Bartimaeus

It's difficult to put into words exactly, but it's more something that perhaps majestic and I should love because of it being 95% slow character-driven dialogue with some big themes behind it...in theory, but because of how bizarrely it handles some of its ideas and elements, and because of its penchant for taking weird and difficult to understand turns, it doesn't quite land entirely as it should yet still feels like a worthwhile watch anyways. One third of the way through it, I thought I loved the film and what it was going for, and then I watched the rest and it and...I'm still just not sure what to make of it. I guess I'm kind of reminded of my experience with Studio Ghibli's The Tale of the Princess Kaguya, which is also a pretty oddball film with the slowest pacing out of any of their films. Though I'd say it was reversed in how I felt about them, as it was the last third (and not the first) of The Tale of the Princess Kaguya that I thought was awesome while I wasn't sure how I felt about the rest. It doesn't help that they have pretty similar themes and ideas. Did Naru and Ami ever speak to each other even once in the original show?

Apparently, all the images here are AI-generated for a film that doesn't exist - though some influences are pretty obvious.

tl/g;dw (too long/german; didn't watch): 3rd party sellers with lots of used cards (likely former miners) store or even wash cards improperly, short out when put to use by buyer due to moisture build-up inside cards, quick permanently dead/damaged card

Yeah, I'm still frequently suffering from posts not going through (i.e. the forum just gobbling them up). It seems a bit more frequent than it used to be, as posts I spend a handful of minutes writing seem to usually be affected. Have to always CTRL+A+C before you post, as majestic said...

No, I don't think you'd like it at all.

Princess Arete (2001). Yep, that's her. Her hair's not really quite that poofy normally, she's a bit too close to the camera. Right, first ten minutes of the film contain a fairly simple premise: Arete's father, King [Arete's Dad], sent out a quest for adventurers to travel [to where? Africa is mentioned, what country does this even take place?] in search of powerful artifacts - he who returns with the most valuable will take his young daughter's hand in marriage! What an awful idea. According to the officials accepting and storing the magical items, it's because the kingdom is facing serious financial difficulties and selling off these magical artifacts seems a surefire way to replenish their coffers. I suppose that's...effectively a reverse dowry, except they also take the artifacts from the guys who don't even get to marry her. Weird...you know, it kinda just sounds like a total scam. Anyways, here's the interesting bit: this search for artifacts already happened before the film starts - the adventurers are all walking in the front gate with their bounties right as the film begins as Arete quietly looks on from her locked tower and contemplates. It was an incredibly odd and slow film and I'm not sure what to think of it.

I've never understood the neurotic need for huge amounts of dead space in newly designed UIs. Instead of almost all of the space of my 1440p monitor being using, now maybe about half of my screen is used. If you use the "full screen mode" button (bottom right corner), I would argue it actually makes better use of space than the old version by having the navigational links occupy that little empty left-hand side that used to exist, but I'm not clicking that button on every page I visit - tie it to a setting cookie, and probably everything is fine.

It's no wonder the youth of today shoot up schools and throw themselves off bridges en masse - forget social alienation and the inability to form stable bonds and friendships, substance abuse/addiction, and the general mental health crisis, I'm pretty sure Sailor Moon Crystal is responsible for it all. When is infamous supercriminal Naoko Takeuchi going to be held responsible for her crimes?

But...but innovation from adversity - art from censorship! If nobody is oppressing me, my creative output withers and dies! This is outrageous, it's unconstitutional...and really, I just don't like it. I'm going to have to come up with a new list of demands, preferably one where I can have my cake and eat it too.

Just to be clear, the "mods" in the title of the NFL thread is specifying modifications and not moderators. I think that's very important information to discern, because...well, if you read it the other way, that would mean I was calling the moderators [corrupted text], and boy, I tell you, that is not at all what I meant, and I'd be real broken up about it if anybody interpreted it that way. Gee, I might even have to apologize. But the key thing is, I really don't think I should be left with the critical responsibility of deciding the NFL thread's title, that's...that's just too much for me, I crack under pressure and make terrible decisions! So I'd strongly recommend...oh, I don't know, Donald Trump? I think he'd be a good fit for the position, certainly much better than me.

I've heard it both ways.

Yeah, it's a weird mystery, .

Oh man, look at that sweet URL, I didn't even know that could happen: How the hell is that parsed correctly? It's precisely what he did with Mason Crosby in Green Bay anytime he went through an inexplicably really tough game, and it seemed to work, .

Because he's going to be your kicker next week, and better that he work his woes out and gain his confidence back in the game where you're 20 points ahead than the next where you're probably going to need every single one.

It's been kind of up and down. Faye helped a lot for episodes 3 and 4, in direct contrast to my expectations. Most of my favorite animes (Sailor Moon, Cardcaptor Sakura, Vampire Princess Miyu, Tsukikage Ran) have been primarily episodic in nature, so I don't really have an issue with that for its own sake.

I don't know, usually how it goes with those is I quite like the first season as it builds up its characters and world while setting the stage for what's to come (so yeah, that would fit), then the focus completely shifts gears into the really drab plot-heavy stuff with nary a respite for anything else and it starts becoming difficult to remember what I even liked about the show in the first place. So maybe I would really enjoy the first season which Sarex disliked...but chances are, I'd get halfway through the second before going "eeehhh...maybe later...and by 'later', I mean never".

Parentheses and quotation marks issues appear to be fixed. Yay, thanks!

As I said, the idea seemed good to me...in theory, but the execution felt rushed and kind of lousy - maybe if they had spent the last episode actually setting it up, or made it a two-parter, or...something. Something besides all our characters being grumpy at each other, a rapid-fire series of new characters being introduced, and long/drawn-out exposition dumps about stuff not previously mentioned or...really even on my radar as something to be of any interest at all. Heh, I nearly declared it "Noir-esque", but a ten second reflection later made me realize how much of an imbecile I'd have to be to say that. If Noir's handling of its character and story elements was a 2/10, then this episode score probably around a 5 for me, which is...yeah, it wasn't there, but Noir it is not.

I'd have to have watched Breaking Bad to understand your specific example completely, but I get the idea. I'm still not the type of person to be as affected by it as others, though - especially knowing that there are a number of shows where...I mean, I largely don't care about the plots of shows so long as there's nothing noticeably stupid or wrong with them (i.e. if I'm not explicitly annoyed by them), so if additional seasons primarily focus on that, then it's usually not a good time for me. Steven Universe would be important to me because it resolved long-standing character-driven mysteries and issues that had been hinted at since the very start of the show and they pertained to characters I cared deeply about, whereas...I watched the first season and a half of Better Call Saul and stopped in the middle of it - the first season drew me in with its more lighthearted, character-driven nature, then the second season started going full ANGRY DARK DRAMA and I completely lost interest, . Thoroughbreds and The Witch starring Anya Taylor-Joy are two of my favorite films...but whatever charm was there wore off when I disliked her in The Queen's Gambit and especially The Northman, so I'm kinda eh about her. Still will probably check it out, though. Also, nobody, not even me, has a good grip on my tastes, .

Cowbop Bebop, episode 5. Spike goes and talks to a lady from his past hitherto unmentioned, Faye is stupid and rushes on ahead of everyone else and gets caught, Spike has a non-Mexican standoff with a man from his past hitherto unmentioned who keeps some kind of crow-like bird on his shoulder and uses a katana. It didn't feel well setup and Vicious the crow-katana man was super lame, so I'd put it down as the worst episode so far. Trying to have some kind of character-driven plot isn't a bad idea, but c'mon, let's tighten it up, that just wasn't very good - Faye being a moron was the episode's only saving grace. That camcorder was my favorite character.

Growing up, eating big slabs of meat was never really my thing (I avoided ham, turkey, porchettas, hamburgers...really anything of that nature where you just have large chunks or slices of meat served to you), so that probably enters the equation a bit. I know I've mentioned upon a number of occasions the critical importance of protein, but I'm really more of a...rice and stir-fry kind of guy, where the different elements are flavored and balanced together, like @LadyCrimson said. As an adult now, yeah, I could eat a hamburger if I need to (...minus the bun, my issues with bread notwithstanding), or fry up a whole chicken thigh for myself...but it's still not really my preference. Even if I had a steak I liked, and I'm not certain that I like the cut of meat at all to begin with, it still wouldn't really be what I'd want to go to.

Eh...a huge part of my annoyance with cliffhangers is the fact that they're deliberately trying to rope me in for more - exactly my problem with what I mentioned above with trying to commit to multiple seasons of a show and it just never feeling...done. If I know there's no more, then even if it does end in a cliffhanger, it's not nearly as big of a deal - the work is finished, I can form my own thoughts on where it might've gone if I like or go read some fun fan theories, not nearly as big of a deal. I think it has to be both reeeaaally important to me as well as something where I have difficulty envisioning where it might've gone for me to really get into a fit about it ending like that. If Steven Universe had ended before the mystery surrounding Rose Quartz and the Great Diamond Authority was resolved, yeah, I probably wouldn't have been happy, so that's valid.

I've been intending to watch The Menu. I didn't have much interest, but it seems everyone I know is recommendin' it, so I figure I have to. Yeah, there is something nice knowing it's just a one-shot thing, even if it didn't get completed: no commitment as you said, just enjoy it for what it is, don't have to worry about a bunch more seasons being made and feeling pressured to keep watching it.

Mr. Lovecraft sure had a way with words: The Festival, my discovery courtesy of the game Signalis.

Title.