The Vent and Rant Thread

[DMcCunney]

Originally Posted by Hitch

Wow, that's weird. (not a rant). A few days ago, I'd sent an email to one of the (Irish) programmers who maintain our production website. I forget the context now, but I'd ended the email with "Ex-term-i-nate! Exterminate!," and to my shock and horror, he had NO idea what the hell I was on about. Somewhat boggled, I asked him how he could consider himself a Nerd, to learn that lo, he'd never seen Dr. Who. (Really???)

It's possible, though how he managed to avoid it is an interesting question

I never was a fan of Doctor Who. I recall the early BBC episodes, characterized by low budgets and cheesy effects. More recent productions have had better budgets and good performances, but I simply never got caught up in the world.

I told him that he was destroying his reputation and Nerd credentials. We had a back-forth, and he'd asked for Nerd-certified SF shows, and the first thing out of my mouth (fingertips) was Bab5, which I loved. It's not something that (these days) comes up in conversation daily, or even monthly or yearly, so it's odd to see it mentioned here, within spitting distance of my own discussion about it.

As mentioned, it was my favorite TV show, period, when it was on. It was possibly more effective in reruns when it was picked up on cable, and you could see an episode a night. It made what Joe referred to as "holographic" scripting more effective, when something you saw but didn't pay much attention to in a previous episode suddenly gained significance, and you said "So that's what was going on!". Episodes nightly made that more effective.

B5 was one of the very few shows I ever saw that could make me cry.

I remember a guy...for the life of me, now, can't remember his name, but his sig block was "G'Kar is Too Cool for TV," for years. Makes me smile to think of it.

I'm not the only person who thought Andreas Katsulas deserved an Emmy for his portrayal as G'Kar. Managing to convey that level of emotion while covered in all that latex was a notable feat. He had been typecast previously as a heavy, but told his agent "I want in on this!" when offered the role of G'Kar. Stracyzinski agreed. B5 had been nominated for "below the line" awards for FX and the like, but he felt the cast never got the recognition they deserved.
______
Dennis

[Katsunami]

Originally Posted by Rumpelteazer

Last night I decided to get laptop which can play The Sims 4 and decided to watch some videos of people building Sim houses on YouTube (building houses is my favourite thing to do). Most of them were so sped up that you just couldn't clearly see what people were doing to make the house. I don't mind if it's sped up a bit, but this was ridiculous.

LOL. Yeah. I've been playing Caesar3 for some time now. It's part of the decision to play through all of my old games once more, and then shelve them forever. (They are getting harder and harder to keep running, seeing that some of them were written in the Windows 98 era.)

I play one mission, and after I finish it, I watch a playthrough on Youtube. One guy there has video's that go like this:

"Well, now I'm going to set up a residential area here...."
<cut>
"This residential area is coming along quite nicely."

His video's take 15-60 minutes, which I'm willing to spend and see how someone else solved the level.

That works fine.

Another guy is like this:
"I'm going to set up some industry here..."
*he sets up the industry, live*
"Hm.... I don't really like it that way."
*destroy*

And it's a 2,5 hour long live playthrough. I should have checked the time on the video before starting. Never finished it.

I'd rather watch the shortened version

[Hitch]

[QUOTE=DMcCunney;3440975]It's possible, though how he managed to avoid it is an interesting question

No sh**t, right? An Irishman? Crap, they can throw a stone and hit the Brit film studios.

I never was a fan of Doctor Who. I recall the early BBC episodes, characterized by low budgets and cheesy effects. More recent productions have had better budgets and good performances, but I simply never got caught up in the world.

Ah. See, I was a fan--not rabid, but I looked forward to it--of the old cheesy show. I was residing in the slums of Santa Barbara, at the time ('82-83?), didn't know anyone, etc., and it came on every Thursday night, on my local PBS, w/o fail. To this day, there are certain old PBS tunes that make me look for DW. :-) I "found" the series at the same time that the Tom Bakers were running here, and didn't get to see the originals (with the Doctor's granddaughter!) until many years later. For me, it's associative, rather than a devotion to the show itself, I feel.

As mentioned, it was my favorite TV show, period, when it was on. It was possibly more effective in reruns when it was picked up on cable, and you could see an episode a night. It made what Joe referred to as "holographic" scripting more effective, when something you saw but didn't pay much attention to in a previous episode suddenly gained significance, and you said "So that's what was going on!". Episodes nightly made that more effective.

B5 was one of the very few shows I ever saw that could make me cry.

The long-suffering spouse was flabbergasted to see me get weepy-ish, about Bab5. He's seen me cry, in more decades than I want to confess to, literally a handful of times. Seeing me get girly about a TV show? His response to that would be "Inconceivable!," if he actually did PB references. :-)

I'm not the only person who thought Andreas Katsulas deserved an Emmy for his portrayal as G'Kar. Managing to convey that level of emotion while covered in all that latex was a notable feat. He had been typecast previously as a heavy, but told his agent "I want in on this!" when offered the role of G'Kar. Stracyzinski agreed. B5 had been nominated for "below the line" awards for FX and the like, but he felt the cast never got the recognition they deserved.
______
Dennis

Ditto, ditto, and ditto. Not to mention, JMS being keen enough to NOT fall into the ST trap--aliens that look like humans = good, and aliens that don't, = bad. I remember the first time, watching it, that I keyed to the idea that JMS *had* planned so far ahead, and that was fabulous.

(I actually had high hopes for Crusade, but, of course, back in the olden days when niche markets were blithely dismissed...well, it was blithely dismissed. Of course, I may have been influenced by the good looks of that one guy, the Brit, rather than the actual quality of the show.)

Sci-Fi routinely gets short shrift in TVland. Whether it's Bab5, struggling for continued existence, year after year, or Firefly, which never got the chance, or Farscape, having to be exhumed and fixed (ending-wise)....and I don't know WHAT it is, but I've seen series after series just killed off because one minute, it has excellent writers, and then, some other idiot is brought in, and you can bet your bippy that they'll either bring in the overly-tired "evil twin" plotline (always a dead giveaway that your show is struggling and will be axed soon), or the "main characters are suddenly in the future" plotline (yeah, I'm talking to YOU, Fringe, on both fronts!), etc.

{sigh}. I think about the only thing that SF fans can hope for is that the advent of niche streaming TV will allow for the Bab5s, Farscapes, FFs, etc., to survive, and gain the traction and audience that they deserve.

Or, hell, maybe I am stupid, and the audience really DOES only want those godawful reality shows, or soapy crap. Dunno.

Hitch

[Katsunami]

Originally Posted by Hitch

HAD TO BE a younger sibling that was a favorite. No other sane explanation.

Hitch

Tell me about the younger, favorite sibling. My mom's constantly harping about how I'm wasting my life compared to my (younger) sister.

Me? Oh, I'm just some guy educated at master level, with only one responsibility: doing my job well enough to not get fired. I live in a hired condo, because I want to be able to move in a moment's notice.

That is basically it. Outside of my job, I do (and buy) whatever the frack I want, and as soon as someone says "You have to...," I'll bite his head off. I'm introverted enough to be kicked out of the introvert's club because of lack of participation, so to speak.

My sister? Well, she and her boyfriend finished high school. They live the 'normal' life: own house, two cars, dog, child. Thinking about a second. The only thing I'm always hearing is:

"I have no time."
"We have no money to..."
"I'm tired."
"I can't...."
"Because of... we can't..."

Here's the catch. My net salary is about 80% of their *combined* net salaries.

My mother's view? I'm wasting my life, and my sister is doing everything as it should be. She doesn't get it through her head that I *like* being alone most of the time. (She also doesn't "get" the concept of a LAT-relationship, either, I've noticed.)

My view? My sister and boyfriend have taken on way more responsibilities than they can handle without stressing out, while I can do whatever I want.

[Rumpelteazer]

Originally Posted by Katsunami

LOL. Yeah. I've been playing Caesar3 for some time now. It's part of the decision to play through all of my old games once more, and then shelve them forever. (They are getting harder and harder to keep running, seeing that some of them were written in the Windows 98 era.)

I play one mission, and after I finish it, I watch a playthrough on Youtube. One guy there has video's that go like this:

"Well, now I'm going to set up a residential area here...."
<cut>
"This residential area is coming along quite nicely."

His video's take 15-60 minutes, which I'm willing to spend and see how someone else solved the level.

That works fine.

Another guy is like this:
"I'm going to set up some industry here..."
*he sets up the industry, live*
"Hm.... I don't really like it that way."
*destroy*

And it's a 2,5 hour long live playthrough. I should have checked the time on the video before starting. Never finished it.

I'd rather watch the shortened version

Lol, I guess I'm spoiled with watching craft videos. Those are often sped up, or partially sped up when there is a section with a technique that takes longer (e.g. when an image is being coloured in). But they usually have a voice over or on screen text explaining what they do.

Funny you've been playing Caesar 3, I've been playing Caesar 4 off and on for a while now.

Sent from my SM-T713 using Tapatalk

[Rumpelteazer]

It's been one of those restless nights, where I kept waking up. Around 4am I was wide awake, it's now 90 minutes later and I'm still not sleepy. I'm now considering whether I want to get up, stay in bed and read, or try to dose for a couple of hours.

Sent from my SM-T713 using Tapatalk

[Toxaris]

Originally Posted by Hitch

Wow, that's weird. (not a rant). A few days ago, I'd sent an email to one of the (Irish) programmers who maintain our production website. I forget the context now, but I'd ended the email with "Ex-term-i-nate! Exterminate!," and to my shock and horror, he had NO idea what the hell I was on about. Somewhat boggled, I asked him how he could consider himself a Nerd, to learn that lo, he'd never seen Dr. Who. (Really???)

It is possible, however unlikely. I myself am a big Doctor Who fan, both the old and the new series. I happen to meet Sylvester McCoy last August during a Comic Con in Amsterdam. He played the 7th Doctor, although most people know him as Radagast I think...

[Freeshadow]

Originally Posted by Rumpelteazer

It's been one of those restless nights, where I kept waking up. Around 4am I was wide awake, it's now 90 minutes later and I'm still not sleepy. I'm now considering whether I want to get up, stay in bed and read, or try to dose for a couple of hours.

Sent from my SM-T713 using Tapatalk

What would definitely helped against sleeplessness would be to couple for a dose of hours

[Rumpelteazer]

Originally Posted by Freeshadow

What would definitely helped against sleeplessness would be to couple for a dose of hours

Lol.
In the end I read for a while and then made a bunch of Christmas cards.

[DMcCunney]

Originally Posted by Hitch

No sh**t, right? An Irishman? Crap, they can throw a stone and hit the Brit film studios.

Even if he wasn't that close, it's still a good question.

It's possible he was aware of it but simply not interested. That described me back when - while I did see a bit, it struck me as the sort of bad SciFi that was typical if SF did manage to make it to the screen.

(A BBC series I did like from somewhat later was Tripods, an adaptation of John Christopher's YA trilogy The White Mountains, The Pools of Fire, and The City of Gold and Lead. The premise is essentially "What would have happened had the Martians in H. G. Wells' War of the Worlds had won and conquered the Earth?", though Christopher's invaders weren't from Mars. The tripods were the giant war machines the invaders used. Christopher claimed in a later interview that he'd never read Wells' War of the Worlds, and the resemblance between his machines and those used by Wells' Martians was coincidental.)

Ah. See, I was a fan--not rabid, but I looked forward to it--of the old cheesy show. I was residing in the slums of Santa Barbara, at the time ('82-83?), didn't know anyone, etc., and it came on every Thursday night, on my local PBS, w/o fail. To this day, there are certain old PBS tunes that make me look for DW. :-) I "found" the series at the same time that the Tom Bakers were running here, and didn't get to see the originals (with the Doctor's granddaughter!) until many years later. For me, it's associative, rather than a devotion to the show itself, I feel.

Understood. I know a fair number of Doctor Who fans, and I understand why they are and don't look askance at them. I just never got caught up in it.

The long-suffering spouse was flabbergasted to see me get weepy-ish, about Bab5. He's seen me cry, in more decades than I want to confess to, literally a handful of times. Seeing me get girly about a TV show? His response to that would be "Inconceivable!," if he actually did PB references. :-)

My long suffering SO was not flabbergasted, and understood the impulse. I wasn't the only one in my circles with that sort of reaction. (A comment made online back when was a girl telling her boyfriend "This is going to make me cry again, isn't it?", when a new B5 ep appeared. Er, yes...

Ditto, ditto, and ditto. Not to mention, JMS being keen enough to NOT fall into the ST trap--aliens that look like humans = good, and aliens that don't, = bad. I remember the first time, watching it, that I keyed to the idea that JMS *had* planned so far ahead, and that was fabulous.

They two things that made B5 possible and actually get produced were the use of computer generated FX and Joe's practice of having scripts in the hopper. The FX were an order of magnitude cheaper than the models used in things like ST, and scripts waiting in the hopper reduced overall production costs. The bit in the pilot episode when the Vorlon transport delivering their ambassador to Babylon 5 materialized out of hyper and approached for docking had my jaw drop in admiration. The original pitch to get the series produced had JMS and about 10 minutes of sample FX to give the buyers an idea of what they'd get.

Another series I rather liked from that period was "Space: Above and Beyond". It lasted a season and did not get renewed. Production costs of something like $1.5 million an episode using the sort of FX used in Trek were a principal reason.

(I actually had high hopes for Crusade, but, of course, back in the olden days when niche markets were blithely dismissed...well, it was blithely dismissed. Of course, I may have been influenced by the good looks of that one guy, the Brit, rather than the actual quality of the show.)

I had hopes for Crusade, but was unsurprised when it didn't catch on.

Sci-Fi routinely gets short shrift in TVland. Whether it's Bab5, struggling for continued existence, year after year, or Firefly, which never got the chance, or Farscape, having to be exhumed and fixed (ending-wise)....and I don't know WHAT it is, but I've seen series after series just killed off because one minute, it has excellent writers, and then, some other idiot is brought in, and you can bet your bippy that they'll either bring in the overly-tired "evil twin" plotline (always a dead giveaway that your show is struggling and will be axed soon), or the "main characters are suddenly in the future" plotline (yeah, I'm talking to YOU, Fringe, on both fronts!), etc.

The biggest problem faced by SF on TV is that it is a niche market. It costs a lot more to produce than other offerings, but can't generate the ratings and ad revenues broadcast TV needs.

{sigh}. I think about the only thing that SF fans can hope for is that the advent of niche streaming TV will allow for the Bab5s, Farscapes, FFs, etc., to survive, and gain the traction and audience that they deserve.

But after the fact, alas.

Or, hell, maybe I am stupid, and the audience really DOES only want those godawful reality shows, or soapy crap. Dunno.

An old friend who used to live in NYC but is in SF these days told me about an effort by her older daughter's NYC middle school. Her class was divided into teams. Each team picked a show to watch, and had to analyze it.

What were the tropes used? What kind of show did those tropes make the series?

What was advertised on the show? What did the ads indicate about the show's demographics, and who the audience was assumed to be?

At the end of the year, the teams had to create a pitch for a show they would like to see. Daughter's team pitched a reality show. When mom made a disgusted face, darling daughter said "But mom! They pull down such big numbers!" I thought daughter had a future in TV...
______
Dennis

[Rumpelteazer]

I have a little mouse roaming around, again. And again, this one doesn't mind the ultra sonic sound thing. After the great mouse invasion six months ago (I suspect that the restaurant next door took measures against mice, making them move to our place) I've heard a mouse in between the ceiling only twice. Both times I switched on the squeaky thing and they were gone within minutes. This one found another way in to my room and this one I can't plug with steel wool because it's the stairs to the lower level.

I've place several bowls of water with peppermint and eucalyptus oil around the room's hotspots (at the stairs, under the bed, trunk and bedside table) and I've put some cotton wool with the oils in smaller spaces.

I've just ordered "aromatic stones" online, which are porous stones you can drip some oil on and it will spread the scent for a while; there is no chance of spillage as can happen with bowls of water, plus you don't have to dilute the oils.

I've used up almost all of my oils, so I need to get some tomorrow. Luckily they are on sale again (I was lucky last time, too).

[Katsunami]

Heh. I did a personality type test just for the heck of it. Result: INTJ. 81% introverted and highly logical. Basically, a human Mr. Spock.

Description

And boy, is that right on the money. Some quotes:
- This self-confidence, sometimes mistaken for simple arrogance by the less decisive
- NTJs know what they know, and perhaps still more importantly, they know what they don't know
- INTJs are perfectionists, with a seemingly endless capacity for improving upon anything that takes their interest.
- INTJs are known as the "Systems Builders" of the types, perhaps in part because they possess the unusual trait combination of imagination and reliability.
- Anyone considered to be "slacking," including superiors, will lose their respect -- and will generally be made aware of this; INTJs have also been known to take it upon themselves to implement critical decisions without consulting their supervisors... (Oh yeah. I know at least two supervisors who hated me for using a hacky method to get Autohotkey running and use a custom script to speed up a tedious, and very repetitive part of my workflow. In the end they just shrugged and let me be. It did save me an hour of work a day, at least.)
- Personal relationships, particularly romantic ones, can be the INTJ's Achilles heel [...] This happens in part because many INTJs do not readily grasp the social rituals; for instance, they tend to have little patience and less understanding of such things as small talk and flirtation...
- To complicate matters, INTJs are usually extremely private people
- Probably the strongest INTJ assets in the interpersonal area are their intuitive abilities and their willingness to "work at" a relationship [...] those relationships which ultimately do become established with an INTJ tend to be characterized by their robustness, stability, and good communications.

I could have written (most of) that text myself. The only thing I would have added is that INTJ's have 17 hour attention spans if needed. (It goes for me, at least.)

[badgoodDeb]

INTJ: raises hand!

[covingtoncat73]

Originally Posted by Katsunami

Heh. I did a personality type test just for the heck of it. Result: INTJ. 81% introverted and highly logical. Basically, a human Mr. Spock.

Description

And boy, is that right on the money.

Originally Posted by badgoodDeb

INTJ: raises hand!

INFP here. Yes, I'm am pretty sure other people are out to eat me until proven otherwise. Also, this is fairly accurate:

"INFPs never seem to lose their sense of wonder. One might say they see life through rose-colored glasses. It's as though they live at the edge of a looking-glass world where mundane objects come to life, where flora and fauna take on near-human qualities.

INFP children often exhibit this in a 'Calvin and Hobbes' fashion, switching from reality to fantasy and back again. With few exceptions, it is the NF child who readily develops imaginary playmates (as with Anne of Green Gables's "bookcase girlfriend"--her own reflection) and whose stuffed animals come to life like the Velveteen Rabbit and the Skin Horse.

NFPs have the ability to see good in almost anyone or anything. Even for the most unlovable the INFP is wont to have pity.

Their extreme depth of feeling is often hidden, even from themselves, until circumstances evoke an impassioned response

Of course, not all of life is rosy, and INFPs are not exempt from the same disappointments and frustrations common to humanity. As INTPs tend to have a sense of failed competence, INFPs struggle with the issue of their own ethical perfection, e.g., performance of duty for the greater cause. An INFP friend describes the inner conflict as not good versus bad, but on a grand scale, Good vs. Evil. Luke Skywalker in Star Wars depicts this conflict in his struggle between the two sides of "The Force." Although the dark side must be reckoned with, the INFP believes that good ultimately triumphs.

Some INFPs have a gift for taking technical information and putting it into layman's terms. Brendan Kehoe's Zen and the Art of the Internet is one example of this "de-jargoning" talent in action."

[Hitch]

Ladies and Germs:

As the subject line says, the winner of the "You Can't Make This S**t Up" category is....

Spoiler:

No salutation, no nothing; this email just launches right in to...

Your book at (DELETED for client privacy), on page 37, expresses the Lord's name in vein, making me sin, because I need to read out loud, including such book, to learn how to have sex with a man anally, which I feel, as an expression of love, is just as Christian as sex with a woman. I think that God leaves out the virtues of anal sex from The Holy Bible just to make people figure out the truth about being fully human. If God told the world that anal sex were righteous, people's own soul-searching catharses would be hindered from worldwide spiritual development. I certainly am not God, but for some reason, some people who have not yet figured out how to be fully human, as far as I am concerned, often maliciously coerce me, blatantly subliminally, into reading out loud, as I virtually constantly sense and perceive people listening to, watching, transmitting epithets at, raising noise volumes at, kinetically pushing, and blatantly mimicking me, including, from what I am sensing and perceiving right now, maliciously mimicking my own keyboard actions through their own manual typewriter keystrokes. In spite of my own beliefs in the virtues of sexual acts of being gay, which The Holy Bible may or may not shun, as scriptures about "sodomites," historically meaning "anal prostitutes," not just those who engage in anal sex, and "men laying down with men," historically meaning "gay adultery," not just gay relationships, are ambiguous and vague, I do agree with The Holy Bible's scriptures about the sinfulness of saying the Lord's name in vein. How do I order a new edition of such book, from which have been deleted any and all expressions of the Lord's name in vein?

Just another day at ye olden Biz. The book in question is a "how to" guide, by a TV expert in sex, and, as indicated, it's about male/anal sex. (There's a version for women, as well).

Yuppperdoodle. Stuff like this makes me unable to wait to get up and tackle the day.

Hitch