Bartimaeus

At this point, he should get into the Hall of Fame for clearly being legendary at keeping all this nonsense under wraps. Just cut from the Raiders, I hope only bad teams are willing to offer him anything, and that it's not even close to what the Raiders gave him.

An early win at your division's reigning champion's home is always a great win, no matter how ugly it may be. We had 19 pressures in that game - a little over double the 9 pressures we had vs. them in two games last year. Those defensive FAs we signed are paying dividends.

In unrelated news, Antonio Brown threatened to punch his GM in the face over a fine because he had been refusing to practice, and is to be suspended as a result. Between signing all the lowest character guys, Gruden, and moving to Las Vegas, I really hope the Raiders are as big of a dumpster fire this season as they seem.

Trump accidentally claimed that Hurricane Dorian was going to strike somewhere it's not. Instead of going "whoops" and everyone forgetting it, he took an official projected path map and sharpied over it and tried to pass it off as official. vs. It is difficult for me to understand the man that thinks that this sort of thing will somehow come across as better than just saying "oops, I was wrong" and literally everyone forgetting within 48 hours tops. Or more likely from him, saying nothing at all and pretending it never happened. But to double down on such a flagrantly stupid thing... lmao

Steven Universe: The Movie. It was goofy and good and the ending was sort of paced all over the place, but given how unreasonably excited for it I was (which I refuse to get about virtually anything because of how frequently I am disappointed), I was happy with it.

Why am I all of a sudden struck by frightful visions of a certain hedgehog of the spellcasting variety...

I watched Beauty and the Beast as sort of a "meme watch" with a friend. I knew that I was in for a bad time in the opening moments of the film where I learned that Emma Watson couldn't...err...well, it's not quite that she can't sing at all, but it was immediately obvious that she certainly should've never been picked for a musical role, much less the protagonist of one. It really only got worse from there. At least it gave us the Lindsay Ellis video on it.

His own wife's message was "your candidate might be better, but my husband is the one that will actually win". A whole lot of shades of "It's Her Turn" going on there.

First top-rated poll that has anyone (Sanders) ahead of Biden, though it's on a knife's edge and certainly within the margin of error. Notable that the last time Monmouth polled, Biden was way ahead of the rest of the field at about 32 - a 13 point drop is rather insane. But polls are polls, . (e); numberz

Yeah, they're whatever. Stop bothering if you know they're not for you - that's what I did, . Jeanne Dielman, 23 Quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles (1975). Yes, that's the name of the film. Quite possibly the slowest movie I've ever seen and that I will ever see in my entire life. Clocking in at nearly 3 and a half hours, this film features zero camera movement - no panning or zooming of any kind, thereby moving only through hard cuts in between some ridiculously long single takes - and more or less just shows the daily routine of a mother going through her chores. There were a lot of really nice things about this film, including the aesthetic, the unique filming style, the main character portrayal, the presumed themes and symbology...but it kind of overstayed its welcome for me. I can easily see this being a great deal many people's "most boring film of all time" for how indulgently slow and long it is on top of how few events of typical movie noteworthiness happen (there's just about exactly one scene like that, actually, and it's arguably the weakest scene of the movie). Overall, it was more of an...interesting see than a necessarily strictly enjoyable one, but that's just me.

RG3 lasted longer than Andrew Luck. Yikes. Another reminder for me to appreciate Rodgers while he's still here...

Yeah, this format sucks. I would prefer something like scheduling each candidate to get an hour to talk unchallenged, uninterrupted about their campaign and the platform they're running on like a week in advance (maybe one candidate for an hour each night?), THEN having this yell-for-time shouting match...err, I mean, debate, where they and the moderators can challenge each other on the ideas they previously presented. Networks probably aren't interested in that because it wouldn't get much views, but giving each candidate a chance to talk televised (preferably live) at their own pace about what they want would probably be useful at informing us what kind of personality and campaign they intend to project rather than only being able to listen to all of their desperate attempts to simply get air time.

I actually thought this was the idea - if forced, what stupid populist solution for solving violence do you prefer on whatever basis you desire? For me, it was "well, they can't actually stop me from playing video games that are at least currently out, so I guess that". Admittedly, I can't read the original post, though, so it could be that the intent was different than how I interpreted it with that further context.

Viridiana (1961). That was really bizarre, different, and pretty good. Got it a while back but held off until I was in the mood for it as I often do for odder/more random movie picks. Usually works pretty well. Probably my favorite foreign film out of what I've watched so far (which isn't a great amount yet, admittedly, but hey, I'm trying).

What in particular is drawing you to her? This is better than the lukewarm at best support you usually give, so I guess we should be taking notice. On a side-note, it's been noted by some analysts that Russian media, spambots, and astroturfers have been weirdly very supportive of her. That's not necessarily her fault or indicative of anything, but is an oddity nonetheless.

"Week 1 against the Texans: 24 missed tackles. Week 2 against the Ravens: 19 missed tackles. [Packers Head Coach] Matt LaFleur: 'We really have to concentrate on 'thudding up' and stopping the runner's feet. I don't believe in taking to the ground. '" Our coach doesn't believe in making tackles - only hits that our players consistently whiff over and over. That's just grand.

Should probably stick an "OrTrump" at the end there, .

Yeah, don't think other players should be expected to follow Brady's example (and almost literally nobody has - it's a business, after all). Actually, Brady was somewhat unreasonable - in the opposite way, so much so that IIRC the NFL player's union has been unhappy with him for "devaluing" players by taking such small amounts of money. A top 3 quarterback of all time that is also the ultimate team player combined with the greatest of all time head coach and a hands-off owner has been a frightening combination. Those types of "team players" create terrible unbalance in whatever sports they appear in. But yeah, at 35 million a year, that's more than Aaron Rodgers with his new contract that he signed just a year ago, haha. There's really not much of a choice, though - I know you mentioned "tanking", but tanking doesn't really exist in the NFL for the simple reason that it's, again, a business and players (and coaches!) aren't going to intentionally perform badly and lose contract earnings and fame and prestige because of it. Teams would rather overpay their starting QBs and be relatively guaranteed a decent season (even if not quite a playoff-level one) rather than risk a bunch of miserable seasons in a row looking for a new QB. Game and TV numbers go down, FAs don't want to come to the team, more of your core players want to *leave* the team or get overpaid to stay themselves, and there's no guarantee that you'll get out of QB purgatory anytime soon - it's just a terrible proposition and these QBs know it and use it for maximum leverage. The good news is, outside of Tom Brady and the Patriots, this is applicable to every team except those which have their QBs on rookie contracts (e.g. Mahomes)...which will remedy themselves soon enough (and teams should be rewarded for drafting exceptionally well anyways), so it's kind of fair. You guys had a great shot at winning a SB in 2016 when a bunch of star players were cheap and already performing at their highest - what a shame and a pity it all came to crashing halt against some awful garbage heap of a team coasting on old has-beens that barely even made it into the playoffs, .

It's Ecclesiastes 1:9 - one of the very few I actually know the chapter and verse numbers for by heart. I'm reading that both "novo" and "novi" mean "new", but the former is plural while the latter is singular (e.g. it is "homo novo" for "new man", "homines novi" for "new men")...and "novum" is a combo that means "new thing". Thing is, "nihil" already means "nothing", so "nihil sub sole novum" would seem to mean "nothing under the sun is a new thing", while "nihil novi sub sole" would seem to mean "nothing new under the sun". Interesting to note that "nothing" is apparently considered plural in Latin, but singular in English.

I've always been confused on whether it's this or "nihil sub sole novum". Both have plenty of results on Google (with the edge going towards the second), and both claim the same origin (Vulgate Latin translation of the Bible).

Regardless of the law, nobody can really "stop" you from playing video games, so my answer was that. It'd cause a horrible, horrible development crash in the U.S. due to the difficulty of buying them (everyone needs to get a VPN to keep buying them digitally, I guess? This would also have the benefit of encouraging more singleplayer games since all our connections would be unbearably bad in multiplayer, ), so that kind of sucks, but whatever.

Sorry man, . A couple years back, my grandpa finally got diagnosed with lung cancer after having suffered coughing fits for years while the VA kept telling him that everything checked out fine. Until he went to a non-VA clinic and they found that he had metastasized lung cancer that was much too advanced to have any realistic chance of making it go into remission. He started chemo pretty soon after in a "prolong life as much as possible" sort of treatment, but his body was just too far gone already and he died within like a month and a half. I saw him in person right before they sent him home for hospice care (i.e. to die, for anyone that doesn't know what this term means exactly - I only mention it because I actually didn't before my own experience here). It was a little shocking to see his physical state - was looking pretty close to an Auschwitz victim at that point, and it was especially bad because he could just ever so barely talk...but I'm still glad that I saw him. Hope you had plenty of chances to see your dad before he went. When these things start going south, there seems like a lot of time to do these things but unless you very conveniently live in the same area, you can easily end up taking more time than a person's got - that was nearly my case, and I think I would've regretted it for the rest of my life if I hadn't seen him.

Oh, no, she was dead already from a couple of years back. Well...yes...but no. He was the most major factor in driving her to suicide (her words in the what I guess you could consider a suicide note she texted minutes before her death). I'm not sure if that qualifies as "killing her". Suicide is usually more complex than being able to just blame one person's actions for it, so that's probably not completely fair to him...but on the other hand, I thought he was a psychopath for years and now he's actually a bonafide murderer, so I'm not feeling exactly charitable towards the guy right now. @Malcador : Don't worry about it, I'm horribly flippant and irreverent about these things myself...most of the time. It's how I deal, but of course, that approach doesn't work for everyone, . I've made lots of quips about both my dad's and sister's suicides to friends and family (...though not generally to the faces of those most sensitive to them). @TrueNeutral : Yes, but am now having to deal with my other sister, who is a diagnosed bipolar schizophrenic, lawyering up and trying to sue for custody of them because she has some sick, twisted delusions about being their "mommy" (???). I am pretty sure it's not going to go anywhere because there's literal years and years of evidence that paint her as a totally unstable individual completely unfit for childcare, but it's something I'd rather not be dealing with right now. @LadyCrimson & all: Thanks for the sympathies!

Kakistocracy in action. ...I'm fairly certain that my browser thought "kakistocracy" wasn't a word a year or two ago, and now it does. Hmm.

Still alive, unfortunately. This actually happened a little while back, but I've been waiting to hear on sentencing before I wanted to say anything about it. I still haven't, but I sort of realized that it may take...I don't know, months, maybe literal years before that happens? Hoping for a nice, long sentence (I can't imagine less than 20 years at the absolute minimum, particularly given the level of violence involved - literally caving in people's heads in with a baseball bat doesn't seem like something you get off easily for). I guess I should also be a little more forthright: this is my brother-in-law that I am talking about. Well, actually, I'm not sure how that works because my sister is also dead. As a side-consequence, we currently have custody of their/his two toddler children, my nieces. It's been a fun last couple of months (...and years).