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Random Bits Not Worthy of their Own Thread...

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  • DoctorDoomDoctorDoom Posts: 2,586
    mwhitt80 said:

    What role do you think of when you think about Bill Paxton's career?

    My wife said the "guy from Twister".

    Mine will always be Chet; even more than Hudson. He is and always will be Chet.

    For me, it'll be John Garrett.

    Also, I need to watch the Training Day show now.
  • bralinatorbralinator Posts: 5,967

    mwhitt80 said:

    What role do you think of when you think about Bill Paxton's career?

    My wife said the "guy from Twister".

    Mine will always be Chet; even more than Hudson. He is and always will be Chet.

    For me, it'll be John Garrett.

    Also, I need to watch the Training Day show now.
    When I recall Bill Paxton, I think of Weird Science, Aliens, A Simple Plan, and Frailty.
  • mwhitt80mwhitt80 Posts: 4,608
    Chet. He's Chet, dangit.
  • mwhitt80mwhitt80 Posts: 4,608
    edited April 2017
    Ok I finally got to play catch up on some movies.
    Captain America Civil War - it was ok. Black Panther, (Gi)Ant-man and especially Spiderman were real treats, but the rest of the movie was fine to forgettable.

    Doctor Strange - I really liked this; it was different and fun.

    Deadpool - I was surprised at how much I liked the movie. The phone booth scene cracked me up.
  • mwhitt80mwhitt80 Posts: 4,608
    Next on my thoughts worth not sharing

    The Barves are smoldering dumpster fire, that are so unwatchable it has stunk out my desire to visit the new stadium.

    I came up with a new book title while making up a story for my daughter: Werewolves in the Garden.
    It will not be set in Queso's World (Queso Problema)
  • nweathingtonnweathington Posts: 6,736
    mwhitt80 said:

    I came up with a new book title while making up a story for my daughter: Werewolves in the Garden.

    Have you read The Wolves of Willoughby Chase? Might be a good one for her.
  • DARDAR Posts: 1,128
    I just read that Avatar 2 is being released in 2020. It's been delayed several times. I liked the movie, but for a 2 billion grossing film it doesn't seem to have a hold on pop culture.
  • nweathingtonnweathington Posts: 6,736
    DAR said:

    I just read that Avatar 2 is being released in 2020. It's been delayed several times. I liked the movie, but for a 2 billion grossing film it doesn't seem to have a hold on pop culture.

    Make it an animated feature, and I'm there. Otherwise... enh.
  • RedRight88RedRight88 Posts: 2,207
    I'm looking into launching a Patreon at some point in the next two weeks. This is mainly due to the fact that I have been to the movies six times already this year (by the time I hit that many movies last year, it was July) and I also need to start beefing up my back stock of trades to review again.

    Also in case, you were wondering, yes there will be rewards fro requesting a comic or movie to review. So, if you want to force me to see Baywatch or the Emoji movie...You might get your chance.
  • mwhitt80mwhitt80 Posts: 4,608
    DAR said:

    I just read that Avatar 2 is being released in 2020. It's been delayed several times. I liked the movie, but for a 2 billion grossing film it doesn't seem to have a hold on pop culture.

    I remember a lot of the conversation when it was released being that it was visually amazing, but not something that would be talked ever be talked about.

    Avatar is a movie that isn't special outside of a 3d setting. So the conversation ends with its theater release.
  • mwhitt80mwhitt80 Posts: 4,608

    mwhitt80 said:

    I came up with a new book title while making up a story for my daughter: Werewolves in the Garden.

    Have you read The Wolves of Willoughby Chase? Might be a good one for her.
    I've never heard of that. I'm going to check it out. We are reading Mary Poppins Opens the Door.


    We needed to trap a werewolf to chase off the garden gnomes because they were eating all the princess's rutabagas. Turns out werewolves like to eat garden gnomes (at least according to my daughter).
  • nweathingtonnweathington Posts: 6,736
    mwhitt80 said:

    Turns out werewolves like to eat garden gnomes (at least according to my daughter).

    Duh, I thought everyone knew that.
  • nweathingtonnweathington Posts: 6,736
    Thinking about it a bit more, how bad does your gnome infestation have to get before you resort to bringing in werewolves? I mean, if it came down to werewolves or no rutabagas, I'd be perfectly fine if I never ate another rutabaga in my life. In fact, that would be a great excuse for never having to eat rutabagas. “Sorry, mom. I guess we'll have to find something else to eat that actually tastes good. Or would you rather I get lycanthropy?”
  • nweathingtonnweathington Posts: 6,736
    Rutabagas are actually a running joke in our house. Whenever the kids would complain about dinner, or repetitively ask what was for dinner, or ask for a snack too close to mealtime, we'd threaten them with rutabagas.
  • mwhitt80mwhitt80 Posts: 4,608
    edited April 2017

    Rutabagas are actually a running joke in our house. Whenever the kids would complain about dinner, or repetitively ask what was for dinner, or ask for a snack too close to mealtime, we'd threaten them with rutabagas.

    I'm with your kids btw. They aren't quite brussel sprouts, but they are in the same tier.

    I used rutabagas because she's 3 and it's funny to say.

    On a serious note when my daughter realized rabbits might eat the cabbage we planted she wanted to get more cats to "scare them away". She takes thieving out of her garden very seriously. So to her the threat of rutabaga loss was justification for putting a werewolf in the garden.

    These are Princess Abigail stories though so her werewolf is friends with Sasquatch, Piggy, Sneaky Squirrel, and the family of bears that live in the jungle near the house.
  • nweathingtonnweathington Posts: 6,736
    mwhitt80 said:

    Rutabagas are actually a running joke in our house. Whenever the kids would complain about dinner, or repetitively ask what was for dinner, or ask for a snack too close to mealtime, we'd threaten them with rutabagas.

    I'm with your kids btw. They aren't quite brussel sprouts, but they are in the same tier.

    I used rutabagas because she's 3 and it's funny to say.

    On a serious note when my daughter realized rabbits might eat the cabbage we planted she wanted to get more cats to "scare them away". She takes thieving out of her garden very seriously. So to her the threat of rutabaga loss was justification for putting a werewolf in the garden.

    These are Princess Abigail stories though so her werewolf is friends with Sasquatch, Piggy, Sneaky Squirrel, and the family of bears that live in the jungle near the house.
    It's true, rutabaga is the Walla Walla, Washington of the vegetable kingdom.

    My daughter loves Brussels sprouts... but only when they're cooked a certain way. We soak them in Balsamic vinegar, garlic, salt, pepper, and a bit of honey, then pan roast them. They're quite tasty that way.

    Sounds like Princess Abigail likes to hang with a pretty rough crowd. Except Piggy. But every gang has its squealer.
  • mwhitt80mwhitt80 Posts: 4,608
    You would think so, but Sasquatch just walks around helping wild animals in the jungle, the bear family pretty much just helps each other pick stuff up (I hate making up bear family stories but they make a 3yr old laugh), we've not had many werewolf stories (he's brand new), and sneaky Squirrel is a dirt bag that steals stuff
    Piggy rides shotgun in princess Abigail's racecar and gets her out of tickets from Sheriff Ranger. The racecar stories are more like Yogi Bear meets Smokey and the Bandit.
  • mwhitt80mwhitt80 Posts: 4,608
    Nice pun work btw. I'm a man of phrasing.
  • bralinatorbralinator Posts: 5,967
    If you read & enjoyed Starlight by Mark Millar, then this piece of casting news for the lead role may please you. Personally, I think he'd be great in the lead.

  • bralinatorbralinator Posts: 5,967
    If you read & enjoyed Starlight by Mark Millar, then this piece of casting news for the lead role may please you. Personally, I think he'd be great in the lead.

  • nweathingtonnweathington Posts: 6,736

    If you read & enjoyed Starlight by Mark Millar, then this piece of casting news for the lead role may please you. Personally, I think he'd be great in the lead.

    I'd rather have Sam Jones as the lead. ;)
  • nweathingtonnweathington Posts: 6,736
    mwhitt80 said:

    Nice pun work btw. I'm a man of phrasing.

    Thenk yew. Thenk yew.
  • nweathingtonnweathington Posts: 6,736
    mwhitt80 said:

    You would think so, but Sasquatch just walks around helping wild animals in the jungle, the bear family pretty much just helps each other pick stuff up (I hate making up bear family stories but they make a 3yr old laugh), we've not had many werewolf stories (he's brand new), and sneaky Squirrel is a dirt bag that steals stuff
    Piggy rides shotgun in princess Abigail's racecar and gets her out of tickets from Sheriff Ranger. The racecar stories are more like Yogi Bear meets Smokey and the Bandit.

    Now I'm hearing Jerry Reed as the voice of Piggy.
  • DARDAR Posts: 1,128
    Just a bloodbath at ESPN today. Lots of on air talent let go. Of course looking at who they let go tells you that the higher ups just don't really get it.
  • nweathingtonnweathington Posts: 6,736
    DAR said:

    Just a bloodbath at ESPN today. Lots of on air talent let go. Of course looking at who they let go tells you that the higher ups just don't really get it.

    The way I see it, who they let go is simply indicative of what generates ad revenue and what doesn't. Loud personalities with bombastic opinions sell ads and generate clicks. Intelligent discussion and analyisis, not so much.
  • bralinatorbralinator Posts: 5,967
    When you're losing an average of 10,000 subscribers a week or more, this day was long overdue. And continuing to pay astronomical fees for the rights to air sporting events can't continue without ad revenue, coupled with their trend for going political and focusing on things other than good old fashioned sports, it's a perfect storm.
  • nweathingtonnweathington Posts: 6,736
    I stopped watching ESPN when they stopped covering hockey. That was ten years ago. But I'm still paying for ESPN because we have cable bundled with our high-speed internet.

    There are more people who pay for ESPN and don't watch it than there are those who do watch it. As long as those subsidies were flowing in, ESPN could afford to pay astronomical fees for broadcast rights—and it's not like ESPN is the only network that has paid crazy fees for broadcast rights. Take those subsidies away as cable and satellite subscribers bail out, and ESPN is just another run-of-the-mill network.
  • bralinatorbralinator Posts: 5,967
    Well, for cable subscribers, like it not, a la carte content purchases are the way of the future. While cable providers used to be incentivized to protect the "channel bundle," the rise of the internet and over-the-top content providers means that their true-value to consumers is now in their broadband and not the content.

    The biggest beneficiary of the cable TV bundle is ESPN, which exploited it's "must have" content for decades to negotiate ever higher rates with cable TV providers while forcing those rates on consumers by insisting its content be included in all of the channel "bundles." ESPN is now in the unfamiliar territory of losing millions of subs per year amid surging contents costs. They lost over 600,000 subscribers just last October which was worth over $50mm in annual revenue. That's not sustainable.

    In the meantime, those sports rights costs are going up and those subscriber revenue numbers are going down. the gravy train is going to dry up in about 5 years or so if the pace keeps up like it is. These lay-offs are merely a temporary band-aid. Maybe new items like Sling or Direct TV Now will help slow the bleeding, but once cable goes a la carte, I expect ESPN would only have around 40m households purchasing the network directly - at the most.
  • mwhitt80mwhitt80 Posts: 4,608
    I have a hard time seeing the bundling going away anytime soon. It's beneficial to every Cable network; most cable networks would never survive two years if it wasn't for cable sports. ESPN is still the cable tide that floats networks boats despite everything else.

    ESPN has been getting killed by cord cutting, but that means, USA, TNT, etc. are losing viewers at the same rate. Thier content may cost less, but they also generate far less revenue. The loss of money through ad revenue (less viewers) and subscription dollars is the internal conversations every network is having right now. I mean Turner broadcasting has been making major layoffs for 4 years now that makes the ESPN cuts seem paltry.

    Now onto a la carte. Every Cable network would get absolutely destroyed by if they went a la carte. Your cable bill would go up because the networks (assuming your network doesn't go out of business) you subscribe to would have to raise thier fees to make up for the revenue loss, and ESPN would still be the biggest revenue generator for cable companies (it would cost more, have fewer subscribers and have be of no benefit to other companies).
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