Off-Topic Tuesday!

[icon_uk]

In the comments to these weekly posts (and only these posts), it's your chance to go as off topic as you like.

Talk about non-comics stuff, thread derail, and just generally chat amongst yourselves.

The first of the US Presidential Debates took place

LEGO Dimensions new wave comes out this week

Miraculous Ladybug toys arrive in the UK

Hubble Telescope spots possible water plumes on Jupiter's moon Europa.

Comments

[dr_archeville]

Malcolm McDowell To Play The Abominable Dr. Phibes

One of the great things about the original two Dr. Phibes movies were the delicate balance of deadpan/dry humor and cold hammyness, and a general un-serious self-awareness. Will they keep that, or go for a more straightforward Saw-esque torture porn aspect?

[icon_uk]

What an odd choice to remake...

They better keep their mitts off of "Theatre of Blood" though...

[long_silence]

I hope the Miraculous Ladybug toyline does well. Too many cartoons have been cancelled because their toylines were unsuccessful or nonexistent.

[janegray]

I'm still in mourning for Wander Over Yonder.

For UK folks

[owlbrigade1]

Yet another endangered Hen Harrier has "vanished" as soon as it flew over a grouse moor either in or near one of the UK National Parks.

The Sad Fate of Brian the Hen Harrier:

https://raptorpersecutionscotland.wordpress.com/2016/09/27/satellite-tagged-hen-harrier-disappears-in-cairngorms-national-park/

The UK parliament is due to debate banning driven grouse shooting (the Nintendo Duck Hunt of field sports (no seriously, the difference between driven grouse shooting and duck hunt is you can do Nintendo on the sofa but in driven grouse you can shoot the dog, and since alcohol is combined with shotguns, that does happen), in October so if you want it banned or at least licensed so that killing all birds of prey, and pretty much all other wildlife except Red Grouse then please write to your MP via http://www.writetothem.com and ask them to support a ban or licensing system.

A full list of reasons driven grouse shooting is bad for the environment, taxpayer, and people who have the misfortune to live near grouse moors can be found here:
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/dec/29/deluge-farmers-flood-grouse-moor-drain-land

http://markavery.info/2014/06/15/banning-driven-grouse-shooting-bit-summary-issues/

http://scottishwildlifetrust.org.uk/blog-post/50-for-the-future-licence-driven-grouse-moors/

http://www.heraldscotland.com/news/environment/14624172.New_calls_for_tough_crackdown_on_shooting_grouse_industry/

Re: For UK folks

[icon_uk]

Will happily support this campaign

Re: For UK folks

[commodus]

I am proud of what steps we have taken to ban evil practices such as fox hunting, but very clearly there is still much work left to do to protect our wildlife from capricious, senseless cruelty.

[scorntx]

-New Lego Dimensions sets come out this week-
On Friday.
FRIDAY!
That's three whole days from now!

Intrigued about the Harry Potter set (though it sounds like Voldy's only using stock audio. Shame...) and Ghostbusters.
And Adventure Time sounds interesting (not yet been lured in, but...)
The rest is just sort of "meh", mixed with the knowledge that those ones are probably going to be the ones y' need to buy for gameplay reasons.

[thezmage]

Where do you live?

Either way, the update should hit today, and I have heard that Cyborg should be able to get you into the Teen Titans Go adventure world, and that the 80s Ghostbuster characters can get you into the 2016 Ghostbusters world

[ozaline]

So this coming weekend I'm going to be doing the 24 Hour Comic book challenge at my Local Comic Book store who turns it into a fundraising event (For the Boys and Girls Club, and Big Brothers Big Sisters).

If you want to donate you can do so at this link http://happyharborcomics.com/events/24HRComic/2016/page_event_24hrcomic16.shtml and specify you're doing it it for "R E I."

[icon_uk]

Best of luck with that!

[alicemacher]

Oh hey! Good luck, Ozaline.

[commodus]

Who else here is really excited for the Nintendo NX? My only hope is that we get another Kid Icarus game. I'll grant you, I don't much like the gameplay, but the characters are so wonderful. And I kind of have a massive crush on Pit, so there's that, too :D

[pyrrhocorax]

I am!! I want to see what BoTW looks like compared to wii u. Can it get more gorgeous though?

[scorntx]

Getting kind of wearied by Digimon Tri.
Nostalgia's one thing, but it seems to have fallen into the trap of thinking that because it's made for older sorts it should be all DARK and EGDY and constantly have characters suffering because DARK and EDGY things keep happening to them.
Because as we all know, constant suffering and misery is the only way to show maturity, amirite?

[long_silence]

I thought the second movie was especially light hearted, with the onsen and school festival storylines. So I didn't mind that the latest movie focused on more serious issues, I thought it was more bittersweet than edgy

Digimon has always dealt with dark and serious storylines. In the first season there was Angemon's death, a vampire who actually preyed on women, the entire Dark Masters arc had a ton of deaths and depression, self loathing, survivor's guilt.

I mean Tamers is lauded for its realistic and serious storyline..

[informationgeek]

So I watched the first presidental debate with my mom and wow, was that something. Hillary Clinton was all prepared, composed most of the time, and answered most of her questions. I think she was a little soft on addressing Racial Issues, but that's pretty much.

Trump... was Trump. My god was there a crapton:
+ Refused apologize for his Birther comments and said he solved that dilmenna
+ Suggested not protecting NATO allies
+ Doesn't think attacking battleships of other nations for disrespect would lead to a problem
+ Wanted America to commit a war crime by stealing oil from the Middle East as we left
+ Bigly and I heard him say terra instead of terror twice.
+ Word Salad everywhere
+ Was constantly sniffling (someone seems to have a cold. I wonder if he's too sick now to run for president?)
+ Denied that he said global warming was a hoax made by the Chinese (fact check that easily myself)
+ His surrogates were deleting his tweets from I heard during the debate
+ He said he capitalized on the housing market.
+ Said he was "smart" for not paying any taxes recently (he also lied that he said that after the debate)
+ Said he can't release his tax returns information and then said they wouldn't should anything anyways (then what's the harm)
+ He kept constantly interrupting Clinton and butted heads with the moderator when he called Trump out on things
+ Trump says he gets audited every year and that it is just a way of life for him. How wonderful.
+ Our airports are on the level of third-world countries'
+ He doesn't deny stiffing people on their pay if they don't do the work the way he likes it.
+ Says Palm Beach Flordia is a tough neighborhood
+ Says that he owns a very popular nightclub in Florida that Latinos and black people like, so he can't be racist!
+ Stop & Frisk was great and should be brought back since it worked.
+ Said he cares about Charlotte because he has a financial stake in it
+ Crime rates are going up in New York and not being down
+ Said he kept bringing up the Birtherism thing because no one in the media was covering or researching it throughout the years
+ He said that lawsuit against him in 70's for racial profiling black people for apartments didn't amount to anything. He settled with no admission of guilt and everyone was getting sued for the same thing, so he can't be racist!
+ Said he was endorsed by ICE (they denied it) and over 200 admirals in the Navy. Funny, we only had about 260 in the entire history of the United States
+ Did a little fat shaming by calling all hackers over 400 lbs. Heard reddit and 4chan loved that one.
+ NATO allies should pay us more money to protect them and if they don't, no agreements are being honored.
+ Trump said he was phone buddies with Fox News' Sean Hannity (Fair & Balanced indeed)
+ Claimed he had the best temperament and Clinton had the worst. He has a winning TEMPERAMENT people!!
+ He said China should invade North Korea and take it over because the Iran Deal, the worst deal ever for REALISES, didn't go far enough
+ ISIS has been around for almost all of Clinton's adult life
+ He refuses to apologize for his sexist comments
+ Accused Clinton of not being presidential because she didn't have the stamina for the job. Funny, because he looked winded at the end of the night.
+ He also got made at Clinton for making mean commercials about him and paying a ton for them. Funny, most of her commercials just feature him talking in it as people react.

Oh yeah, and Trump accused the moderator of bias and that there was a plot to sabotage him via his microphone.


And... I think that's everything. I may have missed something (Clinton had some good comebacks to his remarks), but that should be enough. That's my summary of the debate. Anyone else watch?

[q99]

Hillary really took him apart. She prodded him into losing his cool and it worked.

[janegray]

Does anybody know if you can get Comixology to send you an email when items in your wishlist are on sale?

I was extremely annoyed to find that I missed out on a Gwenpool sale a couple of weeks ago. But having to check every single week if the things you want are on sale is a hassle, and even then you can miss out on flasdhsales.

Steam sends you an email when something in your wishlist is on sale, but I couldn't find any similar option for Comixology. Heck, Comixology won't even tell you how long a sale lasts, if you check a comic you can see the slashed price but no info on when the discount ends.

[icon_uk]

On their webpage there's a bit at the bottom

Subscribe - Stay informed to receive updates on sales and new releases.

And you just add your e-mail address. I assume there's something akin to a newsletter sent out regularly.

[joetuss]

Hillary and Trump are just two sides of the same fucked up coin. It's gonna be another rough 4 years for black and brown

[cyberghostface]

Hillary's no prize but Trump is on a whole other level.

[md84]

So did anyone hear about that Chinese space station that's due to crash some time next year? And that the Chinese have no idea where it's going to crash?


Might want to carry an umbrella or something around with you, is what I'm saying.

[joetuss]

So are the no contingencies for a malfunctioning space station?

[leoboiko]

Talking about Trump is so tempting. He's certainly intriguing. Take his flux-of-consciousness style, which I find to be incoherent. E.g. when speaking about his claim of having opposed the Iraq war, despite evidence to the contrary:

HOLT: My reference was to what you had said in 2002, and my question was…

TRUMP: No, no. You didn't hear what I said.

HOLT: Why is your judgment — why is your judgment any different than Mrs. Clinton's judgment?

TRUMP: Well, I have much better judgment than she does. There's no question about that. I also have a much better temperament than she has, you know?

(Audience laughs)

I have a much better — she spent — let me tell you — she spent hundreds of millions of dollars on an advertising — you know, they get Madison Avenue into a room, they put names — oh, temperament, let's go after — I think my strongest asset, maybe by far, is my temperament. I have a winning temperament. I know how to win. She does not have a…

I feel like he's operating at an entirely different frequency, living in a radically different worldview than I can access (or, like Leary/Wilson used to call it, a different "reality tunnel"). At the very least, he certainly has completely different expectations than mine about what's a "debate", possibly even a "conversation". He seems to use words more or less like peacocks use feathers, or frilled-neck lizards use frills:

I'm most intrigued by Trump's support, by what function does he fulfill. At least part of his support seems to be because he breaks linguistic taboos. For people who resent what they call "political correctness"—who see it as a loss of liberty, a thought-police, and unconsciously as a disagreeable forced admission of guilt—it must be exhilarating to rally behind a living stream of rambling narcissism. In the same way, perhaps the incoherence itself works as a "collective middle finger" to the intellectual class, or to the notion of discourse itself, not just the "political establishment". And I can't really blame the supporters. The intellectual class failed them, as did the political class and global capitalism (I'm fascinated and baffled by the way that Trump conflates xenophobia with resisting free-market globalization). Things are bad (1, 2).

[icon_uk]

It is fascinating, I have a number of people I value as friends in the US, who are for him because they view Clinton as being innately corrupt (whether she is or not), and Trump is not part of the political establishment and would, in essence, break down what they see as the corrupt big business control.

They also seem to rely on him surrounding himself with competent associates to ensure that something actually gets rebuilt after he's demolished those structures.

Based on his multiple failed businesses, and his current campaign team, I see no way to share that rather optimistic outlook.

[md84]

Does anyone here still use Yahoo accounts for some bizarre reason?

If so, did you know Yahoo was hacked in 2014 and they only recently confirmed it?

[icon_uk]

Oooh thanks, should have posted that in the OP!

[tigerkaya]

Recently I have begun to be more distant from Batman. Reasons being I have grown tired of his fanbase and its obsession in him being the be all end all in conflicts even writers are guilty of this. Second one is his hypocrite nature he went from beating them to uncouniouness to suddenly being more ruthless in his beatings. His scoldings leave a bad taste every time he tries to pretend he's disciplining.

Finally I hate the writers that explain how he creates his tech to defeat his justice league allies it creates more questions as to why couldn't he use that money to help his economically corrupt city.

I know that's not a popular opinion on this site but I just always think of Batman from those BTAS ep a normal man of great skills and intellect, than I do a Batgod.

[jekylls_salvation]

You know? Americans don't pay all that much attention to the elections of other countries.

Which reminds me that none of us would be doing any of this without the US. So, you know. You're welcome. For comic books and... you know, bringing democracy back, and civil rights etc etc etc.