue, for me, is that he's not actually more violent than we see him in cartoons. If you take away the Knightmare sequence in BvS, we see a lot of Batman killing people in car chases and hitting them with heavy objects. These are all things that we'd see Batman do in The Animated Series, except Snyder didn't pretend that people walked away from those fights unharmed. We also saw fights like the one in Man of Steel before, but it was always presented in a cartoonish way, where we weren't expected to think about the consequences. Snyder didn't really make these characters more murderous than before. He mostly just took the characters and put them into a more "realistic" world, where their actions suddenly had more weight and consequence.



The future of Batman and Superman:


As far as we've heard from anyone related to the DCEU (including actors who had spoken to Cavill recently), Cavill is still our Superman. Right now, there's no real reason to assume otherwise. If he's not in Shazam, it's because that appearance would have required a contract renegotiation, and that is a big deal at this point. It could weaken Cavill's position going into Man of Steel 2 or any other movie where they *need* him to appear. I don't want to speculate on what's happening behind the scenes, because the big thing about this franchise is that we don't really know anything until it's in production (like with Birds of Prey).

Affleck isn't out as Batman, he's just out as Batman for the movie that apparently takes place much earlier in his career. It would be silly to have Affleck play that part if this is the case. It's easy to read all of these articles and declare it the DCEU apocalypse, because the media has been training us to read every article that way since the start, but the truth is that we don't know. We don't know what's going on with Cavill's next Superman movie. We don't know what's going on with Affleck (I heard one rumor that he was going to be directing a Justice League sequel, but that's probably not true). We have a lot of speculation, which really just amounts to media fanfic (dare I say #FakeNews?) at this point.

While everyone loves to paint the whole franchise as a failure that needs to be rebooted, the fact is that most of the movies in the DCEU have performed pretty well (again, I'm not even going to try to figure out the profits involved. I'm just talking about box office performance). Certainly, we haven't seen any flops. Warner Bros is still investing in this franchise (though a bit more wisely, it seems), so there's no reason to believe any of the doom and gloom stories at this point.

Basically, we need to stop entertaining stories from "inside sources", which have been very wrong in the past, and just keep our eyes on what's in front of us. Shazam looks good. Wonder Woman 1984 should be fun. Birds of Prey has a really solid cast and style. I'd say that the current state of the DCEU is optimistic.



Closing Thoughts:


The new Joker movie should have me pretty excited, because it sounded like it could be really cool. Yet, I'm not. The more I hear about it, the less excited I am about it. I'm all for Elseworlds stories (hell, we kinda already have some with the Lego type movies, and the animated movie series), but right now I'm just not pumped to see this one. Maybe that will change. I'm still open to liking it. I'm just a little indifferent right now.

17

(1,635 replies, posted in Sliders Bboard)

Arrow could always get a shortened season, right?


I haven't been following the Arrow story, but I want to add my prediction:

The writers go crazy with the flash-forward, and then it's all undone after the Crisis event.

It's a shame that the studio did what they did. I think they could salvage the plan if they brought Snyder back, but it's probably too late for that now. A shame.

Apparently, they are moving ahead with The Batman, but Affleck will not be playing the part (reportedly) because the movie focuses on a younger Batman. The question that I have is, do we need a younger Batman story, or is that just rehashing what we have seen before? There was something exciting about seeing Batman's later career and the whole Bat-family history.

I hope that we still get to see some of that, either in this Batman movie, or future group movies (which could still feature Affleck).

Dude, James Marsters is 56 years old. I just found that out. I always knew that he was older than the others when he was on Buffy, but wow.

He's on The Runaways though, if you really want to see him on a Marvel series.


I never read a Punisher comic book, but I'm not sure that a version of that character could headline a TV series without some humanization. Not because of the violence and all of that, but because it would be pretty dull to see a character with no real dimension to him. He kinda came across that way in some of the Daredevil episodes, but even then, he had more depth to him as his story progressed.

Birds of Prey teaser:

https://youtu.be/ptLZlrE8MrQ

Seems to be more of a Suicide Squad flavor than any other movie. Might be cool.

My brother rewatched Dexter recently, and we were talking about it the other day. I'd always thought that Dexter was more a product of nurture rather than nature, but my brother reminded me of how Evelyn Vogel (the doctor who helped create Harry's code) assumed that Dexter was putting on an act, pretending to care about the people around him. Except, Dexter wasn't acting by this point. He genuinely cared about the people in his life. If he truly were a psychopath, he wouldn't be able to learn how to feel those connections, especially for people who aren't in his "inner circle".

It's an interesting series, for sure. I did have some problems with the last couple of seasons. I don't want to spoil things here, but some of the arcs just didn't sit well with me. I didn't hate the finale as much as some people, but like you said, it wasn't what I would have done with it.

I started watching DS9 again, and it sparked an idea in my head for a new Trek series (moving the Trek universe forward, not backward). Now I have a Star Trek series, living beside my concept for a Supergirl series, and neither of them are doing me any good.

I'm a bit deeper into season to of Punisher. I promise, Frank's dark side comes out a bit more. While I think that he would love to have a normal life, with a normal family, I think his Punisher side is unavoidable. He's not presented as someone who necessarily needs the thrill of killing people, but he's someone who needs to do what he sees as the right thing, and doing it with as much finality as possible. I don't see him as a psychopath or a sociopath, but someone who sees what he thinks is the right thing, and doesn't care what the law says is the right thing.

That's probably different than the comics, but I think that when you're doing something in live action, with flesh and blood human beings, you have to be careful of what you're glorifying. It's like I've said with Avengers and how there was so much chaos and destruction in that movie, but none of the weight of live action was placed on it, so it felt awkward and wrong. Meanwhile, a lot of weight was placed on the flesh and blood people in Man of Steel, and that also caused some people to react negatively to the chaos and destruction (though I still argue that it all made sense in terms of character and situation, I can see how it was off-putting).

So far, I like season 2 of Punisher. There was a thing at the end of an episode that didn't make a lot of sense to me, but I won't go there because you haven't seen it yet.


We should have a Dexter post. Because I think the story of Dexter was the story of a child whose trauma was manipulated and twisted by two adults who wanted to create a "justice" machine. I don't think that Dexter had to become what he was. We can see that he is capable of connecting with and loving other people. Dexter isn't capable of feeling remorse. He's shown that he's capable of considering the safety of others (his son, his step-children, his sister, etc). He's shown that he does care about his work and his family. He can feel empathy (and is often manipulated by people who he sees as being similar to himself, because while he has empathy for them, they don't have empathy for him). He can feel fear. Outside of his killing, Dexter isn't drawn to dangerous, reckless thrills.
Yes, I think Dexter was messed up by his mother's murder. However, rather than try to treat that trauma, Harry and Evelyn fed into the darkness and created the Dark Passenger. If they didn't create it, they certainly didn't try to kill it.

Basically, they saw the traumatized and confused child and decided that he would become the Bay Harbor Butcher. Whether they did this intentionally, or out of wanting to do good, I don't know. I think Harry was probably dealing with his own issues, and Evelyn saw an interesting opportunity. Either way, I don't think that Dexter was born a psychopath and I don't think that he needed to become what he did. I think that a lot of how he saw himself was based on what he'd been taught by others. Even on the show, he's not like the other truly psychopathic killers.

24

(2,575 replies, posted in Sliders Bboard)

The thing to keep in mind is, the wokeness is an act. It's marketing, both for the entertainment industry and for politicians. Usually, it's a way of breaking up the audience into separate herds that can be easily wrangled. That's why you'll see comments about how gay people should vote, or black people should vote, when neither of those descriptors has anything to do with someone's thinking or beliefs.

So wokeness isn't a moral high ground. It's a club. One step out of line and you lose your membership.

25

(1,635 replies, posted in Sliders Bboard)

I was planning to go back and watch the rest of the season, but the press coverage of the return is what turned me off. They were promoting the new Green Arrow, the flash-forwards, Diaz, and the new Team Arrow characters, and I realized that I just didn't care about anything that they were saying. Most of the articles that I saw didn't even mention Oliver, who is the actual star of the show.

The show hasn't been right for a long time, and they keep doubling down on everything that's wrong with it. So I decided to catch up on a Million Little Things and season 2 of Patriot, and take a break from Arrow. Possibly a long break. Possibly a forever break.


As for the Supergirl thing, I think the solution is just to cancel Supergirl, so The Flash can have a compelling villain without it seeming like a retread. smile

26

(2,575 replies, posted in Sliders Bboard)

Short response:

I think you do know how you feel about it, in your gut.

If his only offense was what he believes, and he lost his job because he voted for the wrong guy, do you think that's justified? Is it forward-thinking? Is it an example of tolerance? Is it the direction that you want the world to move in, going forward?





Muuuuuuch longer response (read this one after taking a few moments to consider the short response):


Look... Supergirl is a far left show, run by far left people, starring far left people. Not liberals. Liberals have their opinions on things, but can be reasoned with. I don't agree with liberals, but I can usually get where they're coming from. The far left is something else entirely, and it's the brand of politics that Hollywood is based on. It's the reason why so many young conservatives remain in the closet about their political opinions. In Hollywood, you can be a child molester and receive an Academy Award, complete with standing ovation, but if you're an outspoken conservative, they will do everything in their power to destroy you. The far left is not about tolerance. It's not about inclusivity. It's about being what they want you to be, or being nothing. They will support an Antifa member smacking someone in the head with a bike chain, as long as that person voted for the other guy.

It's a toxic mentality, which is currently controlling the narrative in the media. It's the news. It's what's in primetime. It's late night talk shows. Again, I refer you back to the "punch a Nazi" line, which was featured in the crossover last year, and has been repeated over and over again in reference to children who were wearing the wrong hat.

The toxic left is as ugly as the crazy extreme right. The difference is, the crazy right isn't mainstream. The crazy right isn't running every show on TV, including the news.

There was a story a few years ago, when True Blood was on the air. I didn't watch the show, but I followed this news story and the discussion around it, because it was interesting. Basically, they wanted to have a character who had been in a hetero relationship up until this point enter into a homosexual relationship, complete with the show's typical sex scenes. The actor who played this character, Luke Grimes, said that he was uncomfortable with performing those scenes. He didn't object to others performing those scenes, he just didn't want to do them himself. This led to him leaving the show and the role being recast. You'd think this would be the end of the story and no big deal. Creative differences, or whatever. Happens all the time.
Except, people from the show (actors and I believe producers as well) started talking to the press about Grimes, and calling him homophobic for not wanting to perform those scenes. In the fandom, people were declaring him a bigot and a homophobe, and were saying that it's not an actor's job to say no. It's an actor's job to perform what's in the script. And there was remarkably little said in support of his decision.
To be clear, this was not the original character description, or what he signed on to play. It was a change that they discussed with him and he decided not to go through with. He did not slam the show. He did not use any slurs. He decided that he was personally uncomfortable performing gay sex scenes, for his own personal reasons. Could be religion, or it could be that he was horribly raped by a man as a child. I don't know. I don't care. It's his personal boundary, and if he just decided that he didn't want to spend 12 hours a day simulating sex with a dude, I think that's his call. All actors should draw that line for themselves, because things turn bad when they don't. Doesn't have to be the same line, but there should be a line of some sort. Some actors could turn down roles that portray conservatives in a positive light, and I think that's their right. They should not be shamed in the press by the production, simply for stepping back.

The problem was, his personal boundary wasn't on-message. His personal boundary, which he set for himself and nobody else, was problematic. In other words, he should shut up and do what he's told. This was a few years ago, and things weren't nearly as publicly insane as they are now, but it shows that Hollywood has been this way for a long, long time. If you aren't a part of the solution, you're a part of the problem. And yet, again, child molesters aren't always considered part of the problem.

Hollywood is cancer. I love the craft of movie making, and I think that it can produce truly beautiful things. But that industry is just cancer.


In regards to Dean Cain, I think they probably didn't want him there. But there's also a good chance that the environment wasn't to his liking either. He's a good guy, and I don't think that he would attack someone for what they believe. If he did, I'm sure that we'd know about it by now. I'm sure that he's not losing sleep over Supergirl. He is always working, and most of his projects are outside of the normal Hollywood environment. I'm sure he's doing just fine.

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There's a government shutdown?

smile

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I think Michael's comments were similar to what we've heard before, from many other characters. And it makes a certain amount of sense to the characters, but we have seen God/Chuck step in pretty often.

One of the show's themes is free will. You can't have both free will, and God making every decision for us. He can tell us not to eat the fruit, but if He makes it impossible for us to eat the fruit, we don't have free will. The fact that Chuck stepped in so many times on the show just tells us that he loves his world/people too much to sit back and watch them destroy themselves.

God/Chuck is an interesting character, filled with contradictions and layers that ultimately make sense for the character. But I disagree with Michael's theory that Chuck keeps scratching drafts and starting over. If that were true, he wouldn't exist. Michael is avoiding the responsibility of his own actions. Maybe Chuck decided to give the angels a chance to run their own world, and what it became was what they made it.

As a writer, I let my characters run loose at times, but they don't have free will. If they did, they'd probably kill me.

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I hate to say it, but this season really isn't working for me at all. The Michael thing feels weak, like they're just trying to think of somewhere to go with it, and at times the show is contradicting what's already been established. The whole idea of the Empty as being not only another afterlife where angels go, but also as an actual being runs counter to what we've seen before. God couldn't assemble an army of archangels to fight Amara because they were dead and he didn't have time to make more. If he could just pop over to the next room and wake them up, why didn't he? Jack is powerful, but not *God* powerful.
And how can there be a backdoor for Michael to use to get into Dean, when he would absolutely need a "Yes" to get into any person, and the slightest "No" after that would keep him out?

Having a 12 year old girl (or however old she is) leading an army of hunters (and by "army", I mean "the few who could fit into the back of the car") was weird. Especially since she's already been established as someone who isn't a great hunter.

None of it is working. And while I still love the stand-alone episodes, they don't even seem to be doing many of them this year. An like Marc Zicree said, when you're focusing only on one arc for the whole season, it's really hard to fix what's broken along the way, and so much of the main arcs are broken at this point. I realized that as I was watching Dean's dream world and I found myself wishing that *that* was the show each week. Winchester's Roadhouse would allow them to work with other hunters and give the actors time off when needed, but it would feel more "Supernatural" than what the bunker has become.

Speaking of which... this place was supposed to be so mystically warded that even an angel couldn't get into it without a key. Now they have more people breaking into it than the Arrowcave.


I don't think that the show is so broken that it can't possibly be fixed. However, I do think that it might be time for the next showrunner to step in. Someone who is a fan of the earlier seasons and wouldn't mind rolling back the style a little bit. Supernatural, at its best, is a road trip story, with brothers in a cool car, shooting up monsters and exploring the rich culture of America through its urban legends and folklore. Right now, the show is suffocating itself with its own mythology. I don't want to see it end like The X-Files.

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Would it? Man, I have no idea what's going on with those shows anymore. The Flash is the only one I'm still going back to at this point.

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Another idea: What if a large chunk of the population actually sided with Cicada? What if he wasn't a mustache twirling bad guy, but someone who was actually making a dent in the number of meta-related crimes? He's killing people, and that's illegal, but is it more illegal than, say, what Oliver Queen did?

And yet, our team is still made up of metas, so they might be targets. At the very least, Killer Frost would be a target, because she has a genuine history with the other side.

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Yeah, there are a ton of problems. And they really could have given better reasons for not calling Joe or Cisco back this week. Nora was horribly, horribly injured, and people were being slaughtered left and right. Still, Cisco's time is better spent sitting alone in a lab somewhere, working on his pet project?

I really think that they'd be better off just having mini-arcs for these villains sometimes. Stretching them out for an entire season makes everyone look stupid, but there could have been a solid six episode arc with Cicada.

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(2,575 replies, posted in Sliders Bboard)

Informant, I apologize. It was a reaction. It wasn't a position. "OF COURSE Informant would take the side of whoever was white, he always sides with cops when any cop shoots a black guy. Oh. Facts are on his side in this one. Oh, thank GOD I didn't weigh in or I'd never hear the end of it." (Looks like I will anyway.)

Apology accepted. You just have to understand that this is the battle that we have to fight every day. There's this narrative that the right-wingers are the bad guys because they're racist, sexist, homophobic, etc. Even now, we have people saying that those kids deserved to be harassed and threatened because their hats are the same as white hoods, or the fact that they were at the March for Life makes them Nazis, or whatever. (and again, this is why the "punch a Nazi" movement sounds great on paper, but is actually a serious, dangerous thing. We're not actually talking about real Nazis 99% of the time)

Even on this board, it's been implied that I'm all of those things, and it's a hurdle that needs to be overcome if the conversations that need to take place can take place. The truth is, there are very few actual white supremacists, and none of them are embraced by the masses on either side. The need to put that label on people (or calling them sexist, homophobic, etc) is a way of shutting down the conversation without having to come up with an actual viewpoint.

I get that you probably don't believe that I'm a Nazi, but there are still those thoughts that cross your mind, like the thing with cops shooting black kids. I don't always support the cops, because sometimes the cops are wrong. However, I look at each case as its own thing, and I make my judgments accordingly. As with the MAGA kids, the narrative in the press is rarely the whole truth, or even any version of the truth. We just happened to have a 2 hour video that showed the true story this time, and it was undeniable at that point. But there are countless stories where the answers aren't as easy, and when it comes down to documents, various recordings, testimonies, etc, peoples' eyes glaze over and they usually stick to whatever the news tells them to believe.

Hell, I have a hard time getting anyone to tell me what they think "Russian collusion" actually means, but they sure as hell know that Trump needs to be impeached for it, and they'll punch any Nazi that says otherwise.

If I seem super defensive about this, it's because this is the fight that needs to be fought. We need people to listen to what others are saying, instead of projecting images onto the opposition. We need to have conversations that make us ask questions about what we believe, instead of just taking the word of whatever talking head we saw on the news. I forget who it was that said it, but someone once said that if you can't make the best argument against what you believe, you can't really know what you believe.

If I'm a wildcard, it's because I just want the information. I won't believe a story unless I see solid evidence for it. I have no loyalty to Trump or any other politician, or pundit, or website. Even if I don't have all of the evidence and I form an opinion based on my gut, I have to be willing to accept when I'm wrong (and I was wrong about Cavill).


One of my favorite movies is Signs. no matter how many times I watch it, I always see something new and interesting in the movie. But, while most people will tell you that the movie is about an alien invasion, I would argue that the movie is about demons. In another Shyamalan movie, The Happening, it's explained that when something happens, people will come up with theories and they will tell you that they know what's happening, but the truth is that there's often a huge difference between what you're told and what's real. Sometimes people don't know what's really going on, and they make up easy answers to comfort themselves.
With Signs, we're told what's happening on the news and with books that suggest that it's an alien invasion. But does that mean that we *know* what's really happening? We don't actually see a space ship. We don't actually see aliens coming down from space and telling us what they want. What we see are people, grasping for answers in the only way they know how. but ultimately, the movie is about a minister who is having a crisis of faith, and most of the symbolism of the movie is based around that theme (water is a form of purification, often used in baptism, for example).

We could apply this to Supernatural and God/Chuck as well. We're always told that he is a deadbeat that abandoned everyone, but we see him show up when he is needed, and we've seen him sitting in the back of the room, watching the Supernatural story unfold on stage when they did the musical episode. He wrote every story that Sam and Dean were featured in, so he clearly didn't abandon the world, as we have been told over and over again by different characters. He just didn't always do what they wanted him to do. Their lack of faith in him comes from the fact that they didn't get their way. (I'd have to rewatch the specific episode that you mentioned before I could comment on that, so I'll just leave this as a vague discussion of the character overall)


This is basically how I watch the news these days. There's the story that I'm being told, and then there's the story that's not being told. A lot of the time, the details that aren't being reported will change the entire story, and they're being left out because they don't fit the narrative that the media or the politicians want to create.

If I'm a wildcard (and I've never considered myself to be one), I think it's because everyone should be, to some degree. We should consider all of the facts available and form our opinions accordingly. We should discuss all of the ideas and angles, and see what makes the most sense. We'll still disagree, because people have different views on core subjects, but we should at least work to understand the other side as much as possible. To be able to argue for the other team in a debate (which I've actually done online, when people have failed to make the best argument against me. It was fun.)


The MAGA hat story tells us a lot. It tells us that people are willing to believe what's easy. It tells us that people on both sides were willing to condemn people (children, no less) based on what Twitter told them to believe. For some, it was because they were the enemy and it's always a good idea to destroy the enemy, and for those on the right, it was because they wanted to earn points by showing how willing they were to condemn people on their own side. All of these people just wanted points in whatever stupid game we're playing in this world.
What they all failed to do was look for facts. Gather information. The news channels that covered the story didn't seek out all angles before they ran with the story, they went with it because it was the right image for the story that they were going to tell anyway. Nobody who rushed to join the mob cared about what really happened, or the real lives that were being impacted by them.

And this is just one clear example, but it's the same thing that happens every single day. People believe what they want to believe, whether the facts support the story or not. People want to please the mob and collect their points, like Bryce Dallas Howard in that Black Mirror episode, but much uglier.


Sorry that I'm rambling. I know that you didn't rush to judge, and kudos for that. But this story just highlights a much larger problem in our society. It's something that I've been trying to point out for a long time.

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Nope. Not even a little. I think kids are programmed by their schools all the time.

My supposition is that a group of kids dressing up at a theme-night basketball game many years ago has nothing to do with the fact that these kids were waiting for a bus, were targeted for harassment by adults, put online and targeted for harassment by more adults (including many prominent media figures), have been doxxed, have been threatened with violence and even received death threats. People who weren't even at the damn event, but who passingly resemble those in the video have had their safety threatened as well.

What I'm saying is that people are insane for targeting these kids. They would have been insane for doing it even if the kids were guilty (which they very clearly and undeniably are not), and they're super extra insane now that we know that the kids are innocent. Many of these people are *still* looking for a reason to cling to their outrage and their threats (while totally ignoring the people in the video who are actually saying hateful, racist, homophobic things) despite the fact that we can clearly see that these kids did nothing wrong.

You are bringing up yet another out of context image, taken of completely different people, years ago, who happened to go to the same school, and you're using that image to justify the harassment and death threats that these kids are receiving. That is not a healthy thought process. I don't wish those things on people that I dislike. I don't like David Hogg, but I don't want him or his family threatened. I might have a slight suspicion that Nancy Pelosi is a vampire, but I don't actually want someone to drive a stake into her heart (wherever she's keeping it stored). Why? Because I'm a rational adult! I am capable of disagreeing with people, or finding their very existence on this planet sickening, without delighting in the idea of them being physically beaten or killed. I'm especially not going to cheer for the threat of physical violence toward kids. KIDS!!!!

Now, if we were talking about child molesters, then fine. I'd be right there with the people who'd want to see them hurt in all kinds of ways. But we're not. We're talking about kids whose only crime was wearing a hat that you don't like. You can't honestly believe that people are justified in treating them like that. And if you do, then... good luck with that. Living with that type of hatred for people isn't healthy for anyone, and it's going to bring absolutely nothing good into your own life.

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My first reaction was thinking that OF COURSE Informant would take the side of whoever was white. (Sorry.)

You have issues. Seriously, if this is your gut reaction to any story that you know your masters want you to disagree with, you need deprogramming. You've been trained like a lab rat to not go for the cheese.

For the record, I don't side with whoever is white. I don't care who is white. I side with a ton of black people, but they're all of the race traitors that your side is allowed to use slurs against, so they don't really count. I side with a lot of gay people, but they're all the self-hating traitors who your side is allowed to spit on. I side with a lot of strong, amazing women, but they're all the mindless little whores that your side is allowed to threaten to rape. Hell, I follow and even respect some self-professed liberals, with whom I probably agree on very little... But they're all the alt-right extremists that your side is allowed to threaten with violence, but is most certainly never EVER allowed to actually listen to.

This reaction of yours just once again proves that it never mattered what I actually said to you in any of these conversations. You just talk to the version of me that the media has told you to believe in. You're in a cult, dude. And this isn't about what you believe, it's about what you've been trained not to hear. I've never said a racist word in my life, so how did that reaction end up in your head?


When you pay money to attend a school that allows and even celebrates students wearing blackface to intimidate minority students from other schools, you're going to develop that reputation.


Did you have to stretch before you reached for that justification? Or are you naturally limber? Are you seriously, honestly suggesting that anything that was done to these children was acceptable? And your best, most sincere justification for this was that someone who once did something offensive went to the same school at some point?

You can't see me right now, but I'm totally giving you a golf clap.

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I was just reading more of the comments from verified Twitter users, whose comments Twitter refuses to take down, despite their threatening nature. It makes me so mad. This isn't one story, it's our culture now. Those people refuse to acknowledge that the kids were the wronged party, simply because people don't like their hats. Twitter will delete completely non threatening posts from conservatives and even ban the users, but won't even delete threats toward conservative *children*.

These kids are being called white supremacists. They're being compared to the Hitler Youth. They're having their names and faces plastered all over sites that want more info on them, and what's their crime? Wearing a stupid hat to the March for Life! A rally designed to celebrate how sacred every human life is.

We need to be able to talk to those who disagree with us. We need to understand that most people are good and want what they genuinely believe to be the best thing for everyone. This need to demonize every man, woman or child who dares to disagree with you (figurative you, not specifically anyone here) will not lead us anywhere good.

All that said, I do fully believe that there are people in politics, and people in the media who are genuinely bad people. Who want bad things, for selfish reasons. They are dangerous and they're driving a lot of this hatred that we see.

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The story of these MAGA kids is just mind-blowing on so many levels.

First, it shows us that the press doesn't care about facts. They're like fiction writers for old scifi magazines, creating stories around compelling pictures that have been set before them.

Second, it shows how easily the masses are manipulated by the press. The fact that grown adults, many of whom are politician or employed by news outlets, were calling for doxxing or violence against these kids was nothing short of insane. Even if the kids were guilty of saying mean things (which we know they're not), would that justify calling for violence against kids?

Third, it shows that even with raw, simple facts presented to them, completely disproving their stories, some people will hold onto the anger and hatred, because it's what fuels the mob and they need more of it. Now, apparently (in some eyes), it's still okay to call for violence against these kids, because a MAGA hat means that you are harassing people and it's okay to punch anyone wearing those hats.

Fourth, it shows that when presented with actual footage of teens harassing an elderly person, and even trying to smack the man's sign out of his hand, the mob will not show outrage if they don't agree with the elderly person's politics.
https://youtu.be/3Q23xB6Ghm0

This means, it's not any moral high ground that these people stand on. Nothing they believe in, aside from "You are my enemy, and you must suffer." Otherwise, these actions would have been called out from either side.


This is how the mob works. This is why fake news is dangerous. This is why social media is toxic. All of this existed before, of course. However, the ease with which lives can be (and are) destroyed for no reason is astonishing.

This is a clear and simple example of how this all works, but it's the norm for journalism and the mob these days. And both sides have to be called out on this one, because there were many right-wingers who were just as willing to throw these kids to the wolves without investigating the whole story. They were trying to appease the mob as well, but for other reasons. They wanted to gain points by showing how cool they were with calling out the bad guys in their own party. And while I agree with holding your own party accountable when it's called for, the willingness to do so--TO KIDS-- without information was pathetic.


The whole thing makes me sick. It's just disgusting. And while I could hope that it'd be a wake-up call for some, and a lesson to look into facts and evidence a little bit more, I'd be joking if I said that I actually believe that anything productive will come from this.

I was planning to see Aquaman when it came out, but I got sick and didn't want to be the annoying guy in the theater, coughing through the whole movie. Now I'm just too busy to get to a theater.

I really do want to see it though. I've heard all good things... but that usually doesn't mean much. Most people consider Wonder Woman to be the best DC movie so far, and it seemed like the weakest to me. smile

Has anyone been keeping up with Marc Zicree's YouTube channel, where he discusses Discovery and The Orville?

https://youtu.be/yn3-u2Lq9tw

I'm not sure that he adds a whole lot by way of deep thoughts or philosophy regarding the current state of the Trek universe, at least beyond what everyone else is saying online. However, I do find it interesting to see how someone who is actually in the Star Trek "circle", and who knows a lot of the people involved in both the old shows and even Discovery, views the series. He even mentioned Sliders at some point, when discussing Discovery... But I forget if it was in the video linked above or this one:

https://youtu.be/yrTBc0Gc1sc


I'd find the Sliders reference if I had more time, but I don't. Sorry.


I haven't seen the new season. I'm definitely not paying for it, so if I ever cave and decide to watch, it will be at some point once it's all out. However, from where I sit, it just seems like Star Trek is stuck in a time loop. They keep going back to reinvent the wheel.

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Yeah, whatever does the job smile

I don't really agree with some of your take on these events, but it's not enough to really get into. Maybe he is a Trek fan (or a fan of the original series and movies anyway). Either way, it hasn't been shown in anything that I've seen that's had his name on it. I don't know how to judge the man if I discount all of his credits and all of his interviews.

I agree that the problems with Discovery run deeper than Kurtzman. There were other people who made a lot of bad calls. I'd say that I haven't seen any right calls from them, actually. And some of those decisions quite possibly broke some copyright laws .

I just watched the teaser for the new Ghostbusters movie this evening, and I found myself super excited by that little nothing of a clip. I'd read an interview with the director before watching it, and I kinda had a sense of what was behind that teaser.
The thing that struck me was, whoever was making the decisions about Ghostbusters heard the audience, respected the audience, and adjusted the plan accordingly. Meanwhile, I've spent a lot of time recently hearing about studios/producers/directors/actors not only ignoring the fans of franchises like Star Trek and Star Wars, but insulting them or attacking them. It's so against the spirit that built these fandoms.

I'm not saying that Kurtzman doesn't have talent as a writer. I just don't think that any decision surrounding Star Trek has been a good one for a long time now. I think they need to stop what they're doing, step back, and start over, the same way Ghostbusters has.  If CBS is getting super awesome numbers with Discovery (which we have no way of knowing), then I'm wrong and they should just keep going while I walk away. But if they're not seeing a big response from viewers, it's not the audience that is broken.

I just haven't seen a lot of super excited commentary from the Trekkies. Could be the people I watch/read/talk to. I don't know.

As for season 2... Sorry, but I think they lost me. Season 1 was just bad, and the idea of yet another rehash of TOS characters does nothing for me. If I'm ever so bored that I end up hate watching it, I'll let you know. But it doesn't look like it.

I do watch The Orville though, even though I dislike Seth MacFarlane. smile

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I think we have similar models, but I'm not sure.

Without the magnet, my machine can brew 10 ounces at the most. With the magnet, I could fill up to a 16 ounce mug. True, that might make it taste watered down, but with the right coffee, I think it can work. Especially with the "strong" setting that I always use. Typically, I make a 12 ounce cup, which isn't an option without the magnet. The entire menu is different for me, once I put the magnet in. I've been doing that for a couple of years now, without any problems with the machine.

I haven't purchased a carafe either. I have another coffee maker for "real" coffee, so I only use the Keurig for my quick cups, usually later in the day. My local grocery store sometimes has a good sale on their giant boxes of store-brand coffee, and I've experimented with some to find the ones that work for me. Again, not as good as coffee from my larger, slower, better coffee maker, but passable. Not as bad as some of the other cheap brands that I've tried. I have some reusable pods too, but I usually find another sale/clearance deal on the big boxes of coffee before I need to use the refillable k-cups.

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It is weird. Cisco's special ability has mostly been replaced by a tiny prop that anyone can use whenever they want, and now they're bringing in the idea of a cure. Is Carlos Valdes leaving the show or something?

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(742 replies, posted in Sliders Bboard)

Yeah, I hacked my Keurig too. Clipped that stupid wire, and also placed a magnet inside the machine, which granted me more control over the brewing features on my specific model. Don't know which model you have, but you should look into the magnet thing and see if it's an option for you.

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True. But the difference was that Buffy faces real enemies that are heavily researched and known. The mob attacks the vague notion of an enemy, feeding off of the hatred and anger of the person next to them, justifying their actions by saying "everyone knows" that it's the right thing to do. The mob becomes the enemy when they don't care about the reality.

I love that episode. And the toad stone bit with Cordelia is classic.

No, I'm not a normal Trekkie. I enjoy a lot of Star Trek, but consider DS9 to be the only truly great series of the bunch. This has always made me an outsider amongst Trek fans, so I'm used to it.

The thing is, I understand the fandom and I know that so many of the decisions that have been made since Trek was relaunched are poison to the franchise. Recasting legendary characters. Constantly moving backwards and lingering on what was, instead of what could be. At the core of these productions is a flaw, made by people who never walked amongst Star Trek fans. I was curious to see if I was mistaken about Kurtzman, because maybe he himself just has a particular taste in Trek and chose that direction. I don't understand these decisions, not just as a fan, but as someone who knows how these fandoms work. The same issues are popping up in Star Wars, and I'm not a fan of Star Wars, but I recognize the very clear, basic flaws in the philosophy of the SW machine right now.

Imagine Quinn Mallory rebooted as a dumb jock who stumbles across a timer that was dropped by some random slider. His blond, super sexy friend with benefits, Wade. His drunk stepfather, Max. And... Let's just replace Remmy with Donald Trump. Meet your new Sliders, who travel through time, messing up history.

Clearly, there are fundamental problems with this proposal, and any Sliders fan would be able to recognize them.


On a different note, have you been following the lawsuit against STD, by a game designer who claims that they ripped off his story? I haven't fully read up on it, but what I have seen looks compelling.

A lot of those similarities were just the way TV was done back then. Firefly was the show that really changed the way CG space battles were done, with the shaky camera losing focus. This was carried over into BSG because they liked how it looked on Firefly, and it's gone everywhere since then. Still, DS9 had some pretty impressive battle scenes, with a more movement and energy than Voyager (the Defiant was a peppy little ship).

But that's getting off track.

In some ways, Voyager and DS9 were similar, but I don't believe that you'd ever turn on Voyager and confuse it for a DS9 episode. The set designs were different styles. The lighting was usually moodier on DS9. The writing was a bit more developed ad less wooden. As you get into the meat of the actual series, the differences become even more stark. Themes were much darker and nuanced on DS9. Characters were more fully realized.

I was a Star Trek fan, talking to a lot of Star Trek fans online when those shows were on the air. And while there was talk of fatigue at times, DS9 was rarely a part of that conversation. It was more centered on Voyager, and later Enterprise, both of which used the TNG formula, but had weaker execution. It just seemed like the people making the shows were out of steam.

Meanwhile, DS9 was the bastard stepchild of the Star Trek franchise. It usually felt like the studio and Rick Berman didn't even remember that the series existed. It lived in its own little world, doing its own little thing, which felt almost as though it didn't even belong in the Star Trek universe anymore because it was such a different series. Those differences turned off some viewers, and appealed to others.

DS9 was an entirely different animal, with drawn-out story arcs and deep character development. To say that it and Voyager were in any way interchangeable is a joke.


I didn't read the Countdown series. How did it display Kurtzman's fandom? Because I have never seen it on screen. Data using B4's body to come back was pretty much implied at the end of Nemesis, when B4 starts to sing the song that Data had been singing earlier.


And I think we all know that *true* Star Trek fan would ignore Nemesis entirely. smile
(yes, I'm letting my geek side show too much. I will try to pull it back a little)

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(2,575 replies, posted in Sliders Bboard)

True.

It reminds me of the Buffy episode, "Gingerbread". Nobody knows what the scandal is, or where it came from, but they're ready to burn people at the stake over it.

Actually, a lot of the world reminds me of "Gingerbread". Totally underrated episode.

49

(2,575 replies, posted in Sliders Bboard)

If the country, or Trump's presidency were as big of a disaster, or a threat to national security as some would have you believe, I promise you that we wouldn't be talking about his taste in food. Not with a media that is so rabid to get him on something that they have been known to run with stories that have already been retracted by other outlets due to their outright lies.

To be fair to Americans, it isn't "Americans" who zero in on this crap, so much as it is the news media. 99.9% of Americans probably couldn't care less who eats what in the White House. The news media is working overtime to create a narrative that keeps falling apart in their hands, even as they type up the script. And if you think I'm exaggerating the rabid, irrational, idiotic anti-Trump-ness of the media, I will once again point you to the CNN piece on how many scoops of ice cream he wants. A team of trained news reporting professionals spent how much time putting that piece together? And it wasn't even presented as a light-hearted goofball story. It was an actual story!

50

(2,575 replies, posted in Sliders Bboard)

I still laugh at the media outrage over Trump's request for an extra scoop of ice cream. I couldn't make this stuff up if I tried. smile



Here's the actual CNN report on Scoopgate: https://youtu.be/ixEahmx0Btw

Totally the same coverage that they gave Obama.

The thing is, nobody who ever watched those two shows ever thought that they were similar. It was never a conversation. We'd talk about over-saturation because Voyager turned out to be similar to TNG, and Enterprise wasn't too far off. But to specifically reference DS9 and Voyager in that comment just highlights the fact that these people don't know Star Trek. They don't know the fandom. They don't know the history. And most importantly, they don't care.

New Trek isn't meant for Trek fans. I don't quite know who they plan to market it toward, but it isn't us. And we shouldn't consume their crappy products just because they highjacked the name.

https://comicbook.com/startrek/2019/01/ … -mistakes/


My... Brain... Exploded...

By the way, I finally saw Ant-Man and The Wasp, and I enjoyed it quite a bit. The humor landed well, as well as the emotional arc of the movie. It's not exactly the biggest think-piece of our time, but it did what it was supposed to do, in a well considered and well executed fashion.

I just wanted to make the point that I'm not an all-around Marvel hater. When they do good, I applaud it. It just doesn't happen very often. smile

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(2,575 replies, posted in Sliders Bboard)

I actually had to Google the tweet about hamburgers, because I didn't know that it was a thing. Turns out that people are super outraged that he misspelled the word "hamburger". I find that to be the funny/insane thing here. We all misspell words. I'm a writer, and you should see some of the fun and creative ways that I misspell words.

The thing is, we all know that the people who nitpick about spelling and grammar on the internet are the most annoying types of trolls. We all make spelling mistakes online, and we generally assume that it was an innocent mistake (unless we're correcting the spelling/grammar nazis themselves, in which case we burn down their entire internet world based on any mistake we can find). But we also know that any such mistake made by Trump will become a dominant CNN headline for the next week.

Do you realize how many times Trump has used this fact to his advantage? I'm sure he makes mistakes all the time. But it'd be a mistake to think that all of his mistakes were actually mistakes.


Yeah, I do think it'd all be reported differently if other Presidents were in office. Michelle Obama's school lunch plan literally had students collapsing from lack of nutrition, and she was still celebrated for her war against obesity.


The fact is, Trump is known for his fast food habits. His late night McDonald's runs. His addiction to diet cola. I think it was January 2018 when the White House doctor was giving his briefing on Trump's health, and members of the press refused to believe that Trump could eat so much fast food and still be healthy. ( https://www.foxnews.com/entertainment/w … mp-illness )

Trump hasn't created an image of being all about five-star restaurants and using champagne for mouthwash every night. He's created the image of being unhealthily reliant on fast food and junk food, yet remaining in remarkably good health for a man his age. It doesn't surprise me at all that his fallback would be fast food, because that's what he enjoys.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/to- … 8acd514056

The fact is, people are anti-Trump. He could cure cancer while saving orphans from a burning building, and he'd still be called Hitler because of it. I'm not saying that there isn't a healthy amount of disagreement to be had over his actions or policies, but when the internet is on fire because he misspelled the word "hamburger", I don't think we're in a realm of rational and mature political discourse.

55

(742 replies, posted in Sliders Bboard)

I just have the flu, I think. My theory is that I've just been so stressed out for the past year, and physically/emotionally drained for a while now that my plan to take some time off around Christmas gave my body an excuse to just give up for a while. I'm getting better though, just in time to get back to some stressful work. smile

I used to walk my dog in order to clear my head and gather my thoughts for writing, but he died a while back and my only remaining dog hates walks.  I'm now working on a new way to sort of focus my brain (I usually have about a dozen trains of thought screaming in my head at any given moment, making it hard to focus on one), so maybe I'll actually be able to write again soon.

As for my family, they're all doing more or less well. I did give my brother the flu though. Oops. smile


Okay, phone stuff...

I don't see any burn-in. My nav bar disappears after a few seconds if I'm not using it, and my status bar changes color, depending on what's on the screen. The always-on display seems fine too.

That said, the only time I ever saw significant burn-in was on one of my brother's old phones, and even that was only noticable on pure white screens. Because of this, I've not been too concerned with things like the always-on feature. I do keep my home screen background pure black though, to save a little bit of battery (since unused pixels are turned off). So even if I did get burn-in, I don't have many complex images that would be burned in.

Every writer needs editors and beta readers to provide feedback. You can't do that part yourself, which makes it really hard sometimes, when people aren't available. That said you do need to make sure that the finished product is still yours. If you accept too many suggestions and make too many changes, you really do have co-writers more than beta readers.


It's a fine line. Just make sure that your story has its own voice, whether you have a co-writer or not.

I can't speak for the Angel comics. The Angel series lost sight of its mission pretty early on and was a stinking mess of a series. I usually pretend that series never happened, and that Cordelia just escaped Sunnydale and lived happily ever after.

But the Buffy comics simply weren't Buffy. The themes weren't there. The storytelling style was completely different. The characters weren't themselves. Nothing about the continuation that I read felt like Buffy at all. And this wasn't just a difference in platforms, because other Buffy comics were great. And no matter how well the comics sold, I know a large portion of the TV fandom that rejected it.

The beautiful thing about all of this is that none of it is real. We can process this material however we please. I reject a season and a half of the actual series, because it was crap. When I'm feeling charitable, I acknowledge the whole series, but use my own season 8 to repair the damage in my own mind. I still enjoy Supernatural, but consider the original series to have ended with season 5, and each showrunner's stretch to be its own sequel. Arrow ended with season 2. The Flash/Supergirl musical never happened. The X-Files revival consisted of only a few episodes, each set in a different universe, unrelated to the original series.

I was randomly reading my first Buffy season 8 script the other day, because I was sitting in a car by myself for a long time and got bored, and I'd been reading this thread. Aside from some spelling/grammar problems, and maybe a few lines that I might revise if I had another pass at it, I found that I still enjoyed that script. I'm just going to choose to buy into the version that brings me joy, and ignore the one that has Dawn as a centaur, and Buffy and Angel destroying scenery while having flying/orbital sex. smile

As a big fan of Buffy, I offer a third option... None of the comics are canon. The Buffy comics were horrible on every level. Even worse than the final season of the TV series. So in my head, the comics don't exist. I don't care if Joss was involved. He went nuts and I don't have to buy into everything he says.

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(18 replies, posted in Sliders Bboard)

SPOILERS
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Yeah, I never thought that it would be anything except what it was, given how the previous episode ended. I viewed it as a way of having Dick confront the demon that he's been running from all season, expecting for it to lead him to a place where Nightwing can exist. I didn't really expect him to lose to that demon.

On that level, the finale works. It brought Dick's arc to some sort of climax (that sounded wrong). The finale just didn't bring the more literal Rachel arc to anything that felt like an appropriate stopping point.

If this was a choice, it's an iffy one. If it was the result of needing to go back and do reshoots in order to make the series the best it could be, resulting in less episodes, I kinda forgive them. I really like the series and I'm glad that they were able to make it this good.

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(18 replies, posted in Sliders Bboard)

I just read that there may have been production problems with Titans, leading to a shorter-than-planned season. If true, that would explain how I felt about the finale. In the long run, I think it's probably for the best that they managed to reshoot whatever they needed in order to set the proper tone for the series and produce the quality work that they did. Hopefully, that will lead to a smoother season 2 production.

This is a benefit of being a streaming service, I guess. Film it all before it airs, and work out the issues before anyone sees them. Present your best product possible.