majestic

Not that this is related at all, but every now and then there's a really terrible looking documentary on TV where we can see a day in the life of an Australian customs officer doing their job, and I have to say, every time I'm accidentially exposed to one of these for a short time before I can switch the channel, the only thing that comes to mind that yes, these people are only doing their jobs, but really, either all of them are arseholes or they only follow the arseholes around because it makes for more interesting TV. Probably the latter. edit: The trial wasn't so hard to avoid. Not living in an English speaking nation and not bothering with social media helps a whole lot, though.

I have one comment: I haven't watched any of the videos, read anything about the trial, followed any tweets or happend across any other social media post of or about that trial, and the only thing that coiuld save me from being called a troglodyte by Ms. Lewinsky was reading a headline on the verdict the other day in the paper, and I do not think that counts against her definition. She then goes on about how everyone who is not a troglodyte in her eyes is guilty of making the world a worse place. So, dear forum posters, which one are you? Are you a troglodyte, like me, living in a cave, being of a lesser ethnicity than Ms. Lewinsky, or are you a voyeur guilty of making the world the most toxic of places?

Did you cry butterfly tears too? That was by far and large, maybe not a joke, perhaps, but also not really a serious posting. Given your other reactions to Star Trek, and Discovery, I did not expect you to hate it, although in my own little world I don't quite understand how anyone can watch the entire first season an not feel at least a whole lot of disdain for the complete nonsense that was pulled out of Alex Kurtzman's arse, because while I thought that Discovery was just plain terrible, Star Trek: Picard redefined bad TV show writing. Everyone and their pet dog is out of character, then there's the ludicrous plot stolen straight from Mass Effect, an ending rivaling the nonsense happening at the end of the Mass Effect storyline, a mechanical space Cthulhu and a Borg plot that goes nowhere and has absolutely no point, and that is all simply something where we're not yet even looking at a complete disregard for Star Trek lore and canon, something that grinds my gears in particular. Borg do not die when exposed to the vaccuum of space, that was shown before, you absolute hack frauds, but we need to Seven of Nine to have a sad over something, and we had the idea to include the Borg in this show although we have no idea why they should be there, but fans like the Borg, so let's put the Borg in! They don't do anything, they have no point, there's nothing except the desire to have Seven of Nine yell THIS IS SPARTA at a Romulan and kick her down a shaft in a Borg cube that followed Star Wars' design philosophy of having absolutely unsecured yawning chasms. Someone should tell Alex Kurtzman that nobody forces him to set his storyline into an existing franchise if you don't like it, and they even wizened up a little by setting the second season in a parallel reality/alternative timeline. Which turned out to be hilariously terrible all on its own, with terrible writing to match, but at least Picard gets to tell flowery dialogue that used to be a joke on TNG played on the Ferengi, and now actually meant seriously, and Q just joins in. Welcome to the end of the road not taken, indeed. The road not taken. Except it never ends up being about a road not taken, that was just some flowery pseudo-cool dialogue thrown in there so Q can sound all mysterious and ominous, and then Picard doesn't borrow from Mass Effect, but from Tiberian Sun. The beauty of Star Trek is slain upon thy high places: how are the mighty fallen!

Yoda's explanations in Empire and the whole point of being an enlightened, illuminated part of the force is completely moot when a baby of his species that's unable to talk or otherwise express anything is so powerful in the force it stops oncoming massive animals dead in their tracks and does whatever else is necessary from the little force user bugger. Hastly added explanation at the end of season two that he underwent training already doesn't help. So basically Yoda just told Luke a bunch of nonsense, because none of what he said is apparently a requirement for being able to lift X-Wings out of swamps. He was just born with that ability. /rant But hey, at least the series didn't resurrect Palpatine and took a major dump all over Vader's redemption. No, I didn't mean the fact that he just wears his helmet all the time, that's just silly, but then again, it's Star Wars, so a little base silly is fine. I mean close ups and long takes of Pedro Pascal wearing his helmet. These really don't work without facial expressions, but as I said, this is apparently a very me thing. Then there's also the little detail that the series tried hard not to be all about fanservice, but what fanservice does happen is even more ridiculous than the one in Rogue One. You're dead to me, old man.

Some (all?) of them have English subtitles.

I thought the Mandalorian was brought down by trying to ape spaghetti westerns but with a guy in a helmet, thus lacking an integral part of what made Leone's long takes on faces work, but I have found that this is something that did not bother anyone else I know who watched the show. I also hated how baby Yoda basically invalidated the real Yoda from Empire, but again, that apparently was also only a "me" thing. On prequels, I definitely did not enjoy watching Better Call Saul because all the interesting parts of the show were forgone conclusions. Prequels are generally a bad idea unless they can answer questions that are actually interesting, or are set very far in the past in a setting that's detailed enough that certain points can be of an in-universe historic interest. Point in case, I really liked the Silmarillion. Yes, even with the dry, more textbook like writing. That's because Middle Earth was interesting and detailed enough to want to know more about it's history. Meanwhile, in Star Wars, for instance, I never once asked myself the question "How did Palpatine become the Emperor?" because who cares, and likewise, who cares how Jimmy McGill became Saul Goodman?

I forgot to mention that I of course watched last week's Komi Can't Majestic-ate. As far as episodes go, this one was okay. The first part was almost completely silent, and lo, the series works much better without that horrible voice acting in it. I really should just turn off the sound when watching. That said, with each passing week Komi's ongoing predicament(s) become(s) more and more ridiculous. One step forward, ten steps back. Just let her at least talk to Tadano. Sigh.

You're far too optimistic. Fitting for watching Star Trek, I guess, just not for that Star Trek.

Nah, he is no Gibbs. In case anyone has not seen the clip:

My father called and told me someone's remote controlling his computer. A minor heart attack and some blame-throwing later I went over and was properly confused that someone would hijack his computer to play Trailmakers on it. Turns out it was my nephew who used Steam's Stream-Play feature. Heh.

Reboot: The Guardian Code was one of the funniest series I've ever watched, but none of the comedy was intentional. The Sourcerer is villain of the century material though, and it has Nicholas Lea in the second season.

This trailer feels an awful lot like this:

No, El getting bullied over her country bumpkin presentation.

Stranger Things 4, Episode 1: Had to pause in the middle for a bit. Stuff hits a little too close to home there.

Blocked for copyright reasons. Oh, wait, that is probably just me.

A pity I'm going to watch this eventually anyway. *sigh*

Maybe, I barely paid attention to little Picard's little family drama scene. In that case I'll take the comments back and apply them to something else that was pretty stupid in the show, there's plenty of it.

I don't remember it mentioned at all in the second season, so that's either fans making excuses for a dumb show being dumb, or the dumb producers and writers are making dumb excuses for their dumbness. I'm fine with both explanations, really. Star Trek: Strange New Worlds, episode 4. The entire episode was an exercise in rehashing old plot points. Anyway, show continues to be okay enough for me to not hate it. It's the best it can do anyway, so... guess job well done so far.

No, you're not. MI2 is one of these things that an avid film connaisseur simply must have watched. It must be experienced to be believed. Or in other words, I have no idae how this became a film series after the second film. That was so bad it should have ended the series and derailed Tom Cruise's career, but curiously enough neither did happen.

Fixed that for you.

No, I don't. Guess that was still too difficult. Okay let's try this some other way. This is a Mars bar. A Mars bar will last you for roughly half an hour worth of cardio exercise. Now, on to something our McDonald's sells here in Austria. Yeah, so this is a bowl of, well, lettuce and carrots. This actually weighs more than the Mars bar (70g vs. 51g), but will last you for... oh, well, walking to the toilet and back, basically. Now keep in mind that we're not talking about McDonald's Big Ceasar's Salad here, because that one will last you for an hour of cardio and you're better off eating a burger. Yes, they do, and they exercise upwards 30 hours a week, and are amongst the fittest and strongest athletes in the world. So, apparently, it can be your job to exercise and participate in competitions, and still have a good deal of body fat through eating habits alone. Hence, now, one very simple question: Why? Should that not be impossible by this magical exercise = weight loss formula that's been spouted here? The answer: Because consuming energy is much easier than exercising it off. You cannot fix obesity by making someone excercise, because in order to become obese in the first place, your kaloric intake per day must exceed your energy requirements by such an amount that you cannot realisticaly expect someone to exercise it off, let alone lose weight by exercise alone. Hence: Exercise helps, but not without fixing the underlying issue. Eating properly is how you prevent becoming obese. Changing your nutritional habits and going hungry is how you lose weight when you already are obese. Exercise can help with both, but it's not going to fix any ongoing issues without changing your eating habits. It will, however, improve your health and wellbeing in the long run, and as such is a good idea, regardless of anything else. Exercise will only help you burn off excess body weight if you're in the process of gaining a little and it's enough to whack your energy balance back to normal, or a little under your daily energy requirements. That's a very narrow corridor, and even that is better fixed by fixing what you eat, not how you burn it off. Can't change physics. That's the thing with math and numbers, you know.

Well since the last discussion used words, and words on their own are apparently too difficult for some people here, let's use pictures. Look at these two: How much do you think these two lardasses here exercise per week, and would you argue it's intensive or rather relaxed? Assuming they exercise at all, that is. And yes, that's pretty much a trick question.

The Flying Spaghetti Monster is the creator of Heaven and Earth, you heathen. Its noodly appendages are not seen by mere mortals.

So this is the point in my life where I'm starting to think that Steins;Gate wasn't the bottom of the barrel for terrible ideas...