algroth

With regards to the matter of depression, I too suffer from depression (comes and goes in my case) and one thing that is worth pointing out is that people shouldn't underestimate how sensitive the state makes one to comments that may be interpreted in the least bit as mean-spirited, suicide-encouraging, and so on. It comes to a point where even the smallest remarks that may seem ambivalent or direct fills one with insecurities, self-doubting, fear of rejection and being despised, paranoia and so on. Sure, one won't kill themselves for being told by another to do so, but it can add up to a growing sense of suffering where that seems like the only reasonable thing to do. It's a horrible state to be in. I'll also mention that in such situations it's best to avoid the internet altogether, because there'll always be that one person who'll post a cruel/cynical reply and tell you to "grow some skin". But we all know how hard it is to do just that (avoiding the internet, I mean), and sometimes you're also just looking for excuses to carry on feeling miserable. Best advice I can give about it is to not take things too seriously. Many comments are just spoken in passing, some even trying to cheer you up by injecting some humour and levity even through the darkest of means... It's crucial to understand not everyone thinks everything they say and write to that degree, they just say things without giving them much of a second thought. Best to try and let it slip by you, it takes an effort but you'll feel better in the end.

Ordered me some new albums today! Coil - The Ape of Naples Kate Bush - 50 Words for Snow The Tear Garden - Tired Eyes Slowly Burning Magma - Udu Wudu

So far, went on a walk with my mum (who's leaving tonight for a trip to the US for two weeks), got back to find my kitchen completely flooded due to a hole on my thermotank. :excl:

Of course this is why Hitch**** is censored in this forum. All hail Satan and so on.

In my experience, chasing a girl too enthusiastically can lead to alienating her somewhat. If she doesn't want to have anything to do with you, best to resist the urge and look elsewhere, there'll always be many other girls out there after all. I tend to not try twice nowadays after a first few bad experiences. :D

I'm up for some bar philosophy. :D So... Your argument calls to mind somewhat that Bergsonian idea that the body acts as a preferential point with which we can act out on the material world, and as it defines and allows our ability to interact with it, so are we also limited by its boundaries and limitations. Even if the mind desires it, we cannot fly on our own, and our perception cannot leave the confines of our body and where it is currently positioned. If we take absolute freedom to its broadest sense, I guess you can pretty much say that existing and interacting in a material world is in itself already making such a thing impossible, and maybe the potential limitlessness of imagination only serves to further highlight that impossibility. Another reading to this could be that absolute freedom comes in the ability to attempt anything that is desired by the mind, and by that notion, say, if you wish to touch the Sun by jumping to it, you may as well be free to try it by jumping, but be unable to reach the desired goal. There's freedom in choice and action despite the possibility of failure. In that sense I also reckon everyone's absolutely free regardless of any laws or social barriers that would punish us were we to go against them. You may be free to shoot a man, but you'll have to pay the consequences if you do. But as to how the consequences, physical limitations and potential of failure inhibit our desires to do such things, that is another matter that could also inhibit the mind and thus limit its freedom. As to whether ideas and decisions limit our freedom... If we go that way then I also guess it's hard to assume there's any freedom in any mind that in order to stay free much never think, never make a decision, never acquire an idea or learn a specific code. But I at least do not assume a decision and a manner of thinking necessarily goes against freedom. Codes such as language as well as ideologies can nevertheless limit it, as they are setting in an individual a strict and largely arbitrary way of interpreting the world that surrounds them, and likewise limits out everything that has no place in them. You can't think of something that exists outside a language you know, for example, or that has no words for it. Best you can do is reccur to something akin to Ricoeur's metaphorical process, and try to join elements of two or more semantic fields to generate a composite/hybrid that may give way to something 'new'. But still it would be a mixture of, say, a lion, a grasshopper and a cloud. In this sense you can say the mind is always shackled to what it knows and can recognize/process. In terms of absolute freedom before the law... That would itself be paradoxical to say the least. If we were to assume that the One and Only Law were that every human being had the right to freedom, then it would likely give them the right to, for example, enslavement. If a man is absolutely free and by doing so removes the freedom of another, then his freedom is also likely bound to be limited by another eventually. In the end the matter of freedom before the law is more about how to ensure the most freedom for every individual, and the essential liberalist idea we embrace nowadays (an individual's freedom ends where another's begins and so on) is probably the best we can hope for at this time. Its application is a much muddier affair though, as is the matter that in a society where so many inequalities thrive, an equality of rights through all classes and sectors ultimately favours those in a higher hierarchy: as Anatole France once wrote, "in its majestic equality, the law forbids rich and poor alike to sleep under bridges, beg in the streets and steal loaves of bread." Anyhow, I'm straying off subject with that, I believe. Just some ranting on my side, is all. :D And to end this, some music pls:

Shot some new episodes for my (our, since we're a team of five) YouTube channel. You guys are welcome to see it here if you like grilled recipes and understand Spanish! https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCMb_jTYA_oFqJVJneNUH0Zg

This would have been a top 5 James Bond theme had it not been rejected by the studio. Superb all the same.

I never got that message. Have you already gotten the quest to speak with Galvino though? If you haven't done so already, speak with Renengild and her son. They could be the trigger you need.

Hmm... I don't remember there being a locked door on that side, but then again, I don't think I ever went in through the sewers. Is the door missing a key, or just locked and requiring too high a mechanics skill number to open? Also, there is another way to the upper floors from outside Raedric's Hold. Search the northwest portion of the exterior map and you'll see it.

Nah. I'm not as down as some others are on the Justice League films nor am I a fan of the MCU (I think Whedon's first Avengers film is actually worse than the Snyder films), but they are nevertheless problematic at best. Though they are interesting to some degree, and I appreciate that Snyder seems to at least be trying to add his own style and vision into a new superhero saga, the films are frequently messy, sometimes downright incomprehensible, and altogether extremely kitschy. Motivations are frequently all over the shop, and the writing at best feels improvised on the spot. It's a shame because I feel they tend to show more promise and potential than the MCU films usually do, but they fall way short of it.

Well, it's partly that... Partly also the matter of nudity and so on. But yeah, since I'm new here I am not sure where the copyright rules end.

Since we're on the subject of Terry Gilliam and Brazil, I'll also go ahead and make a weird rec in case it interests you guys. If you liked the overall tone and style of Brazil, and enjoy surrealism and the absurd in general, I'd also very eagerly recommend a Polish film called The Hour-Glass Sanatorium, directed by Wojciech Jerzy Has. It's surprising to see just how acutely this film seems to predict Gilliam's style, a whole decade earlier than the likes of Brazil or The Adventures of Baron Munchausen (also superb in case you haven't seen it yet). A copy of it can be found on YouTube though I'm not sure I'm allowed to post it here, so here's a fragment instead: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n_dro2RL0lU

Looks better than the other Justice League films so far, at least. I'm not expecting a whole lot but it could be enjoyable nevertheless.

I think Criterion's most recent Blu-Ray release of Brazil has both 142 and 132 minute cuts actually. At the very least the former 142-minute Director's Cut is in it. https://www.criterion.com/films/211-brazil

Brazil's an all-time top 5 for me. I personally enjoyed the descent to madness the film goes through during its second half, I'm a sucker in general for Kafkian nightmares and this paired alongside Gilliam's usual mastery for visuals as well as his very sardonic sense of humour just makes it a film I love returning to time and time again, and one of those watershed viewings when I was a teen. Glad you enjoyed it, if with some reservations.