Mod Post: 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 among yourselves.

Sorry, another hectic workday means a shorter post than usual, but you usually come up with more interesting things to discuss anyway, so go for it!

A military coup in Myanmar barely 5 years after some degree of civilian rule was allowed, is causing global concern.

Trump's entire legal team quit in advance of his second Impeachment trial, but he got more

The first commercial rocket powered by biofuel has been tested

Alice Oseman's web and GN series "Heartstopper" has been greenlit by Netflix.

Dustin Diamond, who played Screech in "Saved by the Bell", has died aged 44 from lung cancer.

Random question of the week: Your ideal breakfast

Comments

[themajesticmoose]

Donald Trump's "Lawyers"

A man who wanted to defend a pedophile and a man who refused to prosecute one

Seems fitting given that in addition to be a nazi Trump is a repulsive pedophile piece of shit himself

[owlbrigade1]

Why anyone would want to be his lawyer after he publicly stiffed his last one on fees, and is pretty much flat broke and likely to stiff the new set too, is beyond me. He ought to be dependant on a public defender at this point.

[juniper6]

Well, as a lawyer—nope, I got nothing.

Well, all right: The core principles of United States criminal law are (1) Everyone is presumed innocent until proven guilty in court, no matter how many people witnessed the act, and (2) Every defendant is entitled to be represented in court by a lawyer, no matter what kind of sick fuck they are, and someone has to do it. But still, he’s a known non-payer and if you do it the way he wants it done, you may end up disbarred. I say let him ask for a Public Defender. Isn’t he worth, like, negative three billion dollars? He should qualify.

[leahandillyana]

Two of my friends died of Covid, both young (< 40 y/o) men. The whole situation makes me lose any hope for the future, it's like we've hit bad end some time in the past and we are observing the results unfold (like, seriously, in many visual novels bad ends are almost as long as the main route). Last week abortion was banned in Poland in all circumstances. There are mass protests, and government-owned media is spewing poison at the protesters. Police keeps arresting the protesters randomly, including minors. People are openly wishing death on the women they call whores. I've got a death threat (a sticker with a blade on my post box), but it was dismissed by the police because the threat didn't have my name on it - it was only wishing death to "whores" and "degenerates". My father agrees with the media. I feel tired all the time. I cannot even sleep, because all I see are nightmares. My work has shit quality because of it. I cannot even forget the world for a moment because the media I used to forget got cancelled or postponed. I'm glad my pets don't leave home and my parents rarely do. I wouldn't have lived if something happened to them because of me.

[themajesticmoose]

:(

I am so very sorry for your loss

and so sorry that at present the world seems so frightening and upsetting

The world at present is so full of bigotry and hate that it makes me want to scream sometimes and I am so sorry that at present you are suffering because of the stupid bigotry this planet suffers from

I wish I could say that things will get better but I will say that I hope that they do. I hope you and your loved ones are safe and no harm comes to any of you.

[mister_terrific]

I'm really sorry about your friends. FWIW, in the past four months several of my friends have lost their parents, including my mother-in-law. It just really wears you out emotionally.

[juniper6]

I’m so, so sorry, about all of it.

[deh_tommy]

My sincerest condolences go out to you. Please don’t forget that you are loved, by us, by your pets or by people IRL even if that doesn’t always feel that way.

[deh_tommy]

Leaked footage of icon_uk waking up to scans_daily this morning.

[owlbrigade1]

Was there drama? What did I miss?

[owlbrigade1]

Diamond's death is particularly hard just because he'd finally seemed to put the troubles he had in his life behind him and was making amends with his former coworkers and getting his life together. Then this. Cancer is a horrible, horrible thing. And small cell cancer is one of the worst types too. It just sucks so much.

[themajesticmoose]

I'm shocked both at his death and how young he was

Confirmed: Lady Dimitrescu is 9'10

[stubbleupdate]

Re: Confirmed: Lady Dimitrescu is 9'10

[themajesticmoose]

"Has received much fanfare"

Takano was told to tone down their original press release which read "I'm delighted to see that lesbians all over the world want her to step on them while they call her Daddy"

[scorntx]

So... that WandaVision, eh?
...
Uncertain what to say without giving out spoilers, but I'm not entirely certain what counts as a spoiler and what doesn't when some of it's based on comics that've been around for over fifteen years now. Statue of limitations and all.
... so... Monica!
And Human Friend from Thor is significantly less annoying. Definite plus.
(I am upset SWORD does not appear to have any Abigail Brand as yet. It feels wrong having SWORD without Brand. Just plain wrong.)
Currently batting two theories about [CHARACTER] and [CHARACTER]: That they are actually major characters, or... they ain't and it's a double-bluff.

The only major gripe is having to, like, wait a whole week for each episode. Not like with the Netflix shows where you got it all in one big, long miserable chunk...
Ugh. Stupid linear passage of time.


After several months of beating my head against a wall with writer's block, found a solution. Which is annoying for how simple it was.
Grrr.

[thezmage]

Note that they changed what the W stands for in SWORD in a way that completely changes it's mandate. They're basically just filling the role that SHIELD normally would before Winter Soldier.

I thought it was cute that Wvzzl Jbb svanyyl znfgrerq gung pneq gevpx. Nyfb ur vf nqbenoyr

[iamrman]

I went on a bit of a Red Sonjani ge recently. I haven't yet read any of the Marvel comics she appeared in, just a couple of volumes of the Dynamite series. An ass-kicking redhead? Yes, please!

The Marvel trades I have been reading have been fairly forgettable. The DC trades I have been reading were much better. I finally took the plunge and started reading the Pre-Crisis Legion of Super-heroes.

Of course, I started with The Great Darkness Saga. The cover of the trade does spoil the identity of the story's villain though.

[malurette]

I'd like to try complete traditional English, US and Japanese breakfasts, out of curiosity.
(I'll tell you the opposite of ideal though: that one time in a Parisian café--it was frugal, it was outrageously over-priced, and what I can't forgive: it was bland. That was the saddest breakfast I've ever sampled, and that includes cereal straight out of the packet.)

[skjam]

My challenge movies this month were picked with the theme "I recognize these titles." We'll see if recognition by a film studies major is different from the regular person's.

Over at my blog, I talk about an older cooking manga. http://www.skjam.com/2021/02/02/manga-review-iron-wok-jan-2/

[donnblake]

Happened across the origins of the word "Absquatulate," (previously encountered in a book of eighteenth century slang, where it was defined as "to skedaddle,") today while reading about Puritan folkways. Still waiting to encounter it in the wild.

[t209]

The coup in Myanmar/Burma still hits home since my grandparents, aunts, and a best friend still live there.
First time, not ranting about South Park (even if this site have issue differentiating anti PC humor with reactionary comments), “I don’t like Trump, but share his policy” people, and even reactionary fandom since four years.

[tripodeca113]

Our Scooby Doo watching has moved on to a random sampling of various films.
Scooby Doo on Zombie Island: The classic you know and love
Scooby Doo and the Samurai Sword: Probably the least culturally sensitive Scooby Doo film, but for a different ethnic group then you'd expect.
Big Top Scooby Doo: A surpassingly risqué film. It's still Scooby Doo, but there was a scene involving a naked Velma.
Scooby Doo Stage Fright: Provided some solid laughs,

I managed to find an image I've been looking for a while now. I thought it was lost in the great Tumblr purge, but I happened to randomly stumble across it.

My Fullmetal Alchemist DVD's have arrived. I must say I'm impressed they've managed to get 16 episodes out of two volumes worth of manga so far.

For some reason I watched half an episode of "Capitol Critters". It was made in 1992 and was truing to cash in on The Simpsons. Unfortunately Hanna-Barbara made a show that didn't really appeal to anyone. I look forward to never thinking about it again.

[thezmage]

My ranking, from best to worst:
Big Top Scooby Doo
Stage Fright
Zombie Island
Samurai Sword

[janegray]

1)I recently beat Uncharted: A Thief's End.

Kept dreading the ending, because 90% of the series I've dearly loved in the past 4 years have had a shit ending. To my absolute shock and delight, the ending was perfection, it was so good it brought me to tears of joy. What a beautiful way to end Nathan's story!

Now I'm just irritated that I can't follow Uncharted blogs because they all also post The Last Of Us, and I despise TLOU. The only thing I appreciate about TLOU is that it lets Naughty Dog purge all the relentless misery & torture porn and Every-Single-Character-(And-Especially-Minorities)-Is-Either-Dead-Or-Dead-Inside-Dave storylines out of their system so that they are chill to let Uncharted be happy.

So I try to follow Uncharted blogs and it's like "here is a giftset of Nate and Elena flirting cutely, and here is a giftset of Ellie losing the will to live as she watches everything she knows and loves crash and burn" -_-

2)Speaking of endings, has anybody here read the Beastars manga? If so, could you send me a DM, please? I'd like to ask a question.

3)Petition to have fanfiction writers remove a character from their tags if that character's only role in the story is to appear in a short scene or even a mention just to get killed off. It's annoying as hell.

[owlbrigade1]

AO3 spamtags? Yeah, they suck. It makes it hard to sort through the search results to find the stuff you are genuinely interested in.

[donnblake]

Hmm. I like a large breakfast on occasion, although these days I'll mostly trade it for being able to sleep in a little longer. Fried potatoes, baked beans, sausage (preferably apple-maple-chicken), bacon, toast... I won't say no to a couple varieties of what the British insist are called puddings, either, if they're on offer, but I'll pass on the fried tomatoes.

[icon_uk]

Fried tomatoes are an abomination and a horrible thing to do to a perfectly innocent fruit.

I'm partial to scrambled eggs (though poached will do fine), grilled pork sausages and toast with thick cut marmalade... But I have never once been co-ordinated (or arsed) enough in the morning to go and make it all that for myself. It's a treat for when I'm staying somewhere... which is probably just as well for my waistline.

[thezmage]

I know fast food is not good for me and fast food breakfast is even worse, but the breakfast baconator from Wendy's is great. Mainly it's the swiss cheese sauce.

There's a restaurant near me with some interesting variants of eggs bendict, such as the Bella Bella Benny (from their menu: Thin slices of prosciutto, Taleggio cheese, and poached cage-free eggs on toasted ciabatta, topped with cream cheese hollandaise, balsamic glaze and arugula.)

Had my first Monster of the Week game running for a new group. One of my players is playing the Pararomantic playbook, meant to be the normal human dating a monster, a la Bella from Twilight. (If you wanted to look at it, it's here: https://www.evilhat.com/home/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/Monster-of-the-Week-Tome-of-Mysteries-Playbooks.pdf) When she proposed this I told her basically "That playbook is one of the ones that scare me to run. Do it." So I guess my days of pretending to be attracted to women aren't quite over. I'm taking a lot of cues for her Guide from Dorian Gray, so there is that. Running through a relatively simple ghost story right now to get a feel for how the group works.

Watched the Happy Death Day films and Freaky this week. Happy Death Day one is good in a slightly cheesy way. Happy Death Day 2U is probably the perfect textbook example of how you can get away with copious logical problems in your plot as long as you keep the emotional core of your story intact. "Jvyy Gerr fgnl va guvf arj havirefr jurer ure zbgure vf nyvir? Fubhyq fur?" are the questions we want answered so little things like "how does all this work again?" and "doesn't that completely contradict everything else about how this works?" fall to the wayside. Freaky was fun to watch but I find that there's absolutely nothing else to say about it.

[janegray]

Ideal breakfast: cornetto (a type of croissant filled with crème patissièr or chocolate cream or marmalade), cappuccino and orange juice.

Cornetto + cappuccino is the ideal Italian breakfast, it's what people normally have when they have breakfast at a coffee shop instead or at home (because you need a special machine to make the foam, and cornetti are a type of fresh pastry so not something you keep at home).

https://www.italogustoitaliano.it/public/prima-colazione-cappuccino-palermo.jpg

I like to add the orange juice because I grew to love it when I had it in foreign hotels.

[zachbeacon]

I am absolutely terrible about eating breakfast. I'm rarely hungry first thing in the morning and I certainly don't feel like throwing something together.