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D-Ray Kenobi

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Posts posted by D-Ray Kenobi

  1. I watched it the other night, I am kinda conflicted about it but still loved it.

    (Spoilers ahead.)

    To me, the basic idea of what it's trying to say is that a woman is trying to assert herself and her own independence outside of a man's influence. 

    At the beginning, she's created by a man.  A man is telling another man he has his permission to marry her and take ownership.  A man offers her a way out of that to go on her adventure, but on his terms.  As she matures, she starts realizing she can make her own choices and eventually takes ownership of her own life and kind of puts all these toxic men in their places.

    I loved all that, but I honestly felt a little awkward having to sit still with a bunch of scenes that realistically should have gotten this movie an NC-17.  I get it that you have to show her owning her own sexuality, but to me it just was so over the top about that that it felt like it eventually detracted from the point.  You can show a scene or two and then just leave the rest to the viewers imagination.  I get that.  And maybe it was intentional to make the audience a bit uncomfortable with that, but it just didn't work for me personally.

    Overall though, I still really enjoyed the hell out of it and totally get why it's a Best Picture nominee.  Emma Stone absolutely rocked that role, you totally end up rooting for her to take that agency and ownership and she comes out on top in such a satisfying way at the end.

  2. I liked it a lot!  I kind of feel like the first Captain Marvel took itself a little too seriously, this one didn't and had more of a Guardians kind of vibe to it.

    But I do agree that the look is a problem.  I though way of shooting stuff in the Volume was cool at first during the first season of The Mandalorian, but I'm so over it.  It makes TV and film feel so cheap, and it's so easy to spot when they're over relying on it.

    This was really cool in spite of that though.  I loved that basically every major character in this, heroes and villians, were all women.  It didn't beat the audience over the head with it like in the last movie either.

  3. I liked this recent season a lot, but there's a lot holding me back from saying that I loved it.

    The biggest problem for me is that it can't decide if it wants to be its own thing or be True Detective.  There's a lot of little beats that tries to tell the viewer that it's going to be the polar opposite of Season One, but it still simultaneously makes a ton of fanservice callbacks that ultimately lead to nothing.

    The plot is pretty cool and is a great mystery, but there's a lot of little complications that make for a lot of little plotholes.  For example, the tongue on the floor still makes no sense as there's no real (or at least clearly explained) motivation for anyone to have done that.  It's almost as if someone decided that would make for a great hook in the first episode, but they never really got around to fully expanding on that for the story as a whole.

    This whole thing feels like HBO wanted to fill a date with an IP and they rushed a creator to get them something on that pre-determined date.  Another script draft could have really pushed this from good to great.

  4. We're all getting old man, I've had some stuff crop up too.

    I've ran pretty regularly for close to ten years now and it's starting to take a toll on one of my knees.  When I bend over, I can hear it stretching like some elastic or something.  The other one doesn't do that at all.

    I kind of want to go get it checked, but I just have a general distrust of the process that would probably send me through a labyrinth of a dozen different specialists and bleed my insurance dry.

  5. Basically some acronym soup regulative branch insisted that Tesla oversells the automated driving system (which they totally do), and they're being forced to tighten up the restrictions that they put on drivers.  The new software update will completely take away the feature for a week if it catches you not responding more than twice.

    I've got the basic automated steering on mine and not the fancy stuff.  I've used it pretty often on clear highways and interstates or stop and go traffic, but I don't really trust it in other instances.

  6. Haven't been here in years, this seemed like a good place to update where things are at these days for anyone who doesn't do Zuckerbook.

    Last month marked my five year anniversary working at NASA.  Technically I'm a contractor, but my center is a fairly chill laid back one where there's barely any real difference between that and a civil servant.  I finally moved from internal comms and project management to public facing comms with the uncrewed craft department this last summer.  The big project in 2024 is going to be the Europa Clipper, it's a ton of fun amusing and bewildering kids and big kids alike with the possibility of weird purple alien sharks underneath the icy crust there.  There's of course a fair degree of government bureaucracy, but it's tolerable and the rest of the job is a blast.

    I travel a ton with the new gig.  Enough that it's a ton of fun, but not so much that I'm gone from home too long.  I'll be in NYC and DC right after New Year's, anyone feel free to hit me up if you'd like to hang.

  7. Trading in my 2018 Model 3 for a brand new one next weekend.  Their CEO may be a gargantuan douchenozzle, but the other 99% of everyone in the company managed to make the best car I've ever had.

  8. Hey guys remember that one time one country mounted a military invasion on another with an intent to install a new government?

    The invaders claimed that they were rightfully doing so because their target might have large scale weapons with the intent to use them.

    Meanwhile the international community condemned their military actions.

    But enough about W invading Iraq!

  9. I got it for ten bucks a few months ago and played through most of the main storyline, I actually really liked it.  There was some glitchy stuff on PS5 to deal with, but it was more annoying than gamebreaking.  I really dug the overall story and the expansive world they built, a lot of the mechanics were really fun too.  I'm really looking forward to coming back to it when they do the PS5 patch and DLC.

  10. It was my wife's mom, my real mom has basically been out of the picture for ten years now so she was basically my mom now.  It sucks bad.  I think I've already gone through the five stages though.  The hurt comes and goes, but at this point after losing my grandpa to old age, a very good friend to an OD, an uncle to COVID, and many other things the last two years, I'm pretty much numb and over it.  I'll just make the best of things until the universe throws the next curveball at me or takes me too.

  11. On 12/3/2021 at 4:03 PM, Fozzie said:

    Most people who complain about Taco Bell are only eating when they’re completely drunk and it’s more the combination of alcohol and grease that gets them. White Castle gets the same reputation.

    A few months ago I stopped at a Taco Bell off of the interstate outside of Atlanta and the self-serve kiosk they had is an absolute gamechanger.  You can customize basically anything on the menu with ever single ingredient they have and it's amazing.

  12. I love In N Out and make it a priority any time I'm out on the West Coast.  But if I had it around to get anytime, I'd probably get tired of it too.

    I won't go on my own accord to Chic-Fil-A because the people that own it are trash, and it tends to attract the holier than thou crowd.  But if somebody is buying it for me I'll keep that to myself because it's still good.

  13. I'm a stan for anything Adidas.  I run a lot and their shoes hold up incredibly well, they make really good shorts and pants too.  I never had any of the same luck with any other brand like Nike or whatever.  I also will pony up for Levi's pants.  I've had some of the same pairs for nearly a decade and they still basically look new.

    Also Tesla has completely won me over.  I got my Model 3 used for an insanely good price before the chip shortages hit both used and new prices hard, but I still have like three years of a full warranty on it.  Apparently even if I get a flat tire, the remote repair truck will come to where I am and there's no charge whatsoever.  It's also the only car I've ever had that's gotten better as time goes on.  Software updates have made my speaker system better and increased my battery range, I'm living in the freaking future.

  14. Nothing would shock me at this point.  The lack of regulation is going to end up biting us all before too long.

    Back on our front, I have been starting to get some stuff done at our place to either stay here for a long while or get it market ready in a few years.  The house we're in is a little over twenty years old, so it's about that time for a number of things.  Last year I painted and sealed the garage floor and we had professional painters do a few rooms. 

    The latest project was getting some foundational supports installed.  My home office / dude room extends a little out from the house, and it had started to sink around a quarter of an inch from the rest of the house.  We had some guys literally dig underneath and put in some hydraulic lifts.  Wasn't too cheap, but the warranty paperwork will make any house inspection look at us very favorably when the time comes.

    Next up is getting the roof done.  That's probably coming in a year and I don't imagine it'll be that cheap either unless I can get away with just having it reshingled.

  15. On 10/26/2021 at 1:11 PM, Ms. Spam said:

    It's crazy because of those investors. I hate those ppl. I can't afford a single house I really like and because I'm contingent any offer I make is ignored. 

    I hope I'm wrong, but I really suspect the overall market is headed for another 2008 style crash.  There's no way that the continued pace of housing prices can be sustainable.

    The outside investor angle is what really concerns me.  I know this is the same story from many other towns, but there's entire neighborhoods in Huntsville that now are basically owned by those oligarchies.  A group of investors buys out an industrial site, turns it into a yuppie mixed use playground, then buys up all of the housing nearby so the Whole Foods crowd can continue to patronize it and drive up property value.

    I'm largely a centrist these days, but stuff like this makes me just want to entirely go to Socialism and make you all my comrades. 

  16. I don't know what I am or what label if any applies to me these days.  I personally think that the universe and just about every law of physics suggest that it's impossible for there not to be some sort of intelligent creator, but the older I get and hopefully the wiser I get, the more that I realize that it's above my pay grade to assume anything about who that might be.  There's bits and pieces of what might be evidence around, but I think years of decontextualization and the warped way that so-called Christians have distorted things recently have made it impossible to lean on some invisible pillar of blind belief.

    If I don't even understand all that much about this plane of existence, it's certain that I don't understand much at all about any other one.  So there being some sort of afterlife isn't entirely impossible to me, but there isn't enough independent evidence to say much about it.  Whether there is or isn't, beyond doing right by people, I'm still taking this present existence a lot less seriously.  Maybe what we do in it now might make a small little ripple, but all ripples fade out and are forgotten, no matter how much we try to pretend they turn into waves.

  17. Things are insane in my area right now.

    At least four major manufacturing plants or distribution centers have expanded or opened up within a half hour drive of here.  They're from like likes of Target, Toyota, and other big companies.  That's in addition to the new secondary FBI HQ at Redstone Arsenal, as well as the Space Force HQ that's coming in a few years.

    The house across the street from me sold to an out of town investment company after two days on the market for $15K over the asking price.  I've been getting mail and calls about offers on mine, and we've never had any intent to move.  The county tax assessor's office now says the value of our place is about $60K over what we originally paid for it in 2007, and that's not even the market price.  Zillow estimates it to be double what we paid for it.

    Part of me wants to cash in and upgrade, but there's literally no point since every other house in the area has skyrocketed as well.  

  18. On 10/14/2021 at 1:11 PM, Tank said:

    My current dilemma is that I'm this show, and I don't love my episode. I'm adapting a so-so book, doing my best with it because I really needed the job to make my minimums with the union to keep my insurance. I'm doign my best to have fun with it, but the showrunner is VERY prescriptive and I hasn't given me a ton of freedom.

    Worse, he's made one of the characters really sexist and gross. At first it was funny and intentional, but when the studio came back and said it was making the whole script feel sexist, he decided to push back even harder and write all these lines that are even worse.

    As showrunner, he has the right to do that to my script-- but my name is still on it, so the studio and network are going to think this is coming for me. He will fight for it, but at the end of the day when it's shot and comes out my name will be on it. I've pushed back a little with him, but two other writers have already left the show. I don't know if it is because they had trouble working with him, but I have my suspicions.

    I always love learning how the meat gets made from you.  This sort of stuff is always really obvious and glaring in a lot of big studio movies.  Certain scenes come out of nowhere, or feel unnecessary or shoehorned in.  Sometimes it's even line to line.  I liked No Time to Die a lot, but the parts where they had Phoebe Waller-Bridge come in to brush things up really felt like an apple put in with a bunch of oranges.

    On my side of things, I'm feeling really stale.  I love where I work, I always wanted to be at NASA since I was a little kid.  But the role itself has gotten incredibly mundane and discouraging.  Everything's in a long slog of a routine, and new projects are tough to pick up as long as we're still working remote.  We're going through a bit of a reorganization, and I'm seriously considering reaching out to my current and former PM to see if there's a more comm-centric role I can take before too long.  I really can't complain, but I'd really like to be challenged a bit more and feel more excited about it like when I first started. 

  19. I have struggled a lot with this in recent years, I'm having a continually evolving background existential crisis.

    Around four or so years ago, my beloved niece flatlined and technically died on the airlift to the children's hospital.  She eventually made it and is now a nonstop and deafening bundle of mischief, but there was a few days where we thought she was gone and a few months where we thought she'd never be the same again.

    Last year was tough too.  I lost my grandpa and my cat of over a decade,  both were normal and had to be expected because they were both old in their own ways.  But another instance that really hurt was a very good friend that was around my age.  It was very much not expected, and it is still an awful situation all around because she had just had a daughter no more than a year before she passed.

    Also recently I lost an uncle to COVID.  It's very discouraging and infuriating because he was very much an anti-masker / anti-vaxxer.  I couldn't even bring myself to go to his funeral because that whole side of the family is pretty vocal about their stance on that thing, and I knew if I was there I would end up saying something I couldn't take back.  I just had to do the emotional math and realized that the distance I'd make by not showing up would be less than what I'd make by getting drawn into an argument in that situation.

    All of that combined with the mess of the last year and a half can't help but make you question existence.  All of the needless death in that time has taken parents away from kids, split families like mine, so many different things.  I think it's caused me to be a little more nihilistic than I'd like to be.  I've found myself withdrawing from more things and more people and perhaps subconsciously and intentionally making my social circle smaller.  Because what's the point, right?  If anything could take us away at any moment, what's the point of striving for a goal you may never see?  I find myself living in the moment more and not worrying about tomorrow, and I'm still trying to find a better balance for that all the time.

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