Welcome to the Daily Bear Dump, a W4C community board where we talk about pretty much anything.
High Fidelity is a novel by British author Nick Hornby first published in 1995. It has been adapted into a feature film (2000), a Broadway musical (2006), and a TV series (2020).
Unsealed court documents show that Elizabeth Holmes (Stanfurd 2002-2004) tried to flee the US a year ago. Holmes said it was to attend a wedding. She didn't go.
This time last week I was driving back from Asheville, NC. We stayed with some of Mrs. Bk97's friends and coworkers at a lake house on Lake Lure in the Great Smoky Mountains. It was a lovely, relaxing time...at least, it was once power was restored after a giant tree fell, blocked the main road in town, and knocked out power to most of the area on Friday night.
Whoops. Looks like my trip to Machu Pichu in 7 weeks hit a snag. President Castillo - Peru's first leader with an Andean background, was impeached and imprisoned for trying to dissolve Congress. There's been civil unrest and Machu Pichu has been closed and the railroad tracks have been sabotaged. We'll see if I can salvage some of the trip.
We were scheduled to go in May. Just cancelled it this weekend before we had to put down more than just the deposit. The protests have been specifically targeting tourism-related infrastructure (including airports).
Had some friends travel there in November and it was the trip from Hell. They arrived 2-1/2 days later than anticipated due to the airline issues. The next day, one of them gets sick, tested positive for Covid. The other one embarked on the trek to Machu Pichu solo (and never contracted Covid). Among all this, was political unrest and difficulty traveling as protestors blocked roads with boulders and debris. We all expect some things to go wrong travelling, but this was pretty bad for my friend who had Covid. Total waste of time and money.
I just bought some cans of whole artichokes which come from Peru for an artichoke/spinach/mozzarella/parmesan dish consumed last night. I guess there is no shortage of artichokes yet.
step 1 - heat oven to 400 degrees, boil pasta at high then medium high until 2 minutes short of al dente. Drain and set aside
step 2 - heat oil in large skillet over medium heat, add the garlic and pepper flakes, add spinach little by little until wilted, stir in chopped artichokes
step 3 - Stir in heavy cream and bring to simmer, stir in parmesan. Remove from heat and stir in pasta. Liquid will thicken with cooking
step 4 - Transfer pasta to 2-quart casserole dish or individual ramekins, sprinkle with mozzarella and bake in oven until bubbling, 20 to 25 minutes
Maybe 40-45 minutes of total prep time. Serve when hot....
I will be going to Japan this week for the first time in 10 years that does not involve any work. Which means I have to pay for business class airfare and all the nice hotels out of pocket, so I booked everything with miles and points. I'll just need to pay for food and souvenirs.
Depending on what you want to do and your level or desire of physical activity, I strongly recommend REI Travel. My wife and used REI Travel for our trip to Machu Pichu.
Heading to Vegas for the night on Sunday for the Conference Championships and to cash the 2 (of 6) NFL futures bets that hit from my June visit. Pa Chitwood went a few years ago with step-Ma Chitwood and they got a super deal on a suite at the Venetian. That put him in some special Venetian group, so he gets these great deals on suites. Sunday 1/29 is $120, so we booked a couple suites and are going to dinner at Delmonico’s…
Without Remorse - the book was fantastic, but the Amazon film with Michael B. Jordan was an incredibly disappointing adaptation…the book admittedly covers a ton of ground, though, so doing it justice while staying true to the story was always gonna be tough.
Word is they’re doing initial work on adapting Rainbow Six, a 2nd Clancy book with MBJ as John Kelly.
The book was good. They had to condense it. But from what I remember, it didn't follow the story of the book that much. I guess they modernized it but with the same gist of the bad thing that happened to him.
I'm curious to see how the Amazon Prime guys do a spinoff with Ding after introducing him in the next/last season.
The Last of Us (HBO/Max) S1E1. Fantastic start. Neil Druckmann has done a great job adapting his masterpiece video game to the television screen. Stays true to the game mostly and any deviations are for the good. Pedro Pascal acts like a Texan surprisingly well. Anna Torv (the Fringe) is very good as Tess. Anna Torv's aunt is the ex-wife of Fox's Rupert Murdoch.
I caught the first two episodes this weekend and have enjoyed it. Mrs Bk97, who has never played TLoU, is thoroughly enjoying it as well. Even though I knew how the prologue ends, my heart was still racing while watching it all unfold. The set designs, especially in E2 were fantastic. While E1 focused on world-building inside the quarantine zone and E2 focused on world-building outside the quarantine zone, I think E3 is really going to start diving into what made the game so great: the characters you meet along the way and how they shape the central relationships within the narrative. Nick Offerman seems perfectly cast as Bill, so I'm really looking forward to E3.
I'm hoping that at some point along the way someone makes a joke about carrying a ladder or a plank around--that would be a great wink to those who played the game and experienced one too many "how do we get up/over there?" puzzles.
I usually like monster movies and apocalyptic movies but I turned it off at a certain scene about 30 mins in and decided to watch something less depressing. I think being a parent is making me a softie
when we had a family watching of the musical version of Matilda on netflix I was saying to my daughters that I'm terribly biased; if people had been that unkind to Matt I'd have been like "oh well that wasn't very nice" but make it Matilda and I'm like "OMG how could they treat that angel so badly," so I'm especially susceptible to disasters happening when the protagonists are father & daughter.
Been watching. OK, but aside from the set designs, I haven't quite been that taken yet. Willing to stick along, but I'm not pining for the next episode or anything. What distinguishes this from say, Walking Dead?
(I haven't seen The Walking Dead, so I can't really compare them) The Last of Us was excellent at writing and developing characters and getting the audience to invest in them, whether they're long-term characters in the narrative or someone who only appears for a short period of time. Now that the show finally seems to be done setting things up, I think it will start leaning heavily into those strengths.
Walking Dead S1 is fantastic and focuses more on zombies. The subsequent seasons are mixed and hit the theme "humans are far worse than zombies". Zombies become almost an afterthought. TLOU is much less about zombies and more about trying to answer morally ambiguous questions in a post-apocalyptic world like "how much does love cost" and "what is morality when there isn't enough society to watch or when it puts you in danger".
Me neither. I never played the game, and I enjoy Pedro Pasqual, tho I thought he showboated a bit too much when he battled the Mountain, and it cost him dearly.
But the first episode was solid, though unspectacular.
Interesting. With the advent of social media and streaming platforms, musicians have become much more reliant on promotions and syncs to actually make scratch as an artist . As the author states, it isn't hard to distinguish the band from the brand . However, given this new paradigm, if I were the band, I'd be pretty concerned that others may get the impression that the band is somehow promoting the brand or has sold branding rights.
The band’s case seems pretty weak. My guess is they were sending the cease and desist letter to force a settlement and Post decided to just sue for Dec relief instead of paying them.
I read the entire article and Post actually offered to pay them. OK Go declined the money, as it turns out, they actually have a history of cross promotion. As I suspected, they were concerned that the public would think they were promoting the brand given this history of cross promotion. It will be interesting to see how this turns out given that the brand and the band are completely identical. Pretty interesting choice by Post.
I just don’t see it. I like indie rock a lot, but even I would infer no relationship between the band and the cereal. Their name is pretty generic, they are not that popular, and it is just in a totally different business line. The band was hoping for a bigger payment in refusing the settlement. Now that they have downside (fees of their own), I bet they settle for less and move on.
Went to the taping for Whose Line is it Anyways on Sat night. 4 1/2 hours of actual taping in the studio. It was a blast. I wish I lived in LA so I could go to the other 3. The 4th chair for these shows was Jeff Davis. One of the guests they bring in for a few games was Wayne Brady's daughter. She's in college now. Another was a young black Country singer/songwriter. Didn't recognize him and forgot the name.
Basically they had a list of games they went through and filmed. Many of the games where the participants come up with answers, like scenes from a hat and props, they went for like 8-10 min so they can create 3-4 episodes. They just went down the line and did almost every game except for hoedown (disappointing). They also spent a long time filming multiple openings and transitions from commercials into games and reshooting the selected audience members coming down on stage.
I'm at the top of the aisle where Aisha does the opening so I'm guessing I'm in most of those shots. I had to sit between two rather large guys so that sucked. Before the show starts, the audience that sits behind her desk were all moved around for seating. They moved couples around. Not sure what the criteria was. Also, for the games where they choose an audience member, they ask before the show and move them along the aisle so Aisha knows exactly who to choose. For a couple of the suggestions where the audience shouts them out, they re-filmed the audience member shouting out the suggestion with them in the shot for the broadcast.
Overall, it was 7 hours (including standing in line and sitting in the studio while they were moving people around and setting up).
It's in Studio City, in Ca. The parking lot was right next to the Seal Team sound stage. I will have to say the Drew Carey version was better than the Aisha version. But the Aisha version isn't bad. I saw some of the original ones and they're alright.
Saw Joel Cohen at the PFA in Berkeley last night. He's there for a week to present films, some of his own direction. Last night was my favorite Coen Brothers movie, Inside Llewyn Davis. He seems like a totally self-assured man (has the look of a Cal professor) but devoid of ego. Mine was among many questions he took from the audience. Delightful evening.
Q: Okay. Well, how about Garfield? Can you explain that to me? Did you just do it for the dough?
A: No! I didn't make that for the dough! Well, not completely. I thought it would be kind of fun, because doing a voice is challenging, and I'd never done that. Plus, I looked at the script, and it said, "So-and-so and Joel Coen." And I thought: Christ, well, I love those Coens! They're funny. So I sorta read a few pages of it and thought, Yeah, I'd like to do that. I had these agents at the time, and I said, "What do they give you to do one of these things?" And they said, "Oh, they give you $50,000." So I said, "Okay, well, I don't even leave the fuckin' driveway for that kind of money."
Q: And it's not like you're helping out an indie director by playing Garfield.
A: Exactly. He's in 3,000 newspapers every day; he's not hurtin'. Then this studio guy calls me up out of nowhere, and I had a nice conversation with him. No bullshit, no schmooze, none of that stuff. We just talked for a long time about the movie. And my agents called on Monday and said, "Well, they came back with another offer, and it was nowhere near $50,000." And I said, "That's more befitting of the work I expect to do!" So they went off and shot the movie, and I forgot all about it. Finally, I went out to L.A. to record my lines. And usually when you're looping a movie, if it takes two days, that's a lot. I don't know if I should even tell this story, because it's kind of mean. [beat] What the hell? It's interesting. So I worked all day and kept going, "That's the line? Well, I can't say that." And you sit there and go, What can I say that will make this funny? And make it make sense? And I worked. I was exhausted, soaked with sweat, and the lines got worse and worse. And I said, "Okay, you better show me the whole rest of the movie, so we can see what we're dealing with." So I sat down and watched the whole thing, and I kept saying, "Who the hell cut this thing? Who did this? What the fuck was Coen thinking?" And then they explained it to me: It wasn't written by that Joel Coen.
The Mindy Project popped up on Netflix. I've been watching last couple of series that she's produced – Never Have I Ever and Sex Lives of College Girls – both of which I like, so figured I'd check it out. It was a network sitcom, which is prob why I never watched it when it was on (ten years ago?). But I'm about 10 eps in and it's quite entertaining.
I'm concerned that there's like 6 or 7 seasons, and usually I don't start shows with that much back-catalog, but will ride it for awhile.
Conversely, saw the landing page for That 90's Show. I didn't watch more than about 5 eps of That 70's show, but figured I'd check out what they did this round.
OMG, it was the worst 22 minutes of TV I've watched in a long time. Besides being horrible "network sitcom with laugh track" quality, I felt cringey watching the son (Topher?) and his (now) wife, plus all the kids (the new generation).
Then Kutcher and Mila Kunis had their cameos. How much $$ did Netflix throw at these people?!? Most of them have had reasonable (to "star-level" in the case of Mila Kunis) careers. And they plunged to reading dreck dialogue for a laugh track show?
Not sure if any are on the show past Ep 1. Maybe they'll all really liked each other and did one episode for fun? (Altho didn't the curly red-haired guy get called for some MeToo stuff?)
I am being kinda funny these days, I have about 700 albums, and have been playing a couple every day, and NOT the ones I normally listen to, whether I'm a fan of them or not, or love the the band, but always listen to other albums. It can be very educational, find out that this album should be played, or that should never played, or that should be gotten rid of. (I never remember getting that!)
I (very) occasionally just put my entire 7000 song iTunes library on shuffle and let it run, and I'm always surprised by how I like almost all of it. I suppose I expect that the deep tracks on the random album I bought because I liked that one song will suck, but generally they don't! It's an underrated pleasure to listen to music that way.
The Stranger on Netflix. I'm sucker for films set in Australia. Bonus if they're dark. This is a slow, desperately dark and depressing tale about a guy working undercover to catch a pedo/child murder. Super slow character study. Reminds me of The Pledge, which I don't think many people liked, but I did.
Headline on the main page says this weekend was the nadir of the Fox era. How many nadirs does one guy get? He's been nadiring all over the place. He should be nadired out by now.
If your Athletic Director is Jim Knowlton, you get as many nadirs as you want. There's no accountability as long as you meet Title IX requirements and the major donors remain pacified.
Agree 100%…I mean, enough’s enough. The dude clearly isn’t getting fired until after the season, if at all.
But that 1st half was probably his worst half of basketball at Cal…as 3.5 point favorites over a team that hadn’t won on the road in over a year. Pathetic showing…and they keep pushing the injury excuse, which is tired.
He's gone after the season. Fear not. But don't get excited either. Until Knowlton's gone too, we're screwed. Expect another uninspiring hire and having to wait years before enough evidence piles up that guy needs to be removed too. With no obvious successors, we're in a precarious position to repeat the cycle all over again.
What needs to happen is that the Athletics Department's biggest donors need to step up and tell Chancellor Christ that (1) Knowlton's reign of error is ended if she expects any more money from them and (2) they will bring to her finalists for an AD and that she will select one of them as the next AD.
Christ has had her shot at steering the Athletic Department through the Athletic Director. It's an abject failure.
PROBLEM: I don't think even this simple plan would be executed. I don't think there are major donors who fundamentally disagree with the direction of the Athletic Department under Knowlton and would have the temerity to go down this path. Therein lies the sad truth of Cal Athletics: those who have the weight and gravitas to make a difference don't care enough to take charge.
Like the Olympic (aka non-revenue) sports? That fits.
What you seem to be leading to is that football and basketball aren't as important at Cal as it is at other FBS institutions.
Which brings me back to why, if that is true, did Cal decide to renovate Cal Memorial? Why not just decline to renovate the stadium and instead, drop down to FCS or Div II? What is it about FBS that makes it worth it to continue in that division while carrying the burden of 28 non-revenue sports?
Are there benefits to the academic side? To hear Carol Christ tell it, the academic side tolerates football and basketball an awful lot. That one quote she gave in The Athletic this past September (?) speaks volumes about attitude.
To look at the balance sheet from recent fiscal years, there are contributions from the academic side in the mid-to-high 7 figures. Seems like an awful lot of tolerance to me. Just not a full embrace.
100% agree. Should happen, but won't happen. The fact that Gates was passed over for Fox, and Fox is still on our bench despite all evidence that he should not be means our major donors are either 1) imbeciles, 2) broke and therefore useless, or 3) simply like having Knowlton as their puppet.
Actually, a fishing term, referring to bouncing your presentation along on the bottom, when targeting either bottom feeders or others currently holding or running near the bottom (concepts applicable also to Cal revenue sports, I believe).
I found it odd (polite for frustrating) that the Pac-12 choose to put multiple games up against NFL playoffs, essentially squandering inventory that could have been played when more than a few people might actually watch. But either Cal or the conference took it to a new low in scheduling a double header just up the street from the Cowboys-49ers game yesterday.
Not that in that case did it lose very many viewers, either on TV or in attendance, but do any WTF-C writers have any explanation for why that was done, vs playing either of the games on either Saturday or Monday? On the surface of it, it seems to be a scheduling decision that served to only exacerbate every exposure and financial and community issue that are constant problems for the conference.
TV networks drive kickoff times, why not tipoff times? I'd guess, though, that the windows are baked into the contracts. Cal vs OSU was a P12Net game. Makes sense that the least attractive game of the week's schedule is relegated to the worst time slot.
Oh, and BTW, reported attendance for Cal vs. OSU at Haas was 2,072. Ben Braun was fired for an NIT game that drew only 1,968. Somehow, though, I wouldn't hold my breath thinking that this will be the straw that broke Fox's back.
TBF the men's game was over for people to have enough time to get back to their TVs, but I agree that there shouldn't have been a 4:00 tip off on Sunday. That's just not thinking. It took them years to figure out not to schedule home games on the same day as Cal football home games.
Amazingly physical but excellent speed, too. Came out of Iowa as a 6th round pick or something. IIRC he was the lone bright spot for Iowa in Furd's shellacking of Iowa in the Rose Bowl.
That was a really poor move that certainly could have had serious consequences. I wonder some times how much time is actually spent on some of these issues in practice and team meetings at higher levels. It sometimes seems like the assumption is that anyone playing that advanced level of ball actually knows the basics, but we see enough mistakes made that that is clearly not the case.
Yeah that whole sequence he was absolutely terrible. Zero situational awareness or just plainly does not know the rules, including you need two feet down for a catch.
After watching the replay, I believe he thought his right foot didn't lift until he had the ball (it was close in real time), and it was his left foot he had to get down, which he did.
I agree with AndyPanda's review. It's how I read it as well. In real time it would be impossible to tell that his right foot picked up *before* securing the ball.
I understood and agreed with the initial call within that context and was surprised to see the replay contradict what seemed to be a clear catch. But I wasn't about to object to a reversal that clearly hurt Dallas.
Cowboys defense was great. Took Shanahan until the fourth quarter to unlock them, and even then it was more about just taking a lot of dink and dunk stuff. Chunk plays were not there.
Dak did his thing where he makes too many mistakes against a good team.
Yes, Dallas' defense was excellent. But give the 49ers defense credit as well. They kept up the pressure on the Cowboys offense and Prescott, essentially forcing those interceptions/errors.
Without that the 49ers offense doesn't eventually break through or be in the position to win the game.
Agree. I expected a narrow Bills win, and though the idea that the Bengals would win wasn't a big surprise, the margin and manner were, probably even to most Cincy players and fans.
Well done, B97! Probably the first time in history Pat Mahomes and Nate Longshore have been mentioned in the same breath….unless Nate has an idiotic douchebag of a brother and insufferable wife that we don’t know about….
Sigh. Longshore in '06 vs. post injury Longshore in '07....still blame Tedford for putting him out there when he wasn't fit. (The bitterness of the Cal fan.)
I, CeeJay, and Double D went to Sunday's game at Haas. Nice to spend time with my two sons.
Neither team shot very well. With 9:14 elapsed in the first half, the score was 9-7, Beavers. Cal took it's last lead at 15-14 with 4:30 remaining in the first half. OSU went on a 13-0 run to close out the first half. Cal never threatened again in the game and was never closer than a 9 point deficit (18-27 with 18:22 remaining in the game).
Oregon State started to run away with the game on the next three possessions, scoring 8 consecutive points.
At one point, Cal's FG % was in single digits on 1 for 11 shooting.
At least two airballs were sighted during the game.
The thing about that picture that caught my eye was his shoe. I see his foot straining the shoe, which got me thinking about shoe design. This pulled me down the rabbit hole of what makes a good basketball shoe.
DBD Street Journal
Unsealed court documents show that Elizabeth Holmes (Stanfurd 2002-2004) tried to flee the US a year ago. Holmes said it was to attend a wedding. She didn't go.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2023/01/21/elizabeth-holmes-theranos-flight-risk-mexico/
And yet she is still walking free, which just reaffirms the two separate and unequal justice systems we have here in the US.
Vacation
This time last week I was driving back from Asheville, NC. We stayed with some of Mrs. Bk97's friends and coworkers at a lake house on Lake Lure in the Great Smoky Mountains. It was a lovely, relaxing time...at least, it was once power was restored after a giant tree fell, blocked the main road in town, and knocked out power to most of the area on Friday night.
Whoops. Looks like my trip to Machu Pichu in 7 weeks hit a snag. President Castillo - Peru's first leader with an Andean background, was impeached and imprisoned for trying to dissolve Congress. There's been civil unrest and Machu Pichu has been closed and the railroad tracks have been sabotaged. We'll see if I can salvage some of the trip.
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/peru-closes-machu-picchu-anti-government-protests-grow-rcna66939
We were scheduled to go in May. Just cancelled it this weekend before we had to put down more than just the deposit. The protests have been specifically targeting tourism-related infrastructure (including airports).
Had some friends travel there in November and it was the trip from Hell. They arrived 2-1/2 days later than anticipated due to the airline issues. The next day, one of them gets sick, tested positive for Covid. The other one embarked on the trek to Machu Pichu solo (and never contracted Covid). Among all this, was political unrest and difficulty traveling as protestors blocked roads with boulders and debris. We all expect some things to go wrong travelling, but this was pretty bad for my friend who had Covid. Total waste of time and money.
I just bought some cans of whole artichokes which come from Peru for an artichoke/spinach/mozzarella/parmesan dish consumed last night. I guess there is no shortage of artichokes yet.
Drop the recipe por favor.
8 oz. penne pasta
2 tbsp olive oil (I used a little more)
2 minced garlic cloves
1/2 tsp red pepper flakes
10 oz fresh spinach
1 14 oz can artichoke hearts
2 cups heavy cream
4 oz. grated parmesan
4 oz. grated mozzarella
step 1 - heat oven to 400 degrees, boil pasta at high then medium high until 2 minutes short of al dente. Drain and set aside
step 2 - heat oil in large skillet over medium heat, add the garlic and pepper flakes, add spinach little by little until wilted, stir in chopped artichokes
step 3 - Stir in heavy cream and bring to simmer, stir in parmesan. Remove from heat and stir in pasta. Liquid will thicken with cooking
step 4 - Transfer pasta to 2-quart casserole dish or individual ramekins, sprinkle with mozzarella and bake in oven until bubbling, 20 to 25 minutes
Maybe 40-45 minutes of total prep time. Serve when hot....
I will be going to Japan this week for the first time in 10 years that does not involve any work. Which means I have to pay for business class airfare and all the nice hotels out of pocket, so I booked everything with miles and points. I'll just need to pay for food and souvenirs.
Depending on what you want to do and your level or desire of physical activity, I strongly recommend REI Travel. My wife and used REI Travel for our trip to Machu Pichu.
Haven't been on one in SOOOOOOO long; not sure why.
Heading to Vegas for the night on Sunday for the Conference Championships and to cash the 2 (of 6) NFL futures bets that hit from my June visit. Pa Chitwood went a few years ago with step-Ma Chitwood and they got a super deal on a suite at the Venetian. That put him in some special Venetian group, so he gets these great deals on suites. Sunday 1/29 is $120, so we booked a couple suites and are going to dinner at Delmonico’s…
Last time at the Venetian I made a tidy sum on the $5 slots, even though I generally don't gamble - sort of a lark.
Novels to movies and awards
Without Remorse - the book was fantastic, but the Amazon film with Michael B. Jordan was an incredibly disappointing adaptation…the book admittedly covers a ton of ground, though, so doing it justice while staying true to the story was always gonna be tough.
Word is they’re doing initial work on adapting Rainbow Six, a 2nd Clancy book with MBJ as John Kelly.
The book was good. They had to condense it. But from what I remember, it didn't follow the story of the book that much. I guess they modernized it but with the same gist of the bad thing that happened to him.
I'm curious to see how the Amazon Prime guys do a spinoff with Ding after introducing him in the next/last season.
Tough storyline to make a movie of now, as well…
Late 1960’s, Vietnam War-era, tied in with the Baltimore underworld, complete with drugs and prostitution…definitely not Disney Channel stuff!
yeah that's true.
DBD A/V
The Last of Us (HBO/Max) S1E1. Fantastic start. Neil Druckmann has done a great job adapting his masterpiece video game to the television screen. Stays true to the game mostly and any deviations are for the good. Pedro Pascal acts like a Texan surprisingly well. Anna Torv (the Fringe) is very good as Tess. Anna Torv's aunt is the ex-wife of Fox's Rupert Murdoch.
I caught the first two episodes this weekend and have enjoyed it. Mrs Bk97, who has never played TLoU, is thoroughly enjoying it as well. Even though I knew how the prologue ends, my heart was still racing while watching it all unfold. The set designs, especially in E2 were fantastic. While E1 focused on world-building inside the quarantine zone and E2 focused on world-building outside the quarantine zone, I think E3 is really going to start diving into what made the game so great: the characters you meet along the way and how they shape the central relationships within the narrative. Nick Offerman seems perfectly cast as Bill, so I'm really looking forward to E3.
I'm hoping that at some point along the way someone makes a joke about carrying a ladder or a plank around--that would be a great wink to those who played the game and experienced one too many "how do we get up/over there?" puzzles.
Jerry Hall? Wendy Deng??
I watched E1 with the missus on Friday. Neither of us know anything about the game so taken on its own, it's a good hour and change of setup.
I usually like monster movies and apocalyptic movies but I turned it off at a certain scene about 30 mins in and decided to watch something less depressing. I think being a parent is making me a softie
Ya, as DCT said, I could totally see how what transpired early in The Last of Us could really hit close to home for a parent…
when we had a family watching of the musical version of Matilda on netflix I was saying to my daughters that I'm terribly biased; if people had been that unkind to Matt I'd have been like "oh well that wasn't very nice" but make it Matilda and I'm like "OMG how could they treat that angel so badly," so I'm especially susceptible to disasters happening when the protagonists are father & daughter.
Hah yes, me too! Or really even if it is mother-daughter, set up for Arrival was upsetting to me too, even though I really liked that movie
that setup for disaster was hard to watch for sure
Been watching. OK, but aside from the set designs, I haven't quite been that taken yet. Willing to stick along, but I'm not pining for the next episode or anything. What distinguishes this from say, Walking Dead?
(I haven't seen The Walking Dead, so I can't really compare them) The Last of Us was excellent at writing and developing characters and getting the audience to invest in them, whether they're long-term characters in the narrative or someone who only appears for a short period of time. Now that the show finally seems to be done setting things up, I think it will start leaning heavily into those strengths.
Walking Dead S1 is fantastic and focuses more on zombies. The subsequent seasons are mixed and hit the theme "humans are far worse than zombies". Zombies become almost an afterthought. TLOU is much less about zombies and more about trying to answer morally ambiguous questions in a post-apocalyptic world like "how much does love cost" and "what is morality when there isn't enough society to watch or when it puts you in danger".
Watched at lot of Walking Dead - liked several seasons - but when that asshole showed up (8th season? and our guys were loosing) we said Good By!
Me neither. I never played the game, and I enjoy Pedro Pasqual, tho I thought he showboated a bit too much when he battled the Mountain, and it cost him dearly.
But the first episode was solid, though unspectacular.
I enjoyed ep 1 of Station Eleven a lot more.
Station Eleven was amazing. Elevated the genre to a new level, IMO.
Station Eleven might be one of the best shows of the last decade.
Band vs. Brand
https://thetakeout.com/post-cereal-sues-ok-go-lawsuit-over-band-name-use-1850012096
Interesting. With the advent of social media and streaming platforms, musicians have become much more reliant on promotions and syncs to actually make scratch as an artist . As the author states, it isn't hard to distinguish the band from the brand . However, given this new paradigm, if I were the band, I'd be pretty concerned that others may get the impression that the band is somehow promoting the brand or has sold branding rights.
The band’s case seems pretty weak. My guess is they were sending the cease and desist letter to force a settlement and Post decided to just sue for Dec relief instead of paying them.
I read the entire article and Post actually offered to pay them. OK Go declined the money, as it turns out, they actually have a history of cross promotion. As I suspected, they were concerned that the public would think they were promoting the brand given this history of cross promotion. It will be interesting to see how this turns out given that the brand and the band are completely identical. Pretty interesting choice by Post.
I just don’t see it. I like indie rock a lot, but even I would infer no relationship between the band and the cereal. Their name is pretty generic, they are not that popular, and it is just in a totally different business line. The band was hoping for a bigger payment in refusing the settlement. Now that they have downside (fees of their own), I bet they settle for less and move on.
Now if Post started selling Butthole Surfer Cereal Bars, you do have a case there
Went to the taping for Whose Line is it Anyways on Sat night. 4 1/2 hours of actual taping in the studio. It was a blast. I wish I lived in LA so I could go to the other 3. The 4th chair for these shows was Jeff Davis. One of the guests they bring in for a few games was Wayne Brady's daughter. She's in college now. Another was a young black Country singer/songwriter. Didn't recognize him and forgot the name.
Basically they had a list of games they went through and filmed. Many of the games where the participants come up with answers, like scenes from a hat and props, they went for like 8-10 min so they can create 3-4 episodes. They just went down the line and did almost every game except for hoedown (disappointing). They also spent a long time filming multiple openings and transitions from commercials into games and reshooting the selected audience members coming down on stage.
I'm at the top of the aisle where Aisha does the opening so I'm guessing I'm in most of those shots. I had to sit between two rather large guys so that sucked. Before the show starts, the audience that sits behind her desk were all moved around for seating. They moved couples around. Not sure what the criteria was. Also, for the games where they choose an audience member, they ask before the show and move them along the aisle so Aisha knows exactly who to choose. For a couple of the suggestions where the audience shouts them out, they re-filmed the audience member shouting out the suggestion with them in the shot for the broadcast.
Overall, it was 7 hours (including standing in line and sitting in the studio while they were moving people around and setting up).
I've always loved that show, especially when Drew Carey hosted it and also the original British version. Where is that filmed?
It's in Studio City, in Ca. The parking lot was right next to the Seal Team sound stage. I will have to say the Drew Carey version was better than the Aisha version. But the Aisha version isn't bad. I saw some of the original ones and they're alright.
Saw Joel Cohen at the PFA in Berkeley last night. He's there for a week to present films, some of his own direction. Last night was my favorite Coen Brothers movie, Inside Llewyn Davis. He seems like a totally self-assured man (has the look of a Cal professor) but devoid of ego. Mine was among many questions he took from the audience. Delightful evening.
joel coen wrote inside llewyn davis
joel cohen wrote garfield and garfield a tale of two kitties
https://www.gq.com/story/bill-murray-dan-fierman-gq-interview
Q: Okay. Well, how about Garfield? Can you explain that to me? Did you just do it for the dough?
A: No! I didn't make that for the dough! Well, not completely. I thought it would be kind of fun, because doing a voice is challenging, and I'd never done that. Plus, I looked at the script, and it said, "So-and-so and Joel Coen." And I thought: Christ, well, I love those Coens! They're funny. So I sorta read a few pages of it and thought, Yeah, I'd like to do that. I had these agents at the time, and I said, "What do they give you to do one of these things?" And they said, "Oh, they give you $50,000." So I said, "Okay, well, I don't even leave the fuckin' driveway for that kind of money."
Q: And it's not like you're helping out an indie director by playing Garfield.
A: Exactly. He's in 3,000 newspapers every day; he's not hurtin'. Then this studio guy calls me up out of nowhere, and I had a nice conversation with him. No bullshit, no schmooze, none of that stuff. We just talked for a long time about the movie. And my agents called on Monday and said, "Well, they came back with another offer, and it was nowhere near $50,000." And I said, "That's more befitting of the work I expect to do!" So they went off and shot the movie, and I forgot all about it. Finally, I went out to L.A. to record my lines. And usually when you're looping a movie, if it takes two days, that's a lot. I don't know if I should even tell this story, because it's kind of mean. [beat] What the hell? It's interesting. So I worked all day and kept going, "That's the line? Well, I can't say that." And you sit there and go, What can I say that will make this funny? And make it make sense? And I worked. I was exhausted, soaked with sweat, and the lines got worse and worse. And I said, "Okay, you better show me the whole rest of the movie, so we can see what we're dealing with." So I sat down and watched the whole thing, and I kept saying, "Who the hell cut this thing? Who did this? What the fuck was Coen thinking?" And then they explained it to me: It wasn't written by that Joel Coen.
The Mindy Project popped up on Netflix. I've been watching last couple of series that she's produced – Never Have I Ever and Sex Lives of College Girls – both of which I like, so figured I'd check it out. It was a network sitcom, which is prob why I never watched it when it was on (ten years ago?). But I'm about 10 eps in and it's quite entertaining.
I'm concerned that there's like 6 or 7 seasons, and usually I don't start shows with that much back-catalog, but will ride it for awhile.
Conversely, saw the landing page for That 90's Show. I didn't watch more than about 5 eps of That 70's show, but figured I'd check out what they did this round.
OMG, it was the worst 22 minutes of TV I've watched in a long time. Besides being horrible "network sitcom with laugh track" quality, I felt cringey watching the son (Topher?) and his (now) wife, plus all the kids (the new generation).
Then Kutcher and Mila Kunis had their cameos. How much $$ did Netflix throw at these people?!? Most of them have had reasonable (to "star-level" in the case of Mila Kunis) careers. And they plunged to reading dreck dialogue for a laugh track show?
Not sure if any are on the show past Ep 1. Maybe they'll all really liked each other and did one episode for fun? (Altho didn't the curly red-haired guy get called for some MeToo stuff?)
I am being kinda funny these days, I have about 700 albums, and have been playing a couple every day, and NOT the ones I normally listen to, whether I'm a fan of them or not, or love the the band, but always listen to other albums. It can be very educational, find out that this album should be played, or that should never played, or that should be gotten rid of. (I never remember getting that!)
I (very) occasionally just put my entire 7000 song iTunes library on shuffle and let it run, and I'm always surprised by how I like almost all of it. I suppose I expect that the deep tracks on the random album I bought because I liked that one song will suck, but generally they don't! It's an underrated pleasure to listen to music that way.
The Stranger on Netflix. I'm sucker for films set in Australia. Bonus if they're dark. This is a slow, desperately dark and depressing tale about a guy working undercover to catch a pedo/child murder. Super slow character study. Reminds me of The Pledge, which I don't think many people liked, but I did.
I enjoyed The Pledge, tho I loved The Crossing Guard.
Democracy
Former FBI official in charge of counter-espionage in the NY office had one job...
https://abcnews.go.com/US/former-fbi-official-charles-mcgonigal-arrested-ties-russian/story?id=96609658
The financial irregularities of George Santos - the 2019 Mr. Olympia winner - are piling up.
https://thehill.com/homenews/house/3821857-santoss-financial-woes-pile-up-threatening-his-political-career/
More Jan.6 convictions.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2023/01/23/oathkeepers-verdict-seditious-conspiracy-jan6-guilty/
The clown who sat at Pelosi's desk was separately also convicted today.
Cal
Headline on the main page says this weekend was the nadir of the Fox era. How many nadirs does one guy get? He's been nadiring all over the place. He should be nadired out by now.
If your Athletic Director is Jim Knowlton, you get as many nadirs as you want. There's no accountability as long as you meet Title IX requirements and the major donors remain pacified.
Agree 100%…I mean, enough’s enough. The dude clearly isn’t getting fired until after the season, if at all.
But that 1st half was probably his worst half of basketball at Cal…as 3.5 point favorites over a team that hadn’t won on the road in over a year. Pathetic showing…and they keep pushing the injury excuse, which is tired.
He's gone after the season. Fear not. But don't get excited either. Until Knowlton's gone too, we're screwed. Expect another uninspiring hire and having to wait years before enough evidence piles up that guy needs to be removed too. With no obvious successors, we're in a precarious position to repeat the cycle all over again.
Hire Monty as a consultant to oversee the hiring process, then let him strategically "advise" the team for a couple of years. End of problem.
I'm on board with that as along as Knowlton and Christ don't interfere with the program afterwards.
Make Monty the Chancellor and Athletic Director.
What needs to happen is that the Athletics Department's biggest donors need to step up and tell Chancellor Christ that (1) Knowlton's reign of error is ended if she expects any more money from them and (2) they will bring to her finalists for an AD and that she will select one of them as the next AD.
Christ has had her shot at steering the Athletic Department through the Athletic Director. It's an abject failure.
PROBLEM: I don't think even this simple plan would be executed. I don't think there are major donors who fundamentally disagree with the direction of the Athletic Department under Knowlton and would have the temerity to go down this path. Therein lies the sad truth of Cal Athletics: those who have the weight and gravitas to make a difference don't care enough to take charge.
I'd suggest they just care about different things.
Like the Olympic (aka non-revenue) sports? That fits.
What you seem to be leading to is that football and basketball aren't as important at Cal as it is at other FBS institutions.
Which brings me back to why, if that is true, did Cal decide to renovate Cal Memorial? Why not just decline to renovate the stadium and instead, drop down to FCS or Div II? What is it about FBS that makes it worth it to continue in that division while carrying the burden of 28 non-revenue sports?
Are there benefits to the academic side? To hear Carol Christ tell it, the academic side tolerates football and basketball an awful lot. That one quote she gave in The Athletic this past September (?) speaks volumes about attitude.
To look at the balance sheet from recent fiscal years, there are contributions from the academic side in the mid-to-high 7 figures. Seems like an awful lot of tolerance to me. Just not a full embrace.
100% agree. Should happen, but won't happen. The fact that Gates was passed over for Fox, and Fox is still on our bench despite all evidence that he should not be means our major donors are either 1) imbeciles, 2) broke and therefore useless, or 3) simply like having Knowlton as their puppet.
...or 4) they've been sidelined by Christ and don't care to make any noise about it.
Whatever the reason, WYSIWYG for the foreseeable future.
Are you familiar with the concept of "bottom bouncing"?
Is that a variant of twerking?
Actually, a fishing term, referring to bouncing your presentation along on the bottom, when targeting either bottom feeders or others currently holding or running near the bottom (concepts applicable also to Cal revenue sports, I believe).
I found it odd (polite for frustrating) that the Pac-12 choose to put multiple games up against NFL playoffs, essentially squandering inventory that could have been played when more than a few people might actually watch. But either Cal or the conference took it to a new low in scheduling a double header just up the street from the Cowboys-49ers game yesterday.
Not that in that case did it lose very many viewers, either on TV or in attendance, but do any WTF-C writers have any explanation for why that was done, vs playing either of the games on either Saturday or Monday? On the surface of it, it seems to be a scheduling decision that served to only exacerbate every exposure and financial and community issue that are constant problems for the conference.
TV networks drive kickoff times, why not tipoff times? I'd guess, though, that the windows are baked into the contracts. Cal vs OSU was a P12Net game. Makes sense that the least attractive game of the week's schedule is relegated to the worst time slot.
Oh, and BTW, reported attendance for Cal vs. OSU at Haas was 2,072. Ben Braun was fired for an NIT game that drew only 1,968. Somehow, though, I wouldn't hold my breath thinking that this will be the straw that broke Fox's back.
TBF the men's game was over for people to have enough time to get back to their TVs, but I agree that there shouldn't have been a 4:00 tip off on Sunday. That's just not thinking. It took them years to figure out not to schedule home games on the same day as Cal football home games.
Go Bears!!!
Mozilla
Other College
Former Cal player and GC Ben Hawk Schrider gets hired at San Mateo College as OLB coach. Congrats, Ben!
https://twitter.com/CSM_Football/status/1617590546075357184
Not to be picky or anything but it's College of San Mateo (or College of Small Minds if you grew up around there).
One in 6 Stanfurd students choose to cheat using ChatGPT.
https://stanforddaily.com/2023/01/22/scores-of-stanford-students-used-chatgpt-on-final-exams-survey-suggests/
That article raises so many questions.
If only 1 in 6 students are using this tool, what tool are the other 5 of 6 using?
Out of curiosity, what tool(s) are the most popularly used ones at Cal?
Why the concern? Is the erroneous answer rate still too high with this (or any?) AI tool? (Relative to other lookup and reference tools.)
Also using it to cheat at Yale.
RaRa Ah-ah-ah
Roma, roma-ma
Gaga, ooh-la-la
Want your bad romance
https://twitter.com/sethwemerson/status/1617500503750938626
pqtm. Wait, actually Pringle quietly to U of SC.
https://www.espn.com/college-football/story/_/id/35503976/kam-pringle-top-ot-24-class-stays-home-gamecocks
Better for a cock to be pringled with than pringled at.
2023 Pac-12 football schedule by team: Key games, dates in final season before USC, UCLA depart for Big Ten
https://www.cbssports.com/college-football/news/2023-pac-12-football-schedule-by-team-key-games-dates-in-final-season-before-usc-ucla-depart-for-big-ten/
Pro
I got to interview OKC Thunder G/F Jalen Williams last Thursday. What a blur and an out of body experience.
https://kscusports.mixlr.com/recordings/1999476
Interview with him starts at the 26 minute mark and yes I'm announcing college basketball games now!
Congrats! Movin' on up!
When are you going to be replacing Starkey?
do I need to change my name to Fire TD_24
Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery after all
Nice work, TD! That’s awesome.
49ers defeat the Cowboys 19-12, move on to face the Eagles for NFC Championship. This is not a repeat from 1982, 1995, 2022.
https://www.espn.com/nfl/boxscore/_/gameId/401438006
Kittle with the catch of the day
https://twitter.com/NFL/status/1617337922113638402
George Kittle is my spirit animal/man crush. I love how that guy plays!
Amazingly physical but excellent speed, too. Came out of Iowa as a 6th round pick or something. IIRC he was the lone bright spot for Iowa in Furd's shellacking of Iowa in the Rose Bowl.
Dalton Shultz (Stanfurd 2014-17) either didn't know the rules or was low effort and it costs his team 10 seconds and a critical shot at the end-zone
https://twitter.com/awfulannouncing/status/1617353578569674752
That was a really poor move that certainly could have had serious consequences. I wonder some times how much time is actually spent on some of these issues in practice and team meetings at higher levels. It sometimes seems like the assumption is that anyone playing that advanced level of ball actually knows the basics, but we see enough mistakes made that that is clearly not the case.
Yeah that whole sequence he was absolutely terrible. Zero situational awareness or just plainly does not know the rules, including you need two feet down for a catch.
And right after this he failed to get his second foot down on a sideline catch, losing his team about 15 yards on their last Hail Mary attempt.
After watching the replay, I believe he thought his right foot didn't lift until he had the ball (it was close in real time), and it was his left foot he had to get down, which he did.
Sure, out of bounds.
I agree with AndyPanda's review. It's how I read it as well. In real time it would be impossible to tell that his right foot picked up *before* securing the ball.
I understood and agreed with the initial call within that context and was surprised to see the replay contradict what seemed to be a clear catch. But I wasn't about to object to a reversal that clearly hurt Dallas.
Cowboys defense was great. Took Shanahan until the fourth quarter to unlock them, and even then it was more about just taking a lot of dink and dunk stuff. Chunk plays were not there.
Dak did his thing where he makes too many mistakes against a good team.
Yes, Dallas' defense was excellent. But give the 49ers defense credit as well. They kept up the pressure on the Cowboys offense and Prescott, essentially forcing those interceptions/errors.
Without that the 49ers offense doesn't eventually break through or be in the position to win the game.
Absolutely. Two best defenses in the league doing what they do.
Bengals contain the Bills 27-10
https://www.espn.com/nfl/boxscore/_/gameId/401438007
this was an impressive beat-down in what you would have expected to be a much closer game.
Agree. I expected a narrow Bills win, and though the idea that the Bengals would win wasn't a big surprise, the margin and manner were, probably even to most Cincy players and fans.
Eagles smoke the Giants 38-7
https://www.espn.com/nfl/recap/_/gameId/401438004
i was rooting for a shutout by halftime.
a 28 point comeback would have been acceptable as well.
Chiefs defeat Jaguars 27-20
https://www.espn.com/nfl/recap/_/gameId/401438005
Mahomes has a high ankle sprain. He'll probably be shot up with so many drugs that he could be walking on a bloody stump and he'd still play.
https://twitter.com/AdamSchefter/status/1617211308071424002
Cue the ptsd flashbacks to Longshore's high ankle sprain in 2007
Well done, B97! Probably the first time in history Pat Mahomes and Nate Longshore have been mentioned in the same breath….unless Nate has an idiotic douchebag of a brother and insufferable wife that we don’t know about….
;-)
They both married their high school sweethearts.
Sigh. Longshore in '06 vs. post injury Longshore in '07....still blame Tedford for putting him out there when he wasn't fit. (The bitterness of the Cal fan.)
The Longshore injury it turns out was one of the more program defining, and direction altering, events of the last 20 years.
Side effects are right wing nuttiness and founding poorly-designed software companies.
Speed kills. So does acceleration
https://twitter.com/NFL/status/1616926708623605760
Pro Bears are now all eliminated from the playoffs.
I, CeeJay, and Double D went to Sunday's game at Haas. Nice to spend time with my two sons.
Neither team shot very well. With 9:14 elapsed in the first half, the score was 9-7, Beavers. Cal took it's last lead at 15-14 with 4:30 remaining in the first half. OSU went on a 13-0 run to close out the first half. Cal never threatened again in the game and was never closer than a 9 point deficit (18-27 with 18:22 remaining in the game).
Oregon State started to run away with the game on the next three possessions, scoring 8 consecutive points.
At one point, Cal's FG % was in single digits on 1 for 11 shooting.
At least two airballs were sighted during the game.
Fidel's about to travel. Think they'll call him out on it?
According the Cuban government, he invented the Euro step.
The Havana Hop
The thing about that picture that caught my eye was his shoe. I see his foot straining the shoe, which got me thinking about shoe design. This pulled me down the rabbit hole of what makes a good basketball shoe.
Weren't they boycotting Cuba at the time? How did he get the Chuck Taylor's.