Chris B

I quite like Evil Uno and am looking forward to him and Mox

Yeah, lads, all shite, innit?

Blue Jean (cinema)

Brilliantly written, directed and performed. It works all the better for the tight focus on the lead, because it really gets across how much she has to lose - and that makes it sickeningly tense, to the point where it feels more like a horror film at times. But it's also beautiful and hopeful at times. Really impressive stuff.

Puss in Boots: The Last Wish (cinema)

Same as @Devon Malcolm, I really don't like the Shrek franchise, and had no intention of seeing it. Then I saw this tweet/clip and was sold. And really glad I went to see it. It's a lot of fun and smartly written. 

There are a lot of protests about Low Traffic Neighbourhoods in my borough and across London as well - which seems to be fairly closely tied to the 15-min-cities protests. There's an element of understandable frustration to this, but it's been really amped up, and you definitely get some attitudes in there that it's all about taking cars out of the equation for some nefarious control purposes - so anything that aligns with that must be for the same purpose. So climate change must be a lie, because it backs up the removal of cars.

16 minutes ago, BomberPat said:

Though, at the same time, it wouldn't surprise me in the least if those companies were quietly paying for adverts in all the right places and giving donations to the politicians who'll give this sort of thing credence. Another problem with conspiracies circulating in fairly closed loops on social media is that it amplifies the lack of empathy that comes with algorithmically curated newsfeeds - if we both see the same clip on TV of a news story about "15 Minute Cities", we might come to different conclusions about what it means, but the source material was the same, so we can at least in theory work backwards and understand how we came to those conclusions, but I can't see the precise configuration of Tweets, recommended videos, and "you might also be interested in..." headlines that make up your newsfeed and influence your thinking. 

A friend of mine talked about how Russia has played the cyber-ops game, and did so in a way that made more sense than most conspiracy theories tend to. The idea wasn't that it all started as a full plan, but was more like spread-betting. They put some money into different approaches to destabilisation and spying, and saw the results in terms of how effective social media was as a dividing tool - and how adding constant petrol to the fire meant that you'd basically end up causing all kinds of internal issues for organisations. So, you end up with astro-turfing all over the place, convincing more and more people that the real enemy is within, and it ends up causing genuine destabilisation and difficulty. To a certain extent, it's weaponising the attitudes that lead people to believe in conspiracy theories, and embedding stuff deep - because it turns out, all a lot of people needed was a gentle shove.

1 hour ago, Michael_3165 said:

I've been around long enough to be long in the tooth w terms.

Then you're not an expert anymore. You arguably used to be an expert, but you're out of date and irrelevant.

1 hour ago, Michael_3165 said:

I specialise in mental illness not autism, hence my point. 

And yet, here you are pontificating.

Even without watching, it's almost like Cody comes across as more of a star when booked as an equal to Roman Reigns rather than QT Marshall.

@Big'Olympic_Hero'Pete Could I suggest sticking that behind a spoiler tag or something? I completely understand how close to your family that's happened, and that it's something you've had to all deal with, but it's also a genuinely horrendous story to suddenly get in a thread like this.

On the they/them, thing - a small trick I used to make it feel more natural was to treat the sentence as if it's about someone who isn't there and whose gender you don't know. Like "I've invited a new friend round for dinner" - "Cool, what time will they be here?". Doesn't work every time for me, but it makes sense in terms of it feeling more natural in the sentence.

As far as the game goes, some people pointed to how Rowling appears to take general support of Potter stuff as proof her views are supported. Which she's not said directly, but the references to support and money make it a pretty easy inference.

That said, I've seen less vitriol from trans people/allies, and far more from people who bought the game going "look, I'm not transphobic and I don't agree with her, but it's just a game, and she's rich anyway, and what about the hard work the poor developers put into it, and why do you have such a problem with it, you're the real bigots, this is a free speech thing, and really, the left have gone too far".

Sniffs a lot for a strangely aggressive, paranoid man, doesn't he?

It's probably on the Benoit documentary.

I think the idea behind it was to have it be that Hunter underestimated him, or that Cena overcame an opponent who's supposedly stronger than he was in some ways. Like, logically, I don't know that it's the worst thing - I think the attempt was genuinely to try and get people to dislike HHH over it, rather than bury Cena. But it was exactly the wrong time and place for it, so it just made both of them come off worse. Wasn't HHH also beginning to go tweener/babyface as well? Which just continued it being a terrible idea.

5 minutes ago, Factotum said:

To be fair, I don't think any film made of his stuff really ever does the books justice. I know he can be hit and miss, but his stuff really only works from a singular voice and I don't think film can really capture that.

I don't know about 'doing justice', but I thought the American Psycho film was significantly more interesting than the book.

1 hour ago, Louch said:

Dynamite sets itself such a high standard that even shows that are just watchable and not offensive get tarred as terrible.

I think it's also been a week where WWE has clearly hit a years-long high-point in terms of setting up and paying off a storyline - it's one thing when even a subpar show is still the best show of the week, but another when a subpar week makes it a less interesting show than the competitor.

Decent but unmemorable show. The Darby/Joe match was the most I've enjoyed a Darby match in a long, long time. Joe just looked like a monster and like he *meant* everything he did. The opener was solid as well.

I love Jade Cargill, but the baddies shit has been awful. Red Velvet's game for bumping like a good'un though, so it was a decent match, but I just didn't care. If the formation of the Baddies had felt like more of a big deal, this might have felt like more of one. As it is, it feels like they're just killing time until Statlander returns.

Some slightly jarring pre-tapes in the middle of things, with MJF going from a backstage brawl to calm and carrying around a briefcase of money.

Eh, it was fine. Hoping they rediscover the gear they're missing at the moment. Looking forward to Omega being back.

42 minutes ago, Keith Houchen said:

I’m unfamiliar with the phrase, but a rudimentary Google search makes me think in this day and age of bot farms and misinformation, you can’t rule out your thought!

Astroturfed = pretend grass root movements, making out they're far more widely believed than they actually are. They make a lot of noise with a lot of fake accounts. Often used to normalise hatred of immigrants, women and queer people, and also to make Zack Snyder movies.

1 hour ago, BomberPat said:

There's been a load of guff among those circles on Twitter lately about Stephen King being racist and problematic for writing about racist characters and child abuse, because people are either too thick or too desperate to have a Big Reckon to realise that you're generally not meant to empathise with the racists and child abusers in his books, whatever you might think about how clumsily he somehow writes them.

I'm as big a Stephen King fan as you'll find, but he's also a well-meaning gent of a certain age, and he's done some stuff that reads awkwardly in the past (he's had multiple black characters that have interacted weirdly with a secondary voice that's more stereotypically black in a really weird way, and the finale of IT is what people keep going back to on the child thing - while it's awkward as fuck, I also think it's a very different piece than ). What I think sets him apart is that he does seem to take things on board and genuinely try to improve, which is a rarity.

The first single I owned was the free record you got when you joined the He-Man fan club. It came along with a decoder and a fan letter confirming your secret identity (mine was CALMOS).

I was bought some albums in the meantime, but it wasn't really the same as going out to buy something that was in the charts. The first one I paid actual money for was years later - and it was the same song I had my first kiss too, shifting a girl called Yvonne at a disco when I'd just turned 12. Meat Loaf's I'd Do Anything For Love (but I won't do that). 

I loved it so much that when I finally got a CD player a couple of weeks later, my first album purchase was obvious - and I played the absolute shit out of it. Still a hugely fun, over the top album, and I can still happily listen to it from start to finish.

1 hour ago, ScottishSiren said:

I'm not the same person anymore. Tommyboi is dead. Emily lives and is a good person.

That's a hell of a line. Hats off to you, Emily, and good luck.

8 minutes ago, Onyx2 said:

Either:

ScottishSiren has seen this transformation and wants to inform us how an old poster is getting on.

As long as the pictures are posted with permission, that's cool.

That nightclub in Glasgow that shut off the feed just before the Wrestlemania main event.

3 minutes ago, Chest Rockwell said:

Facto - Whilst a bit of a shitbag, I'm not aware that Harmon has done anything nearly as bad. Have I missed something?

Harmon sexually harrassed Megan Ganz, a writer on Community some time ago. He acknowledged it and apologised publicly - which she accepted publicly, calling 'a masterclass in apologising'. I'm not saying 'well, that's all perfectly alright then', but it's a rarity that it all goes like this. Links to the apology and her talking about it afterwards here:

https://time.com/5100019/dan-harmon-megan-ganz-sexual-harassment-apology/

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/13/arts/dan-harmon-megan-ganz.html

Basically, everyone kayfabes it and it works fantastically. Enormously fun show.  I got my book signed, and he stayed in character for that too - so I was careful about how I said 'I believe you know someone who made a movie called 'Possum', that I very much enjoyed as well'.

He said 'Ah, yeah, that. It was alright, I 'spose. I'd have done it differently, but what can you do?.'

2 minutes ago, DavidB6937 said:

It does say they use Hermes though so you'll either never receive it or find it on the roof.

2 hours ago, SuperBacon said:

I've seen these on Facebook and the guy has really good reviews, so I need one or some of you nerds to tell me it its worth it. 

https://www.nbelectronix.com/product-page/i12-tws-wireless-bluetooth-5-0-earphones

"But SuperBacon with a bit of time and a YouTube walkthro...." NO! It will not happen.

I assume he's just put an emulator in a case and cost him twenty quid, but I'm fine with that.

1.) Good deal?

2.) Can I just plug it in to my TV and play? Please don't tell me I have to download or upload anything as I really CBA.

Cheers lads.

1 - I'd go by reviews from people that have bought that specific one, as the quality can vary dramatically. I bought a handheld emulator from Droix for £130, and was very, very happy with it, so in terms of price point and what it's promising, it looks like it should basically be fine.

2 - In terms of games on it, etc, it should be fine, yes. The way it worked with my emulator was that they were loaded onto a micro-SD card, along with an easy navigation system. When I chose one, it loaded, and that was it. All the games were ready to go. I downloaded some specific extra ones, but that was it. Had issues with very, very few games (mainly N64 ones, due to control mapping and some slight delays).

I've also loaded an emulator onto the Steam Deck, and it works really nicely - few things to figure out in terms of controls, but it basically works out. Could be more intuitive, but it's fun.

I got a Steam Deck the other week. Outside of a small emulator, it's the first games console I've bought since the Wii, and I'm really enjoying it. I had a mid-range laptop, so I'd been doing some gaming, but just being able to pick up and play makes such a difference - and the fact that the games don't just fill up my hard drive.

One thing that's rather impressed me - I downloaded the Steam Link app onto my Fire Stick, and it lets me stream onto the TV while I'm playing. We don't have a great connection, but it still works pretty well. There's a very slight lag with the controls and the picture quality is a bit less good... but it's far from unplayable and still looks decent enough. I'm unlikely to use it much, but it wasn't something I was expecting to be able to do. 

Skinamarink (cinema)

I loved this, but it absolutely won't be for everyone. It's experimental, abstract, has a grain filter smacked over it, the sound changes with every shot change, and it's all about kids living through an unexplained nightmare. The majority of the film is looking at piles of lego and there's constant white noise, to the point where I'm not sure if I dosed off for a minute once or twice.

However, as sheer, dense atmosphere goes, I loved it. It's apparently come out of a youtube series of short films visualising people's nightmares, and this was a repeated one from kids - being alone in your house, but the doors have vanished and there are noises. 

If it appeals, I'd probably recommend the cinema for this one if you can - it's immersive and weird, and not knowing how long is left or being able to pause it are fairly important here. 

Enys Men (cinema)

This ended up being an unexpected double-bill of narratively ambiguous, experimentally shot and recorded films. This one is slow and circular and sort of a folk ghost story - it's got a genuine sense of eeriness, and is deliberately ambiguous about... pretty much everything.

I think, if I'd seen it the day before Skinamarink rather than the day after, I'd have liked it more. As it was, I liked it a lot, but it was too tonally similar to watch so quickly after. A bit like having the same unusual type of meal two days in a row - you end up comparing them more than you would have otherwise. If I'd seen them the other way around, I might have liked this more and Skinamarink less. But it was still very much my kind of thing, and I definitely enjoyed it.