Gromnir

am pretty sure hummingbird "nectar" is just colored sugar water. step 1: boil water step 2: add sugar and stir until dissolved step 3: allow liquid to cool step 4: fill hummingbird feeder with "nectar." HA! Good Fun!

best we can say o' postman is it is our favorite tom petty movie. HA! Good Fun!

you just random picked links w/o reading, yes? "Supporters of the Equality Act claim that it will outlaw discrimination against transgender Americans. But, by altering the legal meaning of the word “sex” in civil rights law to include “gender identity,”, the law could backfire on women and girls, stripping them of important protections and putting them at physical risk. "In addition to putting female prisoners at-risk, if the Equality Act passes, it will: "Open women-only spaces (including locker rooms, battered women’s shelters, and bathrooms) to men. "Destroy women’s sports by requiring that biological males be allowed to compete with and against female athletes. "Limit freedom of speech for those who believe that biological sex is an immutable characteristic. "Threaten the rights of parents and doctors who do not approve of procedures to alter sex. "Force religious organizations to stop providing educational and other charitable services." is kinda a trend in a few o' your links. use scare tactics from extreme rare incidents to push a broader agenda. nevertheless, you no doubt thought it were meaningful to show a list o' unread articles which actual point to an "tiny" number of cases. accusations made by supposed department of corrections employee on a conservative radio show? ok. where is follow up? none? 7 acts o' sexual assault in england by transgender prisoners... over the course of eight years? your first linked article is noteworthy 'cause the accused were simultaneous a plaintiff in an aclu case where days after the lawsuit were filed regarding the alleged rape (note: no criminal charges were ever made) judge were to decide whether or not to dismiss a case which accused the idoc o' failing to provide adequate medical treatment for transgender patients while incarcerated. the judge denied efforts to dismiss and the rape lawsuit (again, no criminal charges ever filed) were voluntarily dismissed with prejudice. oh, and the usa today link is authored by https://lgbtbar.org/annual/conference-speakers/grace-detrevarah/ , a trans person and a VICTIM o' rape by male inmates, which you mighta' realized if you had bothered to read. nevertheless, thanks for the link, we learned o' grace who is working tireless to help educate people 'bout the difficulties trans people face, particular during incarceration. you (accidental) helped bring her to our attention, so... thanks? sheesh. HA! Good Fun!

only saw 'bout 20 minutes o' waterworld. seemed like a curious roadwarrior remake, but with the cha-ka kid robbed o' the razor boomerang now playing the role o' the chosen one and instead o' a desert post apoc wasteland, there were jet skis? am typical liking dennis hopper over-the-top performances, but from what little we saw, he were no humungus. HA! Good Fun!

HA! Good Fun!

tiny. however, spend extra money on prisoners is always gonna be a hard sell politically. sure, the state is custodial responsible for these individuals while they is incarcerated, but the majority o' the populace has little sympathy for prisoners. nevertheless, given how horrifying the conditions is in cdc facilities for men in ca, am thinking there is concern people will in fact begin to identify as trans in the hope they might be moved someplace less awful by pretending to be trans. is hard to imagine the level o' desperation it would take to fake trans identity and the abuse one needs suffer for such an admission in both male and female facilities, but am suspecting this might be part o' the reluctance on the part o' prison authorities and state legislators to change policy. has been almost a year since legislation passed and a mere two dozen transfers have occurred. so what kinda fear would drive a person to pretend trans to escape their current situation? is not as if fake trans inmates is gonna suffer less abuse than true trans. heck, am suspecting the fakers, if outed as fakes, would suffer even greater punishment from fellow inmates. but again, how terrible is their reality that inmates would fake trans in hopes o' a possible transfer? regardless, spend money on prisoners to make their incarceration less brutal is almost always a dead end. am nevertheless disappointed by the myopia regarding the faker possibility. recognizing some will pretend to be trans in the hope they might be transferred is legit, but such a reality should speak as a damning condemnation o' the current incarceration approach. HA! Good Fun! ps am agreeing with gd regarding the overincarceration o' non violent offenders, but politically, tough on crime is the winning position. look to the recent nyc mayoral race for one such example.

total number of trans inmates transferred as o' june 2021: 24. HA! Good Fun!

some gender bias at work in this thread. trans prisoners, significant outnumbered by women prisoners in a ca prison setting, is gonna be the folks we assume is most in danger from being forced into sex acts against their will by fellow inmates. not saying the reverse is impossible, but am thinking one reason why transfer numbers were initially so low is precise 'cause only the most desperate trans prisoners were gonna considers such a dangerous option. however, time passed and the nightmare stories o' forced geldings did not materialize. the trans prisoners is gonna be abused wherever they go, but it turns out the women population is not as bad as is the men. HA! Good Fun!

our insurance provider called us up to tell us we underpaid for home insurance in june, even though we paid the amount demanded at that time. explanation is the nameless and faceless underwriters decided the fire threat in our area were higher than previous realized, so they retroactive (?) increased our premiums by more than $100... on top o' the june increase which were more than $500 above what we paid last year. didn't help that initially the insurer were trying to make it sound as if we had made a mistake in june and underpaid. *sigh* y'know, we were gonna fight it, but it's too hot and am getting too old. we did explain how this kinda after the fact price hike did not make us want to continue our decades long relationship particular as we shopped around and discovered we could get cheaper with other providers. we were gonna keep 'em for at least our home residence, but our patience has evaporated. we will observe the recent widespread ca wildfires these past few years has caused all homeowner insurance premiums in our geographic area to rise, but our insurer has been worse than most. plus, since am now only having a handful o' properties insured with them, is clear they do not feel the need to cater to us. had gotten kinda accustomed to the first class treatment but am now an ordinary plebeian. HA! Good Fun!

today there were a hotfix for the bug which prevents players from being able to interact with vendors, which was one o' the reasons we stopped playing. so, that's good. everything else which is broken, such as oracles being fubar and numerous animal companion bugs and crusade glitches (pre and post drezen) remain. might give the beta a try now that we are able to converse with quest npcs reliably as well as buy and sell stuff. HA! Good Fun! ps it is current possible to choose oracle as long as it is not your level 1 choice and keeping in mind nature is still a broken mystery which will lead to you needing exit the level-up window. so, repeat and restate to be clear, oracle is doable as long as it isn't your starting class and recognizing you cannot take the nature mystery. am not sure if you may add nature via a mythic powha.

gonna give you benefit of doubt and assume you are confusing ben hur remakes. 1959 were remake o' 1925. HA! Good Fun! ps and there were a 1907 version, before amentep corrects us, but it were a short.

we could name a few more but ben-hur is the one which always leaps to mind when this issue is raised and you had that covered. weren't gonna quibble once the point were made. in gd's defense, am suspecting many folks aren't gonna realize a few remakes is remakes. stuff like little shop of horrors and insomnia? horror films get overlooked, so the thing and the fly is possible ignored. also, am knowing there is fans o' internal affairs, but the departed were superior in every way, but again, am suspecting at least a few folks don't know or forget the scorsese film is a remake. regardless, ben hur were actual more than enough for us. HA! Good Fun!

please keep in mind parkland is in florida. HA! Good Fun!

we avoid emotes, but conan's response to thulsa doom bs works for us. HA! Good Fun!

good thinking. better than a gun, chemical repellant to be used against would-be hijackers on the road and for those potential home invasion nogoodniks while not travelling. HA! Good Fun!

just out of curiosity, what is it about wearing a mask which offends you? from our pov is a minor inconvenience, but am knowing some persons have.... philosophical reservations. am not gonna reply, so feel free to respond sans judgement, but am genuine interested to hear what evokes such a reaction ("Well… I am NOT going to do it.") to cdc guidance in light o' the transmissibility o' the delta variant and the current (as well as projected) increases in hospitalizations and deaths. spreads asymptomatic, so... obviously is no need to explain self, but am admitted curious. HA! Good Fun!

pass out the tissues for those who suffer muppets version ... maybe need some kinda weird factoid to make this relevant? hmmm. is s'posed the longest title ((hey won't you play) another somebody done somebody wrong song) o' any single to reach number 1 on the billboard top 100. HA! Good Fun!

nepotism offends our sensibilities. nevertheless, am thinking is kinda kewl a story so much focused on egon spengler's grandkids should be directed by a reitman and that a bernstein is contributing to the score. HA! Good Fun!

la law? well, tng had drumhead, and even got gene freaking simmons to guest for it. 'course the genuine star o' that show were the vision o' the future. tng (especial initial) were, even more than tos, less 'bout characters and more 'bout imagination stretching stories; outer limits stuff but with a regular cast. data didn't develop as a character were not a problem for roddenberry 'cause his real contribution were bringing assimov's positronic brain material to trek. the idea of data were more important than the character. who were the star o' wet soil if not the crystalline whatsitz? don't even get us started on 11001001. as such is no surprise tng remained dedicated episodic for the first couple seasons while gene's health remained good enough for him to maintain day-to-day control. 'course the problem is writers and actors and fans no doubt saw different than roddenberry and season 1 helped make obvious a bunch o' ciphers for a cast were not the best approach. HA! Good Fun!

lieutenant barclay grew more as a person than any cast regular. took how many seasons and the finale for picard to join the card game? required a locutus plot to force stoic picard to face personal conflict. once roddenberry were gone a few o' the female characters got better writing. even so, data, who appeared to be designed specific for growth, changed little. have a non fan watch a rando season two episode then a season seven episode and then tell you which were the matured data. nine regulars were needed so they could rotate character focus to keep the show from seeming staleness. HA! Good Fun! ps sounds like am slamming tng. ain't true. as we noted, some o' our all-time favorite tv were tng, but the writers o' tng faced serious self-imposed obstacles. they nevertheless managed to somehow come up with new material for years, squeezing everything possible outta an episodic format w/o the possibility o' real character growth from the main cast. we can't imagine trying such today.

colin farrell sounding as if he knows what is a "paradox." now that is acting. earlier article "Of the 20 addresses visited most by its dedicated enforcement teams, more than half were home to middle- or high-schoolers who were identified as targets." ... "Today, the Sheriff’s Office has a 30-person intelligence-led policing section with a $2.8 million budget, run by a former senior counterterrorism analyst who was assigned to the National Counterterrorism Center. The No. 2 is a former Army intelligence officer. "Twenty analysts scour police reports, property records, Facebook pages, bank statements and surveillance photos to help deputies across the agency investigate crimes, according to the agency’s latest intelligence-led policing manual." ... "“This reduction in property crime has a direct, positive impact on the lives of the citizens of Pasco County and, for that, we will not apologize,” one of the statements said. “Our first and primary mission is to serve and protect our community and the Intelligence Led Policing philosophy assists us in achieving that mission.” "But Pasco’s drop in property crimes was similar to the decline in the seven-largest nearby police jurisdictions. Over the same time period, violent crime increased only in Pasco." ... however, if you are looking for a bright spot... "Pasco is an overwhelmingly white county, and the program did not appear to disproportionately target people based on race." HA! Good Fun!

our pov is similar but different. it isn't as if nicholas cage sudden became a bad actor. doesn't shock us when he does good work. nicholas cage is an indiscriminate actor. doesn't shock us at all when he does a bad movie. am recalling kick-ass were the first movie cage did after his taxes problem. is one o' the more unique superhero films and am thinking cage were actual underappreciated in that movie 'cause so many fixate on chloë moretz. nothing stopped cage from doing good movies save for fact he stopped seeming to care if he did bad movies and so he got a rep as kinda a b-movie punchline. cage alone will not sell us on a movie, so am invariably waiting for multiple other people to offer themselves as guinea pigs before we consider wasting a couple hours on a nicholas cage movie. have heard good things 'bout pig. will watch eventual. HA! Good Fun!

star trek, unlike star wars, tried to have a science-based explanation for the seeming implausible. q was a useful tool for ignoring such. if you had a good story idea which just didn't make sense from a science pov, then make it a q episode fixed the problem. even better, you got an all-powerful walking and talking deus ex option who is not some kinda remote and ineffable being but rather one o' the more annoyingly human characters in the star trek universe. ironic, the reason the character were drek from a star trek pov is exact what made him useful/necessary. q were a clever way for adding magic into the star trek universe, 'cause he were an extreme example o' arthur c. clarke's third law. can't emasculate q with science 'cause explanation is he is just too advanced to be explained. regardless, am having no idea o' the current state o' trek. as noted, haven't watched discovery or picard. that said, the last thing we would want were a return to roddenberry's utopian vision (presumptive sans the misogamy) with the federation existing as some kinda big happy family o' well-intentioned space explorers sans any o' the predictable interpersonal problems o' a real family. can't even imagine writing such and is a real testament to the trek writers how after some growing pains in season one they managed to put together so many excellent episodes. HA! Good Fun! ps have mentioned previous how netflix were a godsend for our trek viewing. each trek series had multiple amazing episodes, often with large gaps 'tween great episodes. no dozens of discs with a streaming service. and if somebody reminds us o' an episode we maybe shoulda' appreciated but didn't, is easy to use streaming menus to convenient watch a episode. am not having the patience o' amenetep to rewatch all o' tng, but thanks to streaming, is ez to avoid such a slog. trek, for us, exists ala carte. thank goodness.

hmmm. might wanna rewatch the part where riker savors jellico coming to him for help. has been years since we watched, but am recalling riker is pretty damned petty considering, as we mentioned earlier, it turns out jellico were right. now do something like that every week. ah, the internet never forgets while roddenberry is alive, the jellico and riker thing happens only if aliens is covert taking over the federation or something similar. and show actual torture? doubtful. keep in mind the maquis/federation conflict is also in large part philosophical, and we is beat to death with the philosophy. the philosophy is just an excuse for the conflict with members o' same crew sniping at each other every week and the federation being shown as subject to corruption, mistake and conflict. roddenberry dying were a sea change for trek. HA! Good Fun! ps we did have something similar to jellico and riker happen while roddenberry were alive, but the guy playing the role o' jellico were a capitalist from the 20th century. season one "neutral zone" episode.

to be fair, conflict is at the heart of any drama. once you fix the ideal, and you remove inter and intrapersonal conflict, it becomes difficult to create new material which is compelling. you have removed obvious channels of conflict. do a movie or a limited series with largely fixed characters who is as close to objective good as is possible? no problem. try and do that with a long running series in 2021 without it getting stale fast. also, am suspecting cbs/paramount isn't necessarily to blame as is hard to imagine most studios being sold on a white bread kinda approach to trek storytelling in a post 1990s reality. and to be fair, cbs had multiple shows with idealized characters being swell every week for years. functional, dr. quinn medicine woman and touched by an angel was spiritual successors to star trek in more ways than were ds9. both shows cbs and both released contemporaneous with ds9. the notion of a genuine utopian society with a group o' objective good people doing good deeds on a weekly basis is a tough sell when such is s'posed to be a starting point as 'posed to the goal. am not seeing a problem with tos star trek and pre locutus tng storytelling, particular in a scifi movie or limited series which focuses more episodic. also, pale moonlight and visitor from ds9 is all-time trek favorites for us and am confident neither gets made by rodenberry... sure as hell the recent mentioned tng chain of command doesn't get made 'til after rodenberry is gone, though am suspecting amentep sees such as the moment the wheels o' the bus went flying off into the void. HA! Good Fun!