Lurker > Zeus

Revelation34 posted...

Also what I bolded is an oxymoron since you supported what I mentioned.

https://literarydevices.net/oxymoron/

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The new formula kinda was a big deal, since breaking away from the old/classic formula certainly let them get a bit more creative with the designs without it looking weird. And a lot of the Maverick designs were really cool, even right out the gate (although others, like Flame Mammoth, were pretty goofy-looking)


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The Wave Master posted...

I only want two more Pops.

Mordecai and Benson from Regular Show, and I'm not paying the hundreds of bucks collectors want for the two of them, and I've sadly given up on ever having them. .

I have the rest of the cast on the Show, but not those two, and it ticks me off because I look at my display, and those are missing.

The after-market is kinda the same issue with any number of collectibles. However, at least Pop!s are usually widely available enough that there's a lag before you have to start dealing with the after-market.

And there probably some rare Pop!s I'd like to have, but (other than maybe the club-exclusive Hobgoblin) I can't really think of many offhand. The problem with Pop!s is that they release so many of them that it's impossible to keep up and difficult to keep track. Plus a lot of them are more impulse buys than serious wants.

ParanoidObsessive posted...

I'd love to have the Funko Pop Cortana that came out as a tie-in to Halo 4, but I don't think I've ever seen it selling for less than $200 on Amazon, and I don't want it that much.

Worse when, at this point, any Funko Pops you see on sites like Amazon aren't even "new" as much as they are "collectible" or "used", and I don't necessarily want anything so badly that I'm willing to buy one someone else has been doing God knows what with.

This is one of those rare collectible lines where there's a tendency to never remove them the original package and oftentimes the people who do remove them don't save the packaging anyway.

I think every Pop! I've removed from the box was because the box itself was falling apart or had some damage to it. For instance, when I got my Chernabog from the Disney Store, the packaging looked like it had silly string or something on it.

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Geez, where the hell is a guy supposed to go to get reasonably-priced Pop!s? Amazon, BBTS, etc, all have the new Masters of the Universe Pop!s -- which I just learned existed (specifically Sorceress, Tung Lashor, and Webstor) -- listed for $11 when these things were just $9 from certain retailers not that long ago.

Granted, I'll cave on Tung Lashor and Sorceress because it's just an extra $2, but I won't make that concession for some of the others.

Although I should probably try to avoid getting more Pop!s. Kinda feels like I already have a lot (although not the hundreds or thousands that hardcore collectors do). However, if I was to settle for just one of them, it would be a hard choice even though Tung Lashor is clearly the better-looking of the two.

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ChronxDaHemphog posted...

Day 25: Mega Man X

Lackluster poster, but cool for showing off the maverick designs.

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Down to 776. Guess a bunch of stuff closed/purged.

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I kinda fell off watching Always Sunny because I got caught up reading a manga the other week and just hadn't got back to it until now. The only kinda downside is that I've seen clips from some of episodes, like "The Gang Gets Whacked," which makes them a bit less fun. I still love a lot of the rapid-fire exchanges between characters when they're just shooting the bull at the bar.

Ferarri619 posted... "Deadly Dates" on Amazon primevideo. Documentaries about women who were killed trying to find love online.

>_>

SpeeDLeemon posted...

I started Yuri On Ice last night. It's fantastic.

The title alone makes it intriguing.

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WhiskeyDisk posted...

My best "4 star" Pokemon is a Dragonite and it isn't even one of my top 10 going by CP.

Is it fully powered? Granted, even when it is fully powered, if you have fully-powered legendaries, quite a few of them are going to outclass it by CP. That and I guess its max CP is substantially lower than TTar and Garchomp.

My top 12 CPs are a lot of Mewtwo, Kyogre, and a Zekrom. However, I haven't evo'd a Slaking, which has a max CP exceeding 4400.

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I haven't had any perfect starters yet -- that I know of, it's possible I tossed out a lower-CP one without even checking -- but I have maybe 12-15 100%ers/4-stars, the most notable of which is a Mewtwo.

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Apparently the order I placed for Pokken DX didn't go through for whatever reason. I might have thought I confirmed but there was another screen, so I placed the order today =x It sucks because had it gone through, I'd probably be getting it today.

tbh, had been wanting the title regardless for a while (but I'm opposed to paying full price for games (and pretty much anything, for that matter) which is why I hadn't got it yet) and my interest was further renewed while using Empeleon in Pokemon Go.

(Also realized I started this post many hours ago but never finished posting it when I checked the topic after Wave posted again >_<)

The Wave Master posted...

reservations at a nice Italian restaurant.

That really safe for you guys?

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Dragged my feet too long on that previously-mentioned sale. First the free add-on pin went away, then eventually the prices went back to normal. Maybe it was for the best? Even at the end I was kinda on the fence over the ronin Jango, simply because I have a lot of collectibles just sitting in boxes. idk, if the prices on that line weren't so high, I might have bought a few of the samurai Snowtroopers but even at the sale price it'd be $50 apiece which is a bit much for army building. I guess that was one more advantage to smaller scale lines >_>

On a happier note, ordered Pokken DX for $45 from Best Buy. Forgot to check to see what *else* might be in that same price range, but I was checking out an unrelated sale and just searched to see if that was discounted. Hadn't got it sooner mostly because it never seemed to get any discounts and I refuse to pay full price for games.


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ParanoidObsessive posted...

No, I'm pretty sure that's the work of my Chaos Engine. I finally got it running a few years back, and it's been slowly pumping more and more entropy into the universe at an exponential rate.

It all fits within my PO's Chaos Engine Theory.

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Revelation34 posted...

https://i.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/facebook/000/512/435/65f.jpg

Mildly amusing.

Granted, on the theme of broken English puns more than undead, I'd more be in favor of "If here by now then geek place be. Trouble time for you when heat comes." But then again, I've really got into Always Sunny lately.


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Uh, so was that *actually* the end of Shibito / "You Will Hear the Voice of the Dead"? The 12th volume / chapter 78 is so fucking abrupt. The whole volume had the general feel of wrapping things up, but then we get a very open ending with a few unsatisfying conclusions to the main character arcs.

I absolutely loved the manga when it was mostly one-shot stories connected by a handful of characters (and, tbh, I'd love to see the format repeated except with POV characters for different stories). Later on, we start to get multi-part stories -- which was still fine, for the most part -- but ultimately it just mostly becomes one continuing story. And I think part of it was just things going off the rails. There was a one-shot character -- the unnamed serial killer called Ghost (or tmaybe she mentioned her name in a later story to Ryoko) -- who they kept bringing back until she was central to the final story.

I will say that I enjoyed some of the callbacks. The series has a lot of references, etc, to earlier stories, including things that factor into the final story (specifically the fish creatures from the first island mystery). On the downside, the author doubled down on what was an allusion/nod and fucking outright featured Cthulhu near the end.

Oh, and the scanlators apparently misgendered a character the shinto-esque priestess-looking character whose name starts with a K- or something. It was confusing as fuck because in her second appearance, she looked more feminine and then later on we see she has cleavage.

I would love to see this get an anime, but I just can't imagine it ever happening since the series wrapped, it apparently largely flew under the radar, and it's kind of a fringe concept. If it did get an anime, I expect it'd get more of an ending or, at least, a "here we go again" kind of ending that shows that life keeps going. As opposed to a this might be the apocalypse, but I think we have a good chance of stopping the end times.

The president's character is continually hilarious for her douchebaggery. She continually pulls self-centered shit. Every now and again you'll forget how horrible she is and then she'll do something to remind you that she hasn't changed much since her first appearance. (Although the last story she stars in she's more of a team player.)

And while Koizume (?) probably appears in more stories than she does (partly because he appears in most of the stories featuring her, and is generally kind of a background character besides that), the president kinda feels like the series' third-biggest character after Kishida and Ryoko. As such, it was kind of a bold decision making her so awful. A lot of the other characters have their moments, but there's always an "okay, but..." aspect to them where they have some redeeming quality to make up for their shortcomings (notwithstanding that she does save the group a few times).

Oh, and what's up with the title? Despite being called "You Will Hear the Voice of the Dead," Kishida's whole thing is that he can see ghosts but he generally can't seem to hear them talk. (major spoilers) And, to really make it annoying, Ryoko finally speaks near the end, but the author purposefully keeps a secret and just shows that Kishida is deeply moved by her words.

Rating the stories, I think my favorite might still be "Ferris Wheel of Death." I loved "My Bloody Night Game" which, despite a flaw or two, was a great slasher. "Legend of the Red Sand" was pretty nice, although it was very one-note. Then "The Book of Magic" and "The God Project" both had great concepts.

"The Haunted Tunnel" and "Day of the Pig" were also fantastic. It was also kind of interesting since it introduced new characters in one story only to kill them off in a second, unrelated story.

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WhiskeyDisk posted...

"Don't Geek Open Inside" should be the name of the new topic.

i have spoken.

I don't get it.

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"Hieda had a funeral to go to" is one of my new favorite running gags. It's used as a recurring explanation for why a supporting member of the Occult Club isn't appearing in a story. The first two times it's mentioned, it sounded legit but I think I've heard it referenced in 10 stories now so it's just a joke at this point.

Most Shibito stories in general have a pretty small cast.

Also, c46 ("Chocolinne: The Irresistible Treat") feels a lot like Junji Ito's "Ice Cream Bus".

Unfortunately I'll probably run through the series either tonight or tomorrow =x

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Goddamn, that horror manga's name is hard to remember. Wanted to read some chapters on my chromebook while I was camping a few Pokestops and kept drawing blanks. Thankfully I remember the girl's name.

I re-read the first three chapters and realized I'd forgotten a few details, like the fact that Kishida (or whatever) was friends with Ryoko when they were very young (which is used for the lead-in to "Ferris Wheel of Death") and that apparently he had seen other ghosts before her. And apparently that first chapter's art was a lot better than some of the stuff I glanced at in a later chapter, so that's probably where my expectations were distorted.

It was also useful for refreshing my memory concerning a few supporting characters. (And actually, the thing in chapter 8 iirc had a callback to an earlier chapter -- which I *think* I remember what happened -- which was another reason why I figured just re-reading everything made sense.)

By the way, a while back I was watching a video discussing either the work of Junji Ito or Lovecraft (or somebody who compared both) and one of the vlogger's observations was that the protagonists in these stories basically serve as witnesses rather than active players. I think that might be one of things I like about Shibito, since Kishida seems to discover the cause of spooky happenings but usually he doesn't really stop it himself (except maybe by escaping and telling others)

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Apparently when I stopped reading Shibito (again, I'm terrible with these Japanese-only names), there hadn't been that much scanlated or whatever so I'm trying to decide whether to re-read from the beginning or pick up where I thought I left off.

Granted, I might be further than I thought. I learned that the Ferris Wheel story was only chapter 3 and the last chapter I'm 100% sure I read is Chapter 8, so I assumed I was only up to chapter 9.... but looking forward and I think I recognize Night of the Slayer (which was a slasher one where the group was lured out and I think the whole family were killers). Right now I'm just re-reading chapter 8 (the tsuchinoko one) because chapter 9 starts with Kishida having a broken leg and I'm not sure if it was related to chapter 8 when they're attacked by those ape things only to be saved by the tsuchinoko which wind up eating them

The most recent chapter is 78 and it's from January 2020, so it's not like a super huge amount of content anyway.

Oh, and apparently the Ryo- I was remembering is because the ghost's name is Hayakawa Ryoko (and the first chapter is "The Disappearance of Hayakawa Ryoko")

Also I realize I say "apparently" a lot. Caught myself about to do it a few times and reworded things.

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Cute, but not super-hot. Is this really the best the UK has to offer? I know it's not a great nation for hotties, but still...

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Fuck, I'm feeling like I'm going to relapse hard >_>

Bluefin Distribution (company that handles Bandai of Japan's imports) has some great-looking sales... but some of the things I really wanted are gone. I think I'm definitely picking up that Thundercracker model kit, but there's a bunch of other stuff I'm looking at including being strongly tempted by a $50 ronin Jango Fett (from that feudal Japan SW series). At the same time, I've got a ton of stuff like that just sitting in boxes (both a bunch of Boba Fetts from Hasbro's SW Black line and then higher end stuff from BoJ as well). All things considered, I probably shouldn't be buying anything. >_<


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Can't decide =x If it's McD's and some restaurants, hash browns. Otherwise often eggs.

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Just learned that a Motaro action figure exists

https://www.bigbadtoystore.com/Product/VariationDetails/130848

I kinda need this. Can't imagine ever seeing another Motaro figure, since I can't even recall the last time I saw a Motaro statue. On the other hand, I don't want to fall down that collectible rabbit hole again especially when I've managed to pull myself out.

The Wave Master posted...

Well, that Sex Box games show case was lackluster. There was some Halo, (Of Course) now Semi open world single player Halo, with a grappling hook, and Halo 2 combat to revive the old nostalgia train.

There are enough open-worlds nowadays that I can't see myself ever going back to closed-world titles (excluding fighters, 2d platformers, etc) >_>

Then again, I barely game

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ParanoidObsessive posted...

I'm still waiting for the inevitable Last Dragon and Big Trouble in Little China remakes. I may have to kill someone when those happen.

What about a live-action Last Unicorn? >_>

ParanoidObsessive posted...

Unless you're suggesting that it isn't actually about anything. In which case I just ceased to care about it from now until the very end of time.

"It's a game about nothing."

ParanoidObsessive posted...

I really like being able to create a character in the beginning - not just appearance

tbh, that's guaranteed to get me interested.

ParanoidObsessive posted...

If a game has voiced dialogue, I like the ability to choose from at least a couple voice sets (or if I can't, I at least like the VA in question to not be total ass) - Saints Row was great for this (though a bit annoying because the female voice sets weren't entirely consistent across games).

Then there's kinda the sub-issue where SR1 only has a male character. Of course, there's also the general issue of the fact it was *only* ever on the 360. (Granted, I own a 360 so, in theory, that's not a gamebreaker... although the 360's tendency to break games is. Plus I just don't like the 360 very much.)

Speaking of, when I was watching cutscenes from SR2 (since I don't feel like getting my ps3 going), I glanced at some wikis and learned that Shaundi was VA'd by Eliza Dushku, which seemed pretty crazy considering she... oh wait, I guess her career *was* fading at that point. Also kinda random, but when double-checking that it was Dushku on the wikipedia page, I learned that NPH VA'd, of all people, Veteran Child. Kind of a small thing to do, considering that Veteran Child doesn't have that many scenes.

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Finally found the name of that manga I was talking about. It's Shibito no Koe o Kiku ga Yoi.

After a lot of searching, I found a page I had saved on an older laptop which had a character's name in one of the panels so I just keep googling variations until I found it. It was from the one alien kappa mystery where they fanserviced (or rather teased) some tentacle stuff (which, in the context of the series, felt a little out of the place -- the tentacle fanservice, not the alien kappa)

The art isn't quite as great as I thought -- although it's still pretty good -- but, on the plus side, it looks like there's a lot of new stuff available for it.

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Pretty much why you involve the courts instead of making a secret agreement.

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Lokarin posted...

You're the reason this happens

https://i.redd.it/17bx8gffzgc51.jpg

Who? What? Where? Why?

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That one briefly came to mind, but iirc nobody got infected from sleeping with her... although I'd forgotten that one guy caught the virus from getting his snake bitten.

I realize other than the premise, I don't remember that much about the movie after all (well, until reading the synopsis/spoilers on wikipedia).

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Lokarin posted...

It's a Megaman!
https://store.steampowered.com/app/975510/Panzer_Paladin/

$20 for a seemingly 8-bit retro title? Even Capcom isn't that greedy >_>

Might be tempted if it gets down to $4 or $5... although when's the last time I played anything?

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Revelation34 posted...

Where is she going to get 10 million from?

Thankfully, the band isn't requesting any money for the publicity. They're not greedy fucks, unlike an artist who tried to copyright troll a decade after they filed the trademark which was years after they'd been using it to reference themselves. Actually, they probably have as much history with the name as the artist who is trying to extort them except, you know, people actually know who they are.

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Revelation34 posted...

Can you really rape a zombie?

Well, from a technical standpoint, they're incapable of consent so any sexual activity you initiate would be rape. The counter-argument would be the claim that they're not alive, but the nature of zombies can vary greatly depending on the continuity so not all of them seem strictly dead/undead.

Within the context of the comic or manga, they forcibly violated the zombie. On those grounds alone, I'd consider it rape.

Revelation34 posted...

What's the name of that one?

Before you get your hopes up, I don't think it depicted the act in progress. I think it was in a relatively decent multi-zombie story manga/comic anthology which also involved a couple arguing whether fast zombies or slow zombies were scarier where she ends up infected and he thinks she's just dead because she moves so slowly -- it takes like 8 hours for her to turn over and get close to him despite the fact they were sleeping next to each other -- and then he winds up turning into a turbo zombie.

Regardless, I think it was something I read on Manga Rock so I have no way of going back to get the name.

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Revelation34 posted...

I need to know the name of whatever it is you mentioned.

I think there have been a few things like that. I also remember this one comic/manga where zombies with either masks or teeth removed were being used in the workplace and these two dudes decide to rape a female zombie, figuring that the disease can't spread like a STD.... but it does and they end up in that same zombie-slave workforce.

Unrelated, but it brings to mind a line from Stroker and Hoop where a company man mentions having, "a living wage for our living workers," and Hoop muses, "Hm, what other kind of workers are there?"... only to learn they're using zombies for slave labor. That show was canceled long before its time >_> #NinjasDontHaveDayJobs

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LinkPizza posted...

Probably because people are having a harder time finding her stuff... At least, thats what it sounds like...

....people can't find her stuff because she's not popular. And her stage name didn't exactly help her out since she's not big enough to rock something that generic.

If anything, she should be thanking them. More people now know she exists than throughout her entire "career". She got the equivalent of a free $10m in publicity.

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The Wave Master posted...

We could do something with the topic being centered around the continuation of the first wave of the virus, or a second impending lockdown.

Hence 28 Geeks Later, which is a reference to 28 Weeks Later, which is a sequel to 28 Days Later. Keep in mind that if zombies were made to wear face masks, they'd be less likely to spread their disease.

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I try to avoid Facebook since it's mostly just super-partisan nonsense and, to make it even more obnoxiously, usually they're just sharing what's being said by the moronic zealots they're following on other social media platforms who make a living by trying to stir the pot (which I'm sure a few people on PotD would do if they could actually get a following, but they mostly parrot ideas said by others)

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faramir77 posted...

I just wanted Gengar to be honest. He probably wasn't that great in Gen 1 especially, but still.

Yeah, he was weak against psychic and ground while simultaneously ghost moves weren't really fleshed out (and psychics were immune to ghosts), so it wasn't a good time for him.

ParanoidObsessive posted...

I was 22 at the time

Relevance?

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Metalsonic66 posted...

You were the one who kept saying animation lol

Technically it's all part of the same thing regardless.

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Nice, solid, simple artwork.

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I_Abibde posted...

And the rise of the anti-anime / manga movement started circa '06. It will never be 100% "normal" as long as there is a contingent willing to scream "WEEB!" at everything Japanese.

The anti-anime and anti-manga trend is far older than that >_> Even weeb goes back to the early 2000s and I was hearing "Wapanese" in the 90s.

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SpeeDLeemon posted...

Zues math incoming. Can't. wait.

Gee, fella, you sure are obsessed with this Zues guy. Are you sweet on him or something?

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Watched a clip from Colbert's late night show because it discussed how Danny DeVito got involved with the show, and I was taken aback at the end.... when I heard Colbert's band playing what sounded like a Sonic the Hedgehog level theme. Apparently the show does that pretty often now. Oo

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UytuyWBXlwc

I think I'm near the end of Always Sunny's first season -- mostly because they have really short seasons -- and, although it feels unpolished compared to the stuff I'd seen later (like you could tell that it was just a group of friends putting the show together), it still has a lot of hilarious moments. That said, it doesn't feel the same without Frank/DeVito so I'm looking forward to starting the next season.

The kinda odd thing is that, despite the fact they didn't intend to have DeVito, the first season makes quite a few references to Dennis & Dee's father (both the individual characters and then Pop-Pop complaining about him). Meanwhile I think the only time the mother comes up is when Dee has a phone call from her (and afaik she's a relatively minor character later on, not appearing very often then dying)


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Getting close to the next topic. Are we keeping on the COVID theme? If so, we could use

• The Continued (Natural) Self-Quarantining of the Geeks
• The Geeks Don't Go to Camp
• 28 Geeks Later

Or we could go with Twilight of the Geeks, if it hasn't been used. In general, I don't think we'll see many new things around the corner.

ParanoidObsessive posted...

But did you watch Hot Tub Time Machine?

Didn't interest me.

ParanoidObsessive posted...

Not really because of his performance (he was basically the Straight Man, and the Straight Man is almost never the reason why you like any given film/show/performance, even if the Straight Man is often necessary to cast the other characters into better relief),

idk, I'll watch a movie knowing a great Straight Man is in it, given that their reactions can make almost any joke funny.

ParanoidObsessive posted...

I always find it interesting comparing older wrestling fans who used to be huge Chris Benoit fans when he was alive who absolutely cannot stand to see anything with him in it (even the old video games) to this day, as opposed to the people who are adamant about being able to separate the performer from the performance and still appreciate his work as a wrestler even if they find his actions as a person reprehensible. Ranging all the way from people who can't even watch old PPVs if he was on them (even matches he's not in), to people who argue he should still be in the Hall of Fame for his work, because his contributions to/impact on the industry were significant even if his personal life was a horror show.

That one was easy, since I never liked him before. In fact, it seems like it's almost always the ones I don't like that turn out to be monsters (whereas the ones I do like merely turn out to be assholes or creeps). Maybe I have a super-power. Do you think it's too late for me to join a school for gifted youngsters so I can hone my ability?

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After seeing the Lethal Weapon 5 and The Nightman Cometh clips -- as well as a lot of other ones in recent weeks/months -- I think I'm going to finally watch Always Sunny.

Ferarri619 posted...

Wow, Russia has sexy badass policewomen, damn.

Cute, sure. I'm not sure how badass they are, though.

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There are precious few at ease / With moral ambiguities / So we act as though they don't exist.

But the Cosby thing gives you a very good reason to stop liking Cosby >_> I'm talking more for no particular reason.

Granted, I generally don't react that viscerally to actors' personal lives, etc. Most of the actors I already disliked often turn out to be kinda shitty (or highly disagreeable) people or I'm still cool with their portrayals even after learning about shitty things they've done. There are some actresses who turned out to be far-left nutjobs who I still like, as well.

The Wave Master posted...

My wife hates Tom Cruise because of the evil cult of Scientology thing. She refuses to watch any of the 6 or 7 Mission Impossible films. Same thing with Elizabeth Moss too, evil cult of Scientology, so Handmaids Tale is out.

I hate John Cusack (because he's a smug, self-righteous asshole), but I still watched -- and hated -- 1408. I find it hard to not watch something I might be interested in just because I hate somebody in it. I think I disliked Ryan Reynolds at the time GL came out, but I watched that anyway (and it was kinda okay, even though Reynolds's portrayal of Hal was what I hated most about the film). I also disliked Reynolds when Deadpool came out, but I was more okay with him afterward. In general, Reynolds is like a young Nick Cage, he's a campy guy with wildly varying performances. (And, in light of those facts, casting him as Detective Pikachu was pretty dead-on.)

And a Handmaid's Tale is feminist propaganda, so you're probably better off avoiding it >_>

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adjl posted...

Not at all. Presuming hiring a new worker is a sensible business move that will make more money for the company than their wages will cost, you still come out ahead even if you have to give all of your employees a raise to match the one you give yourself. That's just math. It won't be as large a raise as you could get if you didn't have to do that, obviously, but that's the whole point.

Large companies that require lots of workers and operate on tight margins need to pay keep wages low. Again, Walmart is the perfect example. The company has 2.2m employees. Even if you took everything the CEO makes -- if you really hated CEOs -- it still doesn't mean dickall for the employees.

That idea only really works with small companies where wages are *already* very likely to be higher than average.

wolfy42 posted...

Zeus, we often don't agree on things, but i'm curious on your take on profit sharing.

Depends. Are you talking about a company where the employees put in seed money to run the company? Because that's very practical for profit-sharing and the employees have a fiscal stake vis-a-vis their investment.

Are you talking about a company where management decided to profit-share? Because that's their choice.

wolfy42 posted...

I'm a strong believer that it would help fix most of the problems we have. Even a small amount of profit sharing would improve productivity, and ensure every worker had enough money to live comfortably. While it would obviously be much better for some than others, it would allow a total increase in profits for the actual workers (not just the ones making min wage etc), it would boost the actual profits of the company (possibly even compensating for the entire amount being used for profit sharing), and it would increase employee loyalty and satisfaction.

No, it probably wouldn't. Individual rewards tend to be a greater motivator than collective rewards because individuals have more control. It's one reason why communism frequently fails, there's no strong individual motive.

And keep in mind that performance-driven jobs *already* pay better than minimum wage. Conversely, most minimum wage jobs either aren't performance-driven or differences in performance tend to be marginal. Most people in retail are just warm bodies. They do pretty basic, bare-bones work that mostly just requires somebody being present.

Likewise, a lot of businesses just don't generate enough profit to pay workers substantially more, particularly in the case of retail and fast food. Even if the company collectively makes a good amount of money, a lot of locations tend to be operate barely above water because that's the nature of the industry.

wolfy42 posted...

It would require some safeguard to ensure large companies like...oh say amazon...didn't declare no profits at all for the year they made billions in profits (but re-invested it). In fact, I believe the profit sharing should be based on gross profits before any re-investments etc, meaning a company could not use that money to invest with as it already had to go to the employees.

The company constantly reinvests for growth. Coincidentally, it's one reason why I don't take the evaluation all that seriously. It feels like a house of cards.

As for profit sharing, it should *never* be done off gross profit, it needs to be done on *net* profit. Gross profit doesn't take all expenses into account, mostly just the cost of product and distribution.

wolfy42 posted...

Something like a 5% share of profits with all employees (equally), is what I'm thinking. I did the research once and for most low paying jobs that would just about double their income.

5% of profits from what, Amazon? Amazon has 840k employees. The net income in 2019 was 11.588b. 5% would be $579.4m, spread across 840k employees... that'd be $689 each. Hardly "doubling" their income. On a per-hour basis, it would only be another 34-cents.

And keep in mind that "low paying" for Amazon is $15 per hour. That's twice the federal minimum wage ($7.25). And a lot of low-end Amazon jobs pay even better than the minimum $15 -- iirc, I think I saw a listing for pickers starting at $18/hr (although many of those jobs are fucking brutal and absolutely performance-driven, so the higher compensation is understandable).

Did you confuse profit with operating revenue? The revenue was $280b, but that includes costs of product, distro, wages, etc. If you took that, you'd come up with $16.6k per employee, which *still* wouldn't double their salary, but it would be significant. Of course, 5% of $280b is $14b, which is more than the company's net income so it'd go into the red.

And in general even if half the net profits of a business went back to the workers, it often wouldn't double their salaries because there's only so much profit and generally so many workers.

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ParanoidObsessive posted...

Not really. It's just using the general designs and voice actors of the original but deliberately skewing every aspect of the narrative and to a younger target demo.

But it has so many fucking callbacks and references to the original cartoon.

ParanoidObsessive posted...

It's the exact same thing they did with Thundercats. The remake aimed at teens/adults failed, so they made one aimed at younger children instead.

Oh right, I forgot the new one was a thing.... and also never got around to watching the remake.

Bearing in mind that cartoons live or die based on merch sales, the idea that it was targeted at teens/adults is a little flawed. Most of the merch for the new series wasn't anything close to collector-level, with the few new collector-level offerings released at the time instead being for the *original* series (which they completely bungled, first releasing a "wave" of two 8-inch figures then having a second "wave" (again, being generous here since two figures does not a wave make) once again of two figures, but this time in a 6-inch scale (which they really *should* have done in the first place)... and one of the two figures was once again Lion-o).

ParanoidObsessive posted...

Studios have openly admitted the reasoning in the past - basically, intelligent shows aimed at older audiences don't really sell merch, so they're more expensive to produce (because you can't underwrite the costs via toy sales or t-shirt/Underoos money). So there's a motivation to aim downward (especially since it's generally easier/cheaper to shit out lolrandom kid cartoons than trying to develop something both kids and adults will enjoy). That's the same thing that mostly killed Young Justice on Cartoon Network as well (the ratings were actually fine and the show was critically praised, but it was too expensive to produce for a show that wasn't selling toys, so it was doomed).

Because the merch for the cartoon sucked. You had 2 figure "waves" where for the 6-inch figures where one character packed with a playset for $20 at a time when the DC Universe Classics line -- which are in the same 6-in scale, similar style (in fact, they did some kitbashing) -- were only $13 and included a BAF piece. If parents had been buying those DCUC figures for their kids all along (which were collector level), the 6-in offerings would be more appealing to them... so the fact that it was a clusterfuck when there was no reason for it to be a clusterfuck killed it.

There was also a smaller line in a style almost comparable to the JLU figures, which was fucking stupid because the JLU line's poor sales had doomed that cartoon and ensured it wouldn't get another season (if it did get another season, Queen of Fables was going to appear -- she finally did appear in a DC cartoon, after being used in Harley Quinn). Mattel over-invested in trying to continue this smaller format for no real reason, since I think the initial run was like 20 different figures (where, again, the first wave of the 6-in line had 2)

Mattel bungled the toyline. The toys didn't sell. Mattel pulled its funding. It wasn't the cartoon's fault. By the way, it looks like Mattel lost the DC license altogether. McFarlane is now producing mass-market DC figures (which don't look great, but still better than the stuff Mattel had towards the end) and Spin Master is producing the low-end stuff.


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Metalsonic66 posted...

The original show had shit for animation. The new show is certainly not the best animation ever but it's like hundreds of times better than the old one

The original She-Ra's animation was halfway decent. The new one's animation looks like the kind of crap you'd find on Newgrounds.

ParanoidObsessive posted...

while either catering to much younger audiences (a la Teen Titans Go)

TTG was something of a love letter to the Teen Titans cartoon, which very loosely adapted the comics. It's basically a xerox of a xerox >_>


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The other issue I want to address -- which I saw brought up several times but don't feel like digging around for the relevant portion of a post -- is the stupidity and misunderstandings regarding "hoarding," inherited wealth, etc.

There's a generally well-known concept called the Third-Generation Rule. Basically 7/10 wealthy families lose their fortune by the second generation, and that number jumps to 90% by the third generation. (And historically this has been the case as well; to try to prevent *some* of the issues, you began to see laws restricting inheritance to the eldest son to avoid the fragmentation of wealth, but even that didn't solve things completely.)

https://www.nasdaq.com/articles/generational-wealth%3A-why-do-70-of-families-lose-their-wealth-in-the-2nd-generation-2018-10

https://www.marketwatch.com/story/heres-why-90-of-rich-people-squander-their-fortunes-2017-04-23

https://medium.com/datadriveninvestor/why-wealth-barely-lasts-for-3-generations-d409e5f28106

The idea that somebody just accumulates all this money and it doesn't go anywhere is generally absolute bullshit.

Not to mention that, while a greater share of the economy might be in the hands of the few, the economy as a whole has constantly been growing. Then there's the fact that wealth isn't the same thing as cash (which I already discussed to some extent) and cash isn't the same thing as resources. The fact that somebody else is rich doesn't necessarily (on its own merits) impact the day-to-day lives of others. And when workers collectively make more, oftentimes everything winds up just getting more expensive.

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adjl posted...

Eh, not quite. A year's supply of food is somewhere on the order of $3500-4000, even if you're reasonably frugal about it (that's $70-75 per week), so feeding the entire planet for a year would cost somewhere in the realm of 25 trillion. He's not quite THAT rich. Maybe try saying that again in 3-4 years and it'll be more accurate.

Out of the countless things that are glaringly wrong with his post, I love that you've chosen to highlight that.

blu posted... He made an online business which revolutionized how people shop worldwide and also hosts half of the internet. The man changed was able to organize a fundamental change in the lives of almost everyone in a developed nation on the planet.

Someone else wouldve done it if he didnt, but same with Einsteins discoveries...took advantage of right place right time.

Yeah, he profits from a business he created and works slavishly upon. Plus he created countless other millionaires in the process

https://www.wyattresearch.com/article/amazon-stores-jeff-bezos-millionaires/

Revelation34 posted...

Citation needed.

That's not even going into the fact that Mead has a profound misunderstanding of cause and effect.

Muscles posted...

Both extremes can be bad in a situation, I never implied the rich hording money is a good thing just that going to such extreme measures in the opposite direction is bad too

I love how Mead remarks that wealth inequality leads to authoritarianism and then has the gall to accuse you of not knowing what you're talking about. That's so him!

SunWuKung420 posted...

Mead and I are on the same page but he's blocking me...rofl.

He's got half the board blocked at this point.

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blu posted...

I actually dont understanding selling stock plummeting the value that quickly. I do understand if he sold half then it would plummet the next day, but not that he cant sell it all and get the value and no longer have his company. But he has to find someone willing to buy which would then lower the price because of the news hes selling maybe?

I guess stocks work different at that point. I just put money into my account and hit the buy button and the sell button, indexing all the way. (I dont actually hit the sell button)

Sure, if he could find one buyer and unlock his whole position, he'd get the full amount... but who the fuck has that kind of money? Considering Bezos is the richest man in the world, the answer is nobody.

So instead he'd start selling off his shares. The early sales he'd get full price for, but the more he sells, the more the prices will start to drop as he floods the stock market and, of course, prices will also drop because of a loss in investor confidence. However, and here's the more important part: When he sells, he's taxed. Because those shares have risen in value since he got them, that's all taxable income. So his wealth would shrink greatly once from selling the stock (assuming he can even unload all of it), then it'd take another huge hit from taxes. But that's largely academic because it's doubtful he'd ever even try to unload his position, which is why his "wealth" is largely virtual. He sells off parts from time-to-time, which gives him a huge amount of money, but most of it will always be tied up in stock.

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Trespasser2003 posted...

Not true at all. A wealth tax has worked in the past and would again. The problem is that Americans cant seem to wrap their brains around what taxing 90% of money made over x amount means. They see 90% and go into heart failure without reading the rest of the damn sentence.

A wealth tax didn't work in the past, the idea is so fundamentally stupid that almost no nations have it, and you've stupidly conflated wealth with income. Jeff Bezos's could double in a year and he could make no income. So unless you'd want to start taxing him shares when the shares are worth more (and would you give shares back when the value falls?), you don't have a solution, you just have foolishness. Not unsurprising, given that your conception of wealth is ripped straight from Duck Tales. (Woohoo!)

SunWuKung420 posted...

The biggest problem is that American children are indoctrinated into a belief system that tells them anyone could make 500 billion dollars a year if they worked hard enough, even though 99% of all American's struggle to stay afloat financially. They are also told that it's ok that a guy that sits in meetings all day deserves a salary far greater than their needs while those keeping those companies running, those doing the actual work (ceo's don't keep a company running: janitors, technicians, processors, administrators, managers, etc,. those doing the daily toil do) have to worry if they are making enough money.

The biggest problem is that American children are indoctrinated into believing that wealth is a giant vault of coins with a huge dollar sign on the front, so they ignorantly spout nonsense about people hoarding vast sums of money when much of the time almost all of a rich person's wealth is in his company and, when it involves shares, he needs to hold onto a certain amount to control his company.

And given that the CEO is frequently the company's founder and chief investor, they should stand to gain far more.

SunWuKung420 posted...

If one ceo took a 25% pay cut, you could pay every employee of that company 50% more. (I made this up but I bet the truth is far more shocking and glaring.)

You will be shocked... considering that even if you took 100% of a CEO's salary in many companies, it wouldn't even translate to a $1 wage increase for their employees. Take Walmart, for example. Everybody bitches that the CEO makes $22m (and it gets even better than that, trust me). However, Wal-Mart has 2.2m employees. If you took 100% of his money, all the employees would get is $10 each -- not $10 more per hour, just $10. But wait, there's more! That $22m is total compensation, it's not even all cash -- in fact, only about $5m was cash.

It's just one more example of why the CEO hate is based on stupidity and ignorance.

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