Bartimaeus

All About Eve (1950). Knew absolutely nothing about this one going into it, besides that it was well-reviewed. I very much liked it.

Mueller's report has been filed. (e): and smjjames beat me by seconds. Brutal, .

They need 270 electoral votes for it to go into force, they're at 181 now (89 to go) with 158 others in various stages of pending (some of them with a realistic path, some of them not...for the time being). That's the thing about once it goes through for a state - they only need one election that gives a state trifecta at worst (i.e. with zero Republican support) for it to go through, and once it's through, the Republicans will need a state trifecta to overturn it (well, once again, assuming zero Democratic support). Right now, Delaware (3) and New Mexico (5) are awaiting governor's signature and likely to be approved soon. After that...a few other states seem likely to jump on board sooner or later (like Oregon and Michigan), but yeah, it'll still be a while before it happens, if ever.

It's theoretically supposed to benefit Democrats, but I am curious to see how that actually works in practice. There's a lot of disenfranchised people on both sides that are either taken for granted or simply ignored in the presidential race because of the electoral college. It makes me wonder how a popular vote election will affect the margins in places like California when people - on both sides - realize that their vote will actually affect the vote totals, which then have an effect on who's elected. Interesting thing about this National Popular Vote Interstate Compact is that it's not *that* easy to overturn once enacted, so when - if - it ever comes to be, it could seriously change the reality of our elections for a time to come. To overturn in any given state effectively requires a state trifecta, so if the Democrats find that it actually ends up harming them instead of helping, they could find it very difficult to overturn it in all but the bluest of states, and then a few red trifecta states could jump in and reinforce it, effectively taking their place and reinstating it. It's hard to see us going back to the electoral college once it passes that threshold. Will be very interesting to see how that affects national politics if it comes to be. I'm more interested in ranked choice voting to actually introduce the possibility of third parties, but that's almost certainly even farther off than this compact (and I assume it all has to be state-enacted - think states are guaranteed the right to hold their own elections how they want, right?).

And on that note... Guard Dog, how do you feel about (the mostly Democrat-led) effort to eliminate the electoral college in favor of using the popular vote to elect the president instead?

I'm a Windows 7 user.

For me, the difference is that from Steam's perspective, there is no such thing as "Steam exclusives". Steam does not offer exclusivity deals: Valve is perfectly fine with publishers also selling their games on GOG, Humble Bundle, their own service, the Microsoft Store, etc. In cases where a game is "exclusive" to Steam, it just means the publisher is crappy and hasn't bothered pursuing other avenues, and that's, quite frankly, not Valve's/Steam's fault, but rather the publishers' - yell at them all you like for it. Hard me to direct much ire at Steam outside of recognizing the fact that Steam is the most dominant distributor on a number of levels. With exclusivity deals on the EGS, the blame falls pretty squarely on both the distributor for offering such deals as well as the publisher for accepting them. A big screw-you to both parties involved here. I assume Obsidian wasn't a part of the decision. It took me long enough to get used to Steam, I am not allowing another garbanzo beans app be constantly up and running on my PC unless they make a really compelling argument, of which the EGS has done the exact opposite from a consumer perspective (quite contrary it seems from a publisher/developer view based on these exclusivity deals becoming more and more common...but that does not affect me and therefore does not serve as a compelling argument). So...2020. I am perfectly fine with people not wanting to play a game if it's a Steam exclusive. Personally, I've grown to hate Steam more and more over the years (I think it peaked around 2009-2011), so I barely buy anything on there, either. It's still an option for games that are only there because of publisher decision, though.

Read as: The Other Outer Worlds has been delayed to 2020. (e): lol, Other Worlds, I can't even type.

Doesn't seem difficult at all to me, . Song of the Sea (2014). Solid. Beautiful artwork, good voice-acting, setting, and music. Story and character writing was adequate. It fell apart in the last half hour much in the same Spirited Away did for me (character motivations being poorly conveyed leading to hollow/uninspired beats, subversions, and turnabouts, multiple story climaxes occurring in rapid succession, things starting to feel like they're just "happening" with little reason for me to care or understand why), but still solid. Kubo and the Two Strings (2016). Interesting art style, but a totally uninspired first half of the movie and a protagonist I hated made me turn this off halfway through.

Well, if you consider him coming in last year as his "backup" phase (as he only started because of Winston being suspended) and then this as his "get paid" phase, it still sort of works. Dolphins probably hope he'll suck next year, as otherwise they'll be stuck with a mid-tier pick as they have been year after year after year (proof: 2007 was the last time they finished worse than 6-10).

Dolphins sign Ryan Fitzpatrick. The cycle continues! His eighth team that he'll start for - wonder how many he'll get to by the end of his career?

I liked that they waited only minutes until after his sentencing was complete to smash him with 16 more indictments.

Yeah, I was pretty surprised at the safety market this year compared to last. Some really crazy contracts for safeties this year, am pretty happy with 9 million a year for a young, injury-free good player vs. some of the other contracts (Landon Collins and Earl Thomas for 14 million each? Yikes...for different reasons). Most likely, given that all of our safeties were absolute junk the past year (including Clinton-Dix who we had traded to the Redskins, and whom I've noticed many Redskins fans complaining about and saying he's pretty bad since), we'll probably end up drafting someone as well. Happy to take away a defensive starter from the now formidable-looking Bears as well.

Packers sign a whole slew of guys. Makes the return of Clay Matthews and Randall Cobb pretty unlikely, and Nick Perry was jettisoned as well. Feels like a little bit of an end of an era. There's a history of signing a bunch of free agents at the same time not working out, guess we'll wait and see.

Speaking of liars, the amount of times the White House has leaked that "the Mueller report is about to be turned in" is infuriating - almost as infuriating as the media taking it and running with it again and again like it were gospel each time when the White House has repeatedly shown to be composed of a not insignificant amount of compulsive liars. On the subject of impeachment, Nancy Pelosi says, "Impeachment is so divisive to the country that unless there’s something so compelling and overwhelming and bipartisan, I don’t think we should go down that path, because it divides the country. And he’s just not worth it." In other words, until the Republican base starts to turn on him, there's little to no chance of even trying impeachment. That's probably for the best, though I do wish his base had already turned on him given his reprehensible personal conduct thus far, but c'est la vie.

Exactly how I approach reviewers. I enjoy listening to RedLetterMedia, but for the most part, our interests don't coincide even a little. That doesn't even mean that I think the things they like are garbage (I think they're often, though perhaps not always, on the money), but we by and large simply don't watch the same sort of stuff, so taking their recommendations at face value is silly when I'm not interested in whatever umpteenth Marvel movie they're mildly recommending. When they review something a little different from their usual tastes that's more to my tastes (e.g. a thriller such as Thoroughbreds, or a horror movie like the Witch) and strongly recommend it on a number of grounds that sound good/interesting to me, I take a much stronger interest in that recommendation and am much more likely to watch it. The reviewer is just as important as the thing being reviewed...probably more, actually. The problem is finding reviewers who you enjoy listening to/reading as well as can trust to be consistent and have a foundation for how they formulate their opinions (which will in turn help you approach their reviews and how to take them). There are a lot of hack frauds out there, and it can be difficult to find your very own diamond in the rough.

Less than what his lawyers asked for. White collar crime continues to pay for the fines and punishment you receive when you actually get caught...and never mind all those who don't get caught.

That seems like a lousy writeup, but I guess that's no surprise. Literally the opening line says it affects only first generation Core processors which immediately made me go "yay", but opening up the actual paper says it affects all Intel CPUs *starting from* the first Core generation.

Hillary Clinton confirms in TV interview that she's running for President in 2020. Oops, I meant to have a "not" in there. C'est la vie.

Guess the only team without at least an NFCCG appearance not named either the Redskins or the Lions? P.S. I still don't know anything about college ball, so I still can't talk the draft, .

Can't say I'm sad to see him go from the booth - he and the rest of the ESPN team were quite dreadful last year, and between Tessitore's painful screeching every time something moderately exciting happened, Booger's cackling and bouts of bizarre insanity, and Witten repeatedly failing to get player names right, inexplicably failing to respond to / pick up after Tessitore and leaving tons of dead air, and simply saying all sorts of incomprehensible stuff, I frequently muted and/or turned off MNF games entirely rather than listen to that clownshow. Maybe he would've eventually gotten better, but he will not be missed in the booth by anyone that I know.

What Guard Dog said, but also at this point, I personally believe that so long as Trump has roughly at least 30-35% approval rating, the rest of the GOP by and large will feel like they can't afford to criticize the guy (nevermind impeachment proceedings) no matter the evidence or how personally objectionable they find him. They're politicians, after all, and turning on the person that a large percentage of their voting base continue to think of as "their guy" is political suicide, regardless of anything else. Early into his presidency, I thought there might be a hope of impeaching him, but that was before I realized just the amount of deplorable behavior that the party of "personal responsibility" and "family values" was willing to accept so long as he doesn't have a (D) next to his name, so I think we're set to see a full term from him no matter what happens. I'm still excited to read Mueller's report even so, but I don't think he'd be impeached by the current Republican party even if it had a hundred smoking guns' worth of evidence. Nixon lost his presidency after his approval ratings sat at a brutal 25% for months leading up to the 1974 elections with no end in sight. I think you'd need something like that for anything to change.

Opening statement of Michael Cohen, Trump's longtime personal lawyer who was convicted on a variety of charges a few months ago by Special Counsel Mueller, to Congress in tomorrow morning's publicly televised testimony and hearing (with some material evidence to be displayed to boot): https://www.politico.com/f/?id=00000169-2d31-dc75-affd-bfb99a790001 I read the entire thing. Fun read. I set a recording for CSPAN tomorrow morning so I can watch the followup. Some important bits from the opening statement: "Mr. Trump put Mr. Stone on the speakerphone. Mr. Stone told Mr. Trump that he had just gotten off the phone with Julian Assange and that Mr. Assange told Mr. Stone that within a couple of days there would be a massive dump of emails that would damage Hillary Clinton’s campaign." "The President of the United States thus wrote a personal check for the payment of hush money as part of a criminal scheme to violate campaign finance laws. You can find the details of that scheme, directed by Mr. Trump, in the pleadings in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York....I am providing a copy of a $35,000 check that President Trump personally signed from his personal bank account on August 1, 2017 – when he was President of the United States...to reimburse me...for the illegal hush money I paid on his behalf." "In conversations we had during the campaign, at the same time I was actively negotiating in Russia for him, he would look me in the eye and tell me there’s no business in Russia and then go out and lie to the American people by saying the same thing. In his way, he was telling me to lie....There were at least a half-dozen times between the Iowa Caucus in January 2016 and the end of June when he would ask me “How’s it going in Russia?” – referring to the Moscow Tower project. You need to know that Mr. Trump’s personal lawyers reviewed and edited my statement to Congress about the timing of the Moscow Tower negotiations before I gave it." "Yet, last fall I pled guilty in federal court to felonies for the benefit of, at the direction of, and in coordination with Individual #1. For the record: Individual #1 is President Donald J. Trump." "Donald Trump is a man who ran for office to make his brand great, not to make our country great. He had no desire or intention to lead this nation - only to market himself and to build his wealth and power. Mr. Trump would often say, this campaign was going to be the “greatest infomercial in political history.” He never expected to win the primary. He never expected to win the general election. The campaign - for him - was always a marketing opportunity." "Mr. Trump directed me to find a straw bidder to purchase a portrait of him that was being auctioned at an Art Hamptons Event. The objective was to ensure that his portrait, which was going to be auctioned last, would go for the highest price of any portrait that afternoon. The portrait was purchased by the fake bidder for $60,000. Mr. Trump directed the Trump Foundation, which is supposed to be a charitable organization, to repay the fake bidder, despite keeping the art for himself. Please see Exhibit 3B to my testimony." Still no direct evidence of collusion, but there are other things to be concerned about, to say the least, regardless.

And...Adam Schefter of ESPN (their top reporter) reports that Cowboys DT David Irving is also being reviewed for suspension. What's up with Cowboys and defensive linemen and drugs? DeMarcus Lawrence (amphetamines) and Greg Hardy (cocaine, general violence) have had also had drug problems.

Uh, please don't tell me that's still going? I was a (bigger) fan of the DM of the Rings series that it apes, but I followed D&D for probably a year or so when it first started before I realized that I simply like reading and watching stuff in a big chunk rather than piecemeal weekly and decided I'd wait a few years before coming back...and I never did. It's been many years now.