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.

Well, unless you've been living under a rock (You happy, happy person you) you'll be aware of what happened last week. The ramifications of this remain uncertain, but are more than a little unsettling. Stay safe out there (This applies generically, but also specifically)

In other news (and there WAS other news)

The British Government's Brexit strategy seems to be lacking one rather important thing, namely... anything approaching an actual strategy. The united gasps of surprise at this "unprecedented" news would not have drowned out a dormouse with a slight cough.

We had the largest Supermoon in decades which looked super-impressive... if you happened to live in a country not given to Super-cloudy skies and constant drizzle.... thank you British weather patterns.

The supermoon was NOT responsible for the earthquakes in New Zealand which resulted in some loss of life and widespread, and ongoing, disruption and evacuations. If you are a resident there, please be careful!

The complete first wave of LEGO sets for The LEGO Batman Movie have been revealed. As the trailers suggested they're including some wonderfully obscure minifigures, including Calendar Man and Kite-Man from the comics (And Brave and the Bold), The Kabuki Twins from "The Batman" cartoon, and Magpie from "Beware the Batman"... more contentiously perhaps they are also including Tarantula from Nightwing infamy?!?

In other LEGO news, it's been confirmed that LEGO will no longer use xenophobic hate-spewing British rag "The Daily Mail" for their minikit promotions. Which is a relief.

The relentless tide of creative talent that is being lost to us this year is counteracted by the news that Hayao Miyazaki is coming out of retirement (again) for one more film (again). This will be a full length version of Kemushi no Boro, about ‘a tiny, hairy caterpillar’.


And in what I promise is the last piece of LEGO news, the next wave of Dimensions sets hits this week.

Geekdad posted an article about someone sending a fan letter from Madeleine L'Engle (Author of A Wrinkle in Time and others). It's good stuff.

Jay and Miles Xplain the X-Men included something rather special in their latest podcast, a song about the Summers Family Tree... it should come as no surprise that it's 39 verses long and even then is probably the edited version before it was longer than The Edda.

Any good podcast recommendations? I've been giggling myself silly listening to Qwerpline of late.

Comments

[skjam]

I recommend "Coverville", all cover songs, all the time.

Also, I continue to review things, this time a new edition of Hans Christian Andersen's "the Snow Queen." http://www.skjam.com/2016/11/06/book-review-the-snow-queen/

[md84]

*sigh* Finally got used to the idea of four years under a Trump administration.

Then I got a look at his proposed Cabinet.

...I want to crawl under a rock for the next 4~8 years.

[informationgeek]

So Steve Bannon was picked as part of Trump's team...........
........
......
....
...
..
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WTF. For those unaware, he is Breitbart News Network's executive chairman and I believe founder. Here's some "classy" news headlines from his site:

- Would You Rather Your Child Had Feminism or Cancer?
- Birth Control Makes Women Unattractive and Crazy
- There’s No Hiring Bias Against Women in Tech, They Just Suck at Interviews
- Bill Kristol: Republican spoiler, renegade Jew
- Lesbian bridezillas bully bridal shop owner over religious beliefs
- Teenage boys with tits: Here’s my problem with Ghostbusters
- Hoist it high and proud: The Confederate flag proclaims a glorious heritage
- Pamela Geller’s Muhammad cartoon contest is no different from Selma
- Sympathy for the devils: The plot against Roger Ailes
- Gabby Giffords: The gun control movement’s human shield
- Roger Stone: Clinton aide Huma Abedin ‘most likely a Saudi spy’
- The solution to online ‘harassment’ is simple: Women should log off

Yep..........

[icon_uk]

In all my years on scans_daily, not even just as a Mod, but in general, I have seen material that was not to my tastes posted here, but that's fine, that's as it should be.

NONE of that material, not the most Zenoscopic Zenoscope issue, not the most unrealistically depicted boobs/bust shot, not even Tarot: Witch of the Black Rose, has made my skin crawl the way reading that list of headlines just did.

I want to go take a shower....

[thanekos]

This is just the in Milo Yiannopoulos needs to get his Twitter checkmark back.

[informationgeek]

Oh, with the thought that Ben Carson is up for consideration for head of the Department of Education, here's a profile for the insane man. Once again, brought to you by RepublicanInsanity of DailyKos:

We spent this day in both 2014, as well as in 2015, “Crazy/Stupid Republican of the Day presented its first two profiles of Ben Carson, the former brain surgeon turned Seventh Day Adventist candidate for the GOP nomination for president who talks about turning around his life after a turbulent youth where he once tried to stab his best friend in the stomach, but through divine intervention, managed to only hit that friend’s belt and break his knife. As crazy as an origin story as that is, we also presented a dossier on the minute he announced he would be making a run for the Oval Office. Coming into this time last year, Carson had already denied the existence of evolution, compared homosexuality to beastiality and pedophilia, said “The Afforable Care Act is the worst thing that’s happened since slavery” or alternatively “worse than 9/11”, claimed progressives were trying to turn the United States into Nazi Germany, praised Cliven Bundy, called the VA Wait Times Scandal “A Gift from God”, claimed the legalization of marijuana was a plot to distract the populace from “what really happened in Benghazi”, that President Obama can wipe out ISIS “but just doesn’t want to”, and informed us that abortion is actually a form of human sacrifice. And that was just in our first profile.

In our second profile, we covered some of the weirder moments from Sleepy Ben, including his “common sense solutions” to the immigration problem in the United States like punishing an undocumented immigrant is caught trying to commit voter fraud, see to it that they have their citizenship revoked. (You know, the citizenship they don’t have to begin with.) Carson had other terrible thoughts on immigration, like that President Obama had committed “high treason” for choosing to deport dangerous criminals among the undocumented immigrant population first, and claimed that his eulogy for the victims of the mass shooting in Charleston, South Carolina at the A.M.E. Emanuel church was designed to tear our country apart with “race wars” and “class wars”. At the annual NRA convention, told the audience that the southern border of the United States had been infiltrated by “radical extremist Islamic terrorists”, and that everyone should not call for better gun control, because mass shooters are easy to take out if you “all gang rush them at once”, or alternatively, as he once did in a Popeye’s chicken, just tell a potential robber to steal from a nearby cashier and to leave you be. Carson also talked about carrying out drone strikes against illegal immigrants, called for a third separate bathroom for transgendered citizens because “they make people uncomfortable”, and later claimed Planned Parenthood’s true purpose is to “eliminate black people”. Dr. Carson said that gay rights and pro-choice advocates practice “hate speech” and are not following the teachings of Jesus, but are ”under the influence of Saul Alinsky”, and asserted that “being gay is a choice” leading to him avoiding the topic for a whole seven weeks. Carson criticizing people who protest against police brutality, saying that doing so “helps Al Qaeda and ISIS”, quoted the philosopher Thomas Hobbes that “Tyranny would never occur in American citizens have guns” (which is amazing because Hobbes died a full century before America was a nation with its own Constitution and 2nd Amendment), and that he also theorized that the Pyramids were not built as tombs for the Egyptian pharoahs, but instead were granaries for storing food. Carson was also caught lying about his involvement with the supplement company Mannatech, as well as his outrageous claim that he was offered a scholarship to Army’s West Point Academy. Oh, and he also claimed that a Muslim should never be elected President of the United States, so there’s that.

And, since we last left Ben Carson during the waning moments of his ill-conceived and poorly run presidential campaign, he has still stayed in the headlines by becoming a surrogate for Donald Trump in his quest to win the White House. So, yeah, we have some stupidity from the good doctor to cover:

November 19th, 2015: After Ben Carson catches some flack from Pro-Life activitists when he refers to their obsession with keeping Terry Schiavo on life support over a decade ago as “much ado about nothing”, Carson tries saving face by blaming the media for misrepresenting his remarks, when they quoted them verbatim.
November 23rd, 2015: Like Donald Trump, Ben Carson claims he saw news footage of Muslims in New Jersey celebrating the deaths of Americans on 9/11 that does not actually exist.
December 3rd, 2015: Dr. Carson was widely thought to have a poor understanding of foreign policy during the GOP Primary, and that fact was quite clear when he spoke before the Jewish Republican Coalition and kept pronouncing the Palestinian group Hamas as “hummus”.
January 6th, 2016: Over several days, Ben Carson began to discuss proposals to “crack down on liberal bias” on college campuses, and began suggesting that the Department of Education should be able to secretly monitor classrooms and libraries to prevent any such patterns of thought from being encouraged. Because that totally sounds constitutional, and not like anything out of an Orwellian nightmare scenario.
January 9th, 2016: Carson comments on same sex marriage, giving his opinion that LGBT citizens shouldn’t be given “extra rights” because they are “abnormal”.
February 1st, 2016: Ben Carson, fighting against rumors that he was about to suspend his campaign, claims that he flew home to Florida for “a fresh set of clothes” which, for whatever reason, pulled him from the campaign trail for a number of days. Please note, this will not be the last time Ben Carson has issues with his luggage. A few days later, Carson actually tried claiming that his trip home for clean laundry would prove he would make a good president because he was so frugal. Considering plane fare these days from Iowa to Florida, even one way costs less than a suit, no, it actually didn’t prove that at all.
February 12th, 2016: Ben Carson, being interviewed by Breitbart’s Steve Bannon, says that Democrats “intentionally destroy black families to cultivate their votes”.
February 16th, 2016: Carson again is interviewed by Steve Bannon on Breitbart News, where he says that “Muslims who accept American values must be schizophrenic” because he doesn’t feel the two ideologies could coexist.
February 29th, 2016: Ben Carson laments that the followers of his rival on the campaign trail, Donald Trump, are “like zombies”. We only disagree because zombies aren’t sexist, racist, or xenophobic, but keep in mind, Carson is a guy later tasked to adding to the zombie horde as a Trump proxy.
February 29th, 2016: Carson vows to end the “ban on Christianity” in public schools. Which would be a brave thing to do, if such a ban actually existed.
March 2nd, 2016: Ben Carson claims that he’s “read enough conspiracy books” to know that public school lessons teaching tolerance towards the LGBT community and anti-discrimination laws were put in place in the United States by secret communists to damage the republic. Later in the day, Carson ends his run for the presidency.
April 3rd, 2016: Ben Carson, now a Trump surrogate, gives him a rousing endorsement by pointing out he has “serious defects”.
July 19th, 2016: Carson speaks on the second night of the 2016 Republican National Convention, where he, no lie, tries playing six degrees of separation by first linking Hillary Clinton to Saul Alinsky, and then to Lucifer himself, as he goes off of teleprompter in an insane, rambling, incoherent speech.
August 3rd, 2016: Dr. Carson decides to weigh in on Donald Trump’s attacks against a Gold Star family, the Khans, by saying that the family should “call a truce” by first apologizing to Donald Trump, so he could then apologize to them.
August 24th, 2016: Playing into the Alt-Right movement’s conspiracy theories about Hillary Clinton’s health, Carson calls for an “elderly” Clinton to release her medical records.
August 25th, 2016: Stumping for Donald Trump, Dr. Carson compares the difference between the two candidates to be akin to “like picking a paper cut or having both legs chopped off”. Truly, a ringing endorsement.
September 3rd, 2016: In the middle of an interview, live on CNN, Ben Carson suddenly remembers he forgot to pick up his luggage and abruptly walks away mid-question.
September 6th, 2016: Carson, in an interview with CNN’s Jake Tapper, tries excusing Donald Trump’s frequently changing positions on immigration because “he’s still learning” how to develop and stick to policies.
October 11th, 2016: In a truly astounding interview with CNN’s Brianna Keilar, Carson gives a bizarre reason why the tape of Donald Trump boasting about sexual assault shouldn’t matter to women who are deeply troubled by it… the problem isn’t Trump, it’s THEM because they haven’t heard enough men talk in such graphic, demeaning terms.
October 14th, 2016: Ben Carson absolutely loses his legendary sleepy, lethargic cool during an interview on MSNBC’s Morning Joe, yelling, “NO, NO, NO, NO, NO, NO…” and demanding the microphone of the woman interviewing him be turned off for asking him questions about Donald Trump bragging about committing sexual assault, and how that can jive with his fondness for Christian values.

The main puzzling question about Dr. Ben Carson remains… how the hell can a man who’s been to medical school, and thus has eight years of higher education be so dumb? Like, did his classmates senior year who were studying brain surgery experiment on him, or…? There’s clearly some point where this guy’s wiring got short-circuited, and the idea that he was actually threatening to take the lead in polls for his party’s nomination is downright terrifying. Just watch, though. He’s going to end up somewhere in Donald Trump’s cabinet. Possibly as surgeon general, and declare homosexuality a medical condition.

[kamino_neko]

how the hell can a man who’s been to medical school, and thus has eight years of higher education be so dumb?

He's an incurious doofus, who nonetheless wanted to succeed at neurosurgery. So, he focused on only what he needed to get there, retained only what he needed to actually do the work (and/or conformed to his pre-existing contra-reality beliefs), and thus succeeded.

[spidermanwashere]

Fear not, they'll shut down and gut the Department of Education before he has a chance.

[stubbleupdate]

The Ben Carson who would abolish the Department of Education apart from policing on campus political thought, and wants his own Gestapo?

[md84]

Fun fact: apparently, someone close to Carson claimed that Carson doesn't want to take a cabinet position on the grounds that he lacks the experience to be in government. Which is funny since Carson RAN FOR PRESIDENT.

If his friend's words can be taken at face value, I'm assuming that Carson's real reason is because even he realizes Trump's administration is going to be a circus of horrors and he wants to avoid it.

[thezmage]

http://www2.nybooks.com/daily/s3/nov/10/trump-election-autocracy-rules-for-survival.html
An article for living in a Trump regime
"Rule #1: Believe the autocrat. He means what he says. Whenever you find yourself thinking, or hear others claiming, that he is exaggerating, that is our innate tendency to reach for a rationalization."

[thezmage]

Podcasts:

The Penumbra podcast: http://thepenumbrapodcast.com
A semi-anthology series, mostly following Juno Steele, Martian detective in the future, and his complicated relationship with homme fatale Peter

The Bright Sessions: http://www.thebrightsessions.com
Series of recordings of a therapist that specializes in helping people control and understand their superpowers.

Paralyzed: http://www.sharkdropper.com/podcasts/
A horror podcast about people on a camping trip stalked by something. So scary I had to get out of the shower and turn on something else because it was too scary for me to listen to in a confined space like that.

Our Fair City: http://www.ourfaircity.com
The dramatized history of a city ruled by an insurance company in a new ice age. Featuring the delightfully hammy Dr Herbert West.

[icon_uk]

Those sound FAB! Thank you!

[thezmage]

Another one:
Greater Boston: https://greaterbostonshow.com
Hard to explain, but hilarious. Kinda reminiscent of Portlandia. Involves a guy who dies on a roller coaster and the proposal for the red line subway of Boston to secede and become its own city. Also the lost city of Atlantis.

[lissa_quon]

Heh Penumbra sounds fun.

Not sure how many folks are horror/ history/ folklore nerds around here but I always recommend Lore - which is sometimes about common superstitions and origins of them or bizarre and horrifying history. It's non-fiction but very interesting.

http://www.lorepodcast.com/

[icon_uk]

Well, tried Penumbra and love it.

Juno Steel, was slightly confused by Juno being a chap (given the name), and I don't think I've ever come across a proper homme fatale before, but the series' toying with genders and sexualities is delightful.

I would love to hear more from Sir Marc and Sir Talfryn too.

Weirdly, the weakest part to me is the Penumbra section itself, it's a nice little notion and would seem ideal for done-in-one anthology series, but that's not what these stories seem to be setting themselves up as... (A hotel with infinite rooms and we keep coming back to the same one seems a waste of a nifty conceit)

[scorntx]

Am definitely excited for the Lego Dimensions Sonic pack.
Tentative about Gremlins (though I very much doubt it will include any mention of the Gremlins watching their favourite movie...)

Not sure about Fantastic Beast, but going by the last story pack it's just going to involve replaying the movie, but in LEGO and with slightly more character variety than a straight Adaptation Game.
Which, for a good thirty plus a pop, is actually a little annoying.

Really don't care about E.T.
Never have, never will.

[icon_uk]

Depends on the degree of geeky obsessiveness that Travellers Tales developers have for the film (Being British, they have a LOT of Doctor Who geeks), I can imagine that the Gremlins Adventure World will have a cinema in the middle of Kingston Falls.

[dustbunny105]

WOLF 359 is a radio drama in the tradition of Golden Age of Radio shows. Set on board the U.S.S. Hephaestus space station, the dysfunctional crew deals with daily life-or-death emergencies, while searching for signs of alien life and discovering there might be more to their mission than they thought.

Distinct, developed characters with engaging dynamics and an interesting overall pot. The tone goes from lighthearted and goofy to serious and suspenseful with twists that feel natural. The more serious elements are seeded early on (though some important foreshadowing is in an after-credits coda, which most episodes don't have) and the lightheartedness is never entirely lost, so while the early first season is rather strikingly different, it never feels like the show becomes something it wasn't or shouldn't be. Especially as it goes on, it's very much about people with differences pulling together to survive and growing to care for each other along the way.

[thezmage]

I love that one

[stubbleupdate]

I played Firewatch at the weekend. It's an absorbing story and is a horror game in the same way that Gone Home is. It's so suspenseful and atmospheric and I skipped dinner because I needed to know how it ended.

It is up there with Oxenfree as the best game I've played this year (but nowhere near as scary)



"Firewatch is a first-person adventure game developed by Campo Santo, who also published it in a joint venture with Panic. The story follows a Shoshone National Forest fire lookout named Henry in 1989, following the Yellowstone fires of 1988"

[mrstatham]

I keep on meaning to look into Firewatch, but then I'm always very behind on games.

I only played Journey this year, for instance. I mean, I was still reduced to a blubbering, happy wreck by the end of it, but.. Still.

[stubbleupdate]

I'll re-recommend Plumbing the Death Star as a great podcast.

Thus week their show was "What would an Australian Hogwarts be like?" and included placing the school in a tin roofed cattle station, and the line "The cunt who can't be fucking named? Fuck off!"

[icon_uk]

Sounds like fun

"If any of the visiting students from Hogwarts try to tell you about the giant spiders are in their "Forbidden Forest", don't laugh TOO loudly in front of them. They're new and they've just got a lot to learn about what REALLY dangerous spiders are like!"

[junipepper]

I made a donation to Planned Parenthhod and dedicated it to Mike Pence. (A lot of people did this.) He'll be receiving a card from PP thanking him for each donation made in his honor.

[icon_uk]

I'd heard about that campaign, what a heartwarming idea... :)

[the_phantom]

Also wishing any of you in the US stay safe during these protests/riots (And during the next 4 years). I'm not fully sure the situation (a bit disillusioned with the media atm) but if rampant death, assassination & rape threats are anything to go off...

[md84]

Anyone who isn't rich, white, cis-gendered, heterosexual, Christian, pro-gun, anti-abortion, and male is probably gonna be in for a rough time. I'm not a lot of those things, so I'm watching my back.

[md84]

Trump is also apparently considering picking Ted Cruz to be his Attorney General.

That's bad. That is very, VERY BAD.

[scorntx]

Wow.

So, uh, that new LEGO Dimensions stuff, the new update?
Turns out there's a pretty big problem with it.

After spending over an hour downloading the new patch, it turned out the Download Manager thing said the new Story Pack and the Sonic Level Pack weren't available yet, but Gremlins was.

Then, on booting up the game, it seemed to have erased all the progress in the Wave 6 Adventure Worlds...
And ALL of the Ghostbusters Story Pack levels. Like they'd never been played.

Well, no big, thought I. This thing's been saying I hadn't gotten "rule breaker" on the Adventure Worlds for the last few months anyway.
Then it said I couldn't play as Harry Potter, while I had him on the pad. Then it said I needed to download some stuff to play him... which apparently doesn't exist.

I checked, and it turns out a lot of other people have been having similar problems.

So, y'know. Heads up on that.

But, again, wow.
Someone's made an epic level screw-up there.

[icon_uk]

Oooh, ouch, and thanks for the heads up... I nearly went online last night to check for updates, and to see if I could download some of the stuff in advance since the figures don't hit here until Friday. am now glad I couldn't find the disc.