Fizzzzle

3 hours ago, Keyser_Soze said:

With @b_m_b_m_b_m gone someone has to be the, "Make it yourself. It's easy" person.

If that's a thing, I will take up that mantle.

You're right. There's a part of me that wants to put LBJ right up with Teddy as the best president ever because of what he did for civil rights. Like if the Vietnam war never happened, he would be right up with Teddy and Lincoln. But the Vietnam war DID happen, and he was a major part of it.

36 minutes ago, stepee said:

I do agree that I don’t want bread crumbles in mac n cheese ever and it doesn’t add to it imo.

I like it if it's fresh and hot. If it's been sitting for longer than 5 minutes, I don't want it.

9 hours ago, Commissar SFLUFAN said:

He was the first person to express his sympathies to me when my father passed away and for that I will always have very warm feelings for him!

No one can ever say he's  not genuine. He is what he is, and I unironically appreciate him for that.

If he wanted to start posting here again, I would be okay with it.

Actually I would probably hate it after a few weeks, but the point stands.

Native Americans being portrayed as helpless victims is something that has been fought against for decades, mostly within native communities. Too many movies portray them as the "noble savage."

The tricky part is that Hollywood producers don't like to portray indigenous people as bad in any way that could be considered categorical by anybody. There is no room for nuance. I get the frustration. Native Americans absolutely were characters in their own story, not just passive recipients of trauma, and in a way I understand the desire from native folks who DO almost want to see a story where they ARE, kind of, the "bad guy." Look up the entire history of the Comanche. They basically formed as a resistance movement to European encroachment. Shit, look up King Phillips War. The native people did some truly horrific shit. I get the sentiment of "why don't we tell THAT story rather than every native person being some peace-loving ignorant hippie." A lot of them were definitely not peace loving, or ignorant, or hippies.

Sometimes you get a movie like Bone Tomahawk, but that dances around the issue. The bad guys in Bone Tomahawk are loosely based on a legend from the Paiute about a group of violent cannibals that lived in the canyons (a native version of "the Hills Have Eyes") that Paiute parents would tell their children to scare them.  Did those hill people cannibals ever exist? Who knows, but in the story the Paiute defeated them by burning them all alive in their own cave while the Paiute watched. Pretty fucking metal.

I'm excited to see the movie, but I understand the sentiment if Jacobs is frustrated at yet another "noble savage" depiction of native Americans.

SIDE NOTE: watch The Sudbury Devil if/when it comes to streaming. It takes place during the aftermath of King Phillips War and absolutely nails it. In my opinion. It's also a horror movie, though, so... Apples and asparagus.

Making Mac and cheese from scratch is easy as shit and there's no reason not to do it yourself. Unless you don't know how to make a roux or don't want to fuck with it, which is understandable. But you can literally make Mac from scratch in the same amount of time it takes to cook noodles in the first place. You just have to use 2 pots instead of 1 and dirty a cheese grater. You can even cook bacon bits and use the bacon fat as the binding agent for the roux if you want that next level Mac experience.

Still, though, sometimes I love a simple gloop of Velveeta mixed with noodles. There's something about it. It's simple, salty, and perfect when you're drunk or just don't give a shit.

3 minutes ago, DarkStar189 said:

@Fizzzzle Do you still have the cyst in your armpit? I had a Dr diagnose a small lump in my armpit when I was around 15 years old. Never changed or was a problem until I was in my early 30’s. Woke up one morning and i thought something was lodged under my arm or something in the bed. I felt it and the cyst had decided to go nuclear and suddenly felt like a golf ball. Long story short I got it removed but was absolutely grossed out for weeks with “wound care”. I remember after the procedure the nurse was like “ok let’s go over how to pack the wound and change the dressing”. What…? “Yeah here’s how you’re going to pack gauze into the hole everyday as it’s healing so you don’t end up with a dead space in your armpit”. I didn’t think I would ever be able to look inside an area of my armpit before….not a fan.

I got it removed. It was like the size of a cotton ball and it pretty much showed up overnight, or at least I just noticed it one day in the shower. I didn't have to put gauze in it, but there's still a big scar where it was.

Packing the wound sounds gross, I don't envy you.

If it doesn't hurt it's better to get it checked out sooner rather than later.

It's probably a cyst or a big zit (is there a difference?), but it can't help to check!

I had a lump appear in my armpit a few years back that scared the shit out of me, since I know armpits are where cancer tends to cancer. Turns out it was just a cyst. I also had a lump appear right above my right asscheek recently. I thought it was another cyst! turns out it was just a massive zit. When it finally burst.... whether or not you want me to continue that sentence depends on which corners of the internet you tend to frequent, but it was exactly as disgusting or satisfying as you want it to be.

Point being - get it checked out, but don't freak out.

19 minutes ago, TheLeon said:

Maybe I didn’t learn the right lessons from this series, but Carla Gugino can haunt me any day. 

I've had a reserved boner for her ever since she was in Entourage.

I guess I just feel like the ending felt unsatisfactory for reasons that I haven't yet been able to put into words. Like @Greatoneshere said, you know what it is before it's dropped, and that doesn't bother me. It's just like... the extra stuff about Egyptian mythology just felt tacked on? I know it makes sense thematically, and I know they foreshadow it, but it still felt weird. Also I didn't like that there was never a payoff for Daupin. He's literally one of the two main characters throughout the series and he never gets a payoff or resolution. He's just... there, and then he goes "oh shit!" and the series ends. All of the nods that he sacrificed just as much as Roderick are threads that are left woven. That bothered me.

Still a great series worth watching, but not even close to the greatness that was Midnight Mass. If you haven't watched that, get on your ass and do it.

2 hours ago, Paperclyp said:

Read one of the books that Robert Caro wrote. Believe it was means of ascent. If you're interested in him they're incredibly well researched and written. 

 

That one was interesting in that it talked a lot about his campaign strategies, with which he was quite forward thinking and revolutionary in a lot of ways. I also got the sense that he was a true politician in the ways that a lot are today, in that he was perfectly OK with changing his view on a subject if he thought it would get him elected. 

 

Overall - complicated man who did a lot of good, but I don't have near enough knowledge about him to say if he was a net good or not. 

That's the thing that I respect most about LBJ. He knew which way the wind was blowing at all times, but rather than turning that against the people to play to the corporations, he constantly worked on behalf of the people (at least after the 50's, when he was still a stalwart southern segregationist... segregationalist? segrist?)

That's why I find him so fascinating. On its surface, he is everything you hate about a politician. He was a fucking slimeball, egotist, probably a psychopath (read how he got his commendations in WW2, he knew how to worm his way into the right place at the right time), yet he used all of his powers (mostly) for good. Except for Vietnam.

It's like... imagine if George Washington just said "FUCK IT! YEEEHAWWW" and invaded, I don't know, Quebec or something and killed 1/3 of the population. George Washington is a huge part of the reason we aren't a dictatorship to this day, faults and all. But if he killed a third of the population of Quebec... you'd be like "yeeaaaaaahhhhh but there's that...."

Side note: Washington was only 67 when he died, and it was from a throat infection that probably would have solved itself if doctors of the time just left it the fuck alone. You find that a lot in the 19th century. Garfield probably would have survived his assassination attempt if the doctors didn't have such a fixation with getting the bullet out.

1 hour ago, UpvoteShittyTakesOnly said:

current event is contextual i guess

It's more of a "where do I ask to get mostly serious responses that don't involve penises board" for me, but your point stands.

In second grade I had one of those teachers who would do the thing where if you asked "can I go to the bathroom?" and she would respond "I don't know, can you?" as a means of testing your grammar.

This one time, this one kid named Andrew Eberle stood up to ask to go to the bathroom. The teacher did the cute thing and asked "I don't know, can you?" to which Andrew replied "no, I'M GOING" while he pissed down his leg.

I don't know if he legitimately just waited too long to take a piss or if that was just a power play, but I prefer to assume it was the latter. Fucking legend.

I was recently asked this question and I was like... I have no fucking idea.

On the one hand, he was an unexpected civil rights champion. He was thrown onto the ticket with JFK as a way to appease racist southern democrats because he... well, he was a racist southern democrat. Then, when push came to shove, he was like "fuck you racist assholes (even though he himself was a racist asshole, he just knew which side was the right side of history), we're doing this shit." And I have so much respect for him for that.

On the other hand... Vietnam.

Does one outweigh the other? Is he just considered neutral? Like, he knocks Obama out of the fucking park when it comes to civil rights, but on the other hand... Vietnam. So many other presidents are easy to pigeonhole as good or bad, but LBJ (and Truman)? It kind of feels like whatever I care more about that day. Like, there are so many other presidents that were worse than him on so many levels, but they also didn't start wars that lasted a decade over fake commie bullshit.

I've never met him in person, but a lot of people used to think he was playing a character. I can assure you... no, he is not. That is him at his 100% realest and most fabulous. Take it for what it is if you can stand him for longer than 2-3 minute bursts.

40 minutes ago, Mercury33 said:

Objectively 2.5? Where are you getting your definitive “objective” reviews from? 9 of the movies are rated Fresh. If you choose not to recognize anything below 70 as actually good then 7 of the movies are over 70. 6 rated over 80. 5 of them have audience scores over 80 and would be 6 if nerds weren’t afraid of vaginas ruling the world. 
 

If we’re diving into Star Wars as concept then you can include the incredibly highly rated TV shows of which 4 are outstanding and the rest are good at the very least. 
 

Granted Rotten Tomatoes is incredibly flawed but at its core it’s a decent barometer. So to say that objectively Star Wars is overall a poor franchise? Well that appears to be objectively a poor take 😉

Come on dude, everything Star Wars gets a +2 bonus on reviews because it's Star Wars and everyone WANTS to like it. If Revenge of the Sith wasn't a Star wars movie it would have been regarded as trash. Because it is.

Take Rogue One, for example. That movie is, like... Okay. Like I'm not going to be mad about watching it. But (at least in terms of movies) it's literally the best thing in the franchise since before I was born.

It never ceases to amaze me how do much stock can be put into a franchise that has like... 2.5 objectively good movies? Even with Rogue One, the reception from the fandom was more like "SEE?! THIS ONE ISN'T SHIT!" like that is some bar to be proud of clearing.

The last objectively good Star Wars movie came out 10 years before I was born. I'm old enough to have kids. Hell I'm old enough to have grandkids if condoms didn't exist. (Not shitting you I knew someone in high school who had a kid at 16 and her mom had her at 17, so that was a 33 year old grandma... #giggity)

Star Wars just kind of sucks as a concept. And I am so glad that I finally have the balls to say that on the Internet.

1 hour ago, outsida said:

People keep talking about BRICS challenging the normal order yet most of the members are on the brink of collapse. 

Like @Commissar SFLUFAN said, "they're the countries of the future and always will be."

I think the main difference, and I'm being honest here, is that places like the US and the EU have essentially legalized corruption. The corruption is (mostly *ahem* US military budget) somewhat accounted for. There's a reason Louisiana is a shit hole, and it's because it's pretty much the last state wherein corruption means "walk into the meeting with a briefcase full of cash." It's not like other states are less corrupt, it's just that the corruption is laundered. That makes it predictable. People will invest in corrupt systems if the corruption is predictable and growth is inevitable, and they are both important.

Some African warlord going ape shit and completely seizing all assets from top to bottom.. not predictable.

Think about how America was born. The wealthy merchant class that birthed the revolution were ALL smugglers and slavers. They are essentially trying to legitimize their operations so that they were... Predictable.

1 minute ago, Commissar SFLUFAN said:

@Signifyin(g)Monkey - WHAT THE HELL DID YOU DO?!?  ANOTHER VIDEO ON THIS SUBJECT APPEARED ON MY YOUTUBE FEED TODAY!

 

 

Probably you watched another Warographics video?

Warographics is actually pretty good. I don't like that they go click-baity with the titles (like with the title "is south Africa on the brink of collapse?" and at the end they go ".... eh, possibly, who knows"). I'm not an expert on... well, anything, really, but I find that they do a pretty balanced approach to most things.

I imagine, if you compare Warographics to Wendover, Wendover will spend months on a single video. Warographics does not, it's closer to weeks. In some of their coverage of the current war in Israel, they'll turn around a video in like 2-3 days, which pretty much guarantees that there will be inaccuracies and that a lot of the information will be proven to be inaccurate over time.

1 hour ago, Keyser_Soze said:

He should move his show to the #1 streaming service: Youtube

Unfortunately I 99.9999% bet he has a non-compete clause in his contract that will probably exist for some time.

But yes, having him just have his own youtube show would be great. I honestly wish more people did it. Someone like Jon Stewart could start a YouTube channel, say whatever the fuck he wants, and probably make more money than he ever did on TV.

Okay, I have a legit question for those who say Netflix isn't worth it..... HOW?!

Yes, Netflix puts out a lot of shit, and a lot of it is shit, but just in the last few months - British Bake Off, Castlevania, The Fall of the House of Usher, Our Planet, Nimona, One Piece, They Cloned Tyrone, they just recently got a bunch of HBO content... I'm probably forgetting a lot of things right now.

With services like Max or Disney+, there might be 1 thing running at a time that I want to watch. Sometimes nothing. With Netflix, there's ALWAYS something.  How in the titty fucking christ could you possibly say Netflix doesn't have enough content for you, but Max or Disney+ do? Yeah, 75% of Netflix's content is shit, but they only need 25% of it to be good for it to still far outpace anything anyone else does.

There are a lot of reasons to dislike how Netflix runs things, but if anyone ever says "Netflix doesn't have enough quality content," I want some of what you're smoking because you're fucking high as gas.

13 hours ago, Keyser_Soze said:

 

I think you both have it backwards. People who eat meat never talk about it. While a Vegan will push it in your face any chance they get.

We live in pinko commie libcuck areas where it's the opposite.

I eat meat now, but when I didn't, I couldn't go out with people and order a vegetarian option without it sparking a whole conversation about when I stopped eating meat, why I stopped, do I think it's better, etc.

That's not to say they're necessarily aggressive about it, just that like... why you gotta ask 20 questions about it...

I voted wrong because I'm a dumb-dumb, but in my day-to-day life, meat eaters are more annoying. No one where I live ever asks about religion, or if it comes up, no one really asks "oh REAAALLLY, YOU BELIEVE IN GOD?! HOW WEIRD!" People just leave religious people alone.

Meat eaters, on the other hand, it's like you can't even mention the word "vegan" around them having to want to have a whole conversation about it.

I just finished it today. I have to say it kind of goes a little haywire at the end, and not entirely in a great way. I still had a blast, though.

I just fucking pay for YouTube Premium. Why? Because it still supports the people I like to watch based on what I watch, it's only $10/month, and I watch YouTube more than any other streaming service combined, and it's not even close. Not to mention it comes with YouTube music, which isn't as good as spotify, but it's close.

Point being, deal with the fucking ads or pay for it.