Bartimaeus

Biden has had a noted speech impediment his whole life, but he did start to slur and say the wrong words more, and just seemed altogether slower. Trump in 2016 had already been pretty demented, and it's only gotten worse since then, but not all dementia manifests the same. Some get really slow, some say the wrong words or can't construct coherent sentences with proper structure, some pause or slur, some get confused and angry because of their diminished abilities (mental and/or physical), some lose their filters, some momentarily zone out and aren't aware of their lapses (...or are, which in of itself can feel pretty frightening to them), some lose their memories of their lives and people they know... Anyone who's watched any interviews of him speak at length in the 80s or 90s should immediately notice how present Trump constantly gets enraged at nothing and word salads his way through just about everything he tries to say: he is not even remotely as sharp or well-spoken as he used to be. Just because he still speaks confidently and aggressively doesn't mean he's not completely out of his mind: there are plenty of nursing home patients who do the same, but we don't make them President of the United States...usually.

Support the Girls (2018). I don't really understand the poster calling it a comedy, it's not very funny and really doesn't seem to trying to be. It was essentially "day from hell in the life of a Hooters manager", but without getting overly exaggerated or involved with any larger than life plot. I enjoyed it, but it was very stressful.

Amazon's The Wheel of Time has been cancelled after its third season.

Cabaret (1972). I liked it a lot! I was not surprised to read that the starring actress (Liza Minnelli) had been advised to play the lead role and subsequently researched and modeled her mannerisms after Louise Brooks. It's the kind of performance I wish Louise Brooks had been afforded the opportunity to play in a talkie. The musical numbers were really something else.

rip bozo. Bit of a fart of a game 7, at least after the first quarter. Honestly, these post-championship Nuggets are starting to seem similar to the post-championship Bucks...still a good team, but starting to age and get injured too much with there being no bench because of having to pay everyone, and all the guys you paid besides your superstar not really consistently performing up to the level they should be. I personally don't think Jokic or Giannis will ever be able to have a team around them that will get them into the Michael Jordan / Kareem / LeBron stratosphere - they'll always be at least a rung or two below, with the two of them both probably sitting somewhere in the top 10 to top 25 of all-time when they're done, especially what with the recent changes to the salary cap to make it more punishing to over-spending teams. And make no mistake, winning both championships and MVPs almost always requires a great-performing team around you (though Jokic did already receive an MVP in 2021 that went against this historical requirement due to there not being a great candidate in the top seeds that season - hence the "almost always"): SGA will win this season's MVP because of having a better team and more wins as a result. Flip their records, and Jokic would be winning his fourth.

I actually watched the whole first season of that show. I believe I mildly liked exactly one episode and disliked or hated the rest, though looking at the list of episodes, I don't remember which one exactly I liked...but I do remember the ones I hated.

I don't want to look at real people unless I really have to. Then again, I don't want to look at current anime unless I have to, either. Anyways, it satisfied my yearly quota for assessing the state of anime.

This one is strange, because this user's first five posts pretty clearly do not sound like they're spam or were AI-generated...but they were ten years ago all within about 24 hours, and they were also posted in threads that were current at the time. Their last two posts, one in late 2024 and this one here, are written completely differently (i.e. like generic AI slop, with this latest one even containing what seems to be a spam link) and were posted in inactive threads. I suppose it might be a hijacked account....but what I am most curious about is why, given that this user had not posted for eight years at the time, did both Gorth and Amentep visit this user's profile back on August 24th and 25th (respectively) in 2023?

The United Papal States of America

Two episodes of The Apothecary Diaries (2023). Premise: Young woman (older teenaged girl?) that is an apprentice apothecary is kidnapped, sold, and ends up a servant girl in the Chinese Imperial Court, uses her skills, intelligence, and total lack of charm to prove herself and rise up from her position as the lowest of the low. There are good elements here that I like, but I am frustrated with this. I am reminded greatly of the movie Like the Clouds, Like the Wind (1990)... ...which has a very similar premise and seemingly some of the same ideas at play. I wish this show had been made around the same time, I probably would've really liked it; as it is, trapped in the conventions of modern anime and the show's unwillingness to slow down (she's already tasked with making drugs by the end of the second episode, with god knows what the eventual end point of the show is...), I switch between smiles and groans too much while watching this. This show really needs a heavy dose of common sense injected into its approach and writing so that just a speck of suspension of disbelief can be had, but I know that's not something that really happens anymore. It's very bittersweet that so many old shows (cartoons, anime, and live-action alike) are largely episodic and their main stories almost always move at a snail's pace even while they continue to build up their world and characters, while new shows completely reverse this by instead just running full speed ahead through so much of the story that they want to tell, not taking the time to consider what pace is sensible or how to bond the viewer to itself with its characters and intrigue. And the Apothecary Diaries actually has a number of episodes - 24 in the first season, with the second season still ongoing - so maybe it does eventually settle into a better pace than what I saw in the first two episodes, but I find it very disappointing nonetheless.

I'm a sucker for witch stuff that doesn't suck. I will have to determine if Sanctuary sucks or not.

David Souter, former U.S. Supreme Court Justice. He was nominated to the court by Bush Sr., but was immediately a moderate that became known for voting more and more with the left wing side of the Court as time went on, before deciding to retire early during Obama's term. He was replaced by Sonia Sotomayer. From an interview in 2012: "I don't believe there is any problem in American politics or American public life which is more significant today that the pervasive civic ignorance of the Constitution of the United States and the structure of government. Some of the aspects of current American government that people on both sides find frustrating are in part a function of the inability of people to understand how government can and should function. [...] What I worry about is that when problems are not addressed, people will not know who is responsible. And when the problems get bad enough, some one person will come forward and say, 'Give me total power and I will solve this problem.' That is how the Roman republic fell." He was my favorite Supreme Court Justice. RIP.

Well, I always played glass cannon builds with the intent to blow everything up before it could hit me in ARPGs, and if I get hit even once and instantly explode, it's my fault for getting hit. I don't know, games are just more fun that way, .

I think the constant penalties and free throws are even worse than the TV timeouts. But yeah, people generally only watch the playoffs, and sometimes not even then. Watching the regular season makes sense if your team has been in the gutter for forever and suddenly start to have a good season and/or if your team gets a breakout star player, but besides that, there are way too many games and they happen every single day of the week. I prefer the NFL's approach to having the majority of games all take place on Sunday (and I generally hate having to tune into the solitary Monday Night Football and Thursday Night Football games, so I usually don't unless it's my own team). Also, two years later, and it's very clear the Bucks' gambit in rebuilding the team around Giannis and Lillard has not worked out in their favor. The team is worse in every way than it was before that trade, and now Lillard blew out his achilles at age 36. I wouldn't be surprised if Giannis ends up leaving this off-season or the next, the state of the team under this GM and Doc Rivers has become rather deplorable.

Although I don't play them anymore due to my wrist injuries, I always thought this was the way to go with singleplayer shooters. A player that can be killed easily but who can also kill everyone else easily (especially if they're consistently playing intelligently and making sure to out-position and out-gun everyone else) has always seemed so much more satisfying than both player and enemies just being damage sponges. Well, really, I kind of prefer it in all types of games, but especially shooters.