Pixel Scroll 7/19/16 Dropkick Me Pixel, Through The Scrollposts Of Life

(1) WHEN LAST HEARD FROM. Rachael Acks, your life is calling. Confessions of a Pokémon Go player.

I wasn’t going to play Pokémon Go. Seriously. I’ve never played Pokémon in my entire life. I still have zero desire to pick up any of the other games, because I am not interested in that kind of grind.

But then my friend Corina wanted to go for a long walk and catch all the local Poké Stops. Which are in the same location as Ingress portals, so I thought what the hell, I might as well get back into playing Ingress. I haven’t done that since getting back to Colorado. Oh and fine, I’ll download Pokémon Go while I’m at it and try, since I’ll be out there anyway. It’s probably dumb and I won’t like it.

And now I find myself out there, sitting on a picnic table in a park at midnight, farming Pokémon, and once a day reminding myself to log on to Ingress and keep my hacking streak going. What the hell happened? I don’t even go here.

(2) GHASTLY NEWS. The trolls and haters have driven Leslie Jones off Twitter with their racist abuse. 🙁

According to Salon, Twitter administrators are working to deal with the problem.

It all seemed to be going well for a while. Over the weekend, the actress and comic was tweeting out photos sent by happy fans attending screenings of her film, and praise for colleagues. Then on Monday, she issued a warning, saying, “Some people on here are f__king disgusting. I’m blocking your filthy ass if retweet that perverted s__t. Just know that now bitches!!” And then she proceeded to demonstrate just how bad it really is to be a woman of color — even more gallingly for the ignorant trolls, a successful woman of color — on Twitter. She shared tweets from a variety of low-functioning cretins, too many to list here but several with the theme of comparing Jones to a gorilla.

…But as fans and supporters have come forward to report the abuse, either Twitter administration actually has done something or the trolls themselves haven’t been able to stand the attention. By Tuesday morning, at least some of the more revolting posters seem to have disappeared — gee, was the reference to the KKK in your user name, bro? At least one racist troll has been suspended. Fun fact: You will not find too many on Twitter who think it’s funny to call a stranger a racial slur who use their own name or image on their account….

(3) INVESTIGATIVE JOURNALIST. Alexandra Erin reports: “Ghostbusters Enjoys $46m Opening Weekend Entirely On Strength of Guys From The Internet Sitting Alone In Empty Theaters With Their Phone Cameras”.

As reported on breitbart.com, Sony’s Ghostbusters opened this weekend to a slew of empty seats in empty theaters, taking in an impressive $46 million dollars from the men of various Gamergate-affiliated internet forums, who all bought tickets for the sole purpose of taking pictures of otherwise empty auditoriums to post on Twitter in order to prove that the movie really was a bomb, no matter what the feminist conspiracy is making the biased left-wing media say about it.

The journalistic zeal of these amateur photographers was enough to bump the reboot into second place for the weekend, finishing just behind the family entertainment powerhouse The Secret Life of Pets (first, at $50 million). The multitudes of men sitting alone in empty theaters gave seasoned director Paul Feig and hit comic actor Melissa McCarthy their biggest openings yet, as well as making Ghostbusters the most successful debut for a live-action comedy all year….

(4) CRITICAL CAT. At Camestros Felapton’s blog, Timothy the Talking Cat weighs in on the day’s most important cultural issue: “Review: Ghostbusters Versus Timothy”.

CF: So Ghostbusters, what did you think?
Timothy: Overall I felt the  duffel bag could have been larger.
CF: Seriously, it was the only way to get you into the cinema.
Timothy: Ah, the ‘No Cats’ rule again.
CF: Specifically the ‘No cats called Timothy because he keeps shouting at the characters in the movie’ rule again.
Timothy: I believe my fellow patrons enjoy my ad-hoc commentary.….

(5) CHAT WITH A DOCTOR EMERITUS. The Guardian hosted the “Matt Smith webchat – fear, football and a female Doctor Who”. Highlights:

  • “I think a Lady Doctor could be close”

How does my daughter become the Doctor? She wants to know. Thanks!

“Well, she has a chance. I think a Lady Doctor could be close. And would be fun. So practise, practise, practise. And talk really fast. And think really fast. And be really brave. And mad. And silly. And good luck maybe it will be you!”

  • “I miss time travelling. But it’s Peter’s Tardis now”

There were rumours that you would return for the 10th season. Is this true?

“No it’s not true…. I miss everything. I miss Steven, I miss Karen, I miss Arthur, I miss Jenna. I miss time travelling. And I miss my friends in Cardiff. BUT onward goes the march. It’s Peter’s Tardis now. And I love what he does. So I watch as a fan.”

(6) SNEAK PEEKS. Cnet invites you to “Check out these two set photos from ‘Star Wars: Episode VIII’”.

Director Rian Johnson posted some set photos from his upcoming movie. Maybe you’ve heard of it….

All the photos really tell us is that the upcoming Star Wars film has both spaceships and oddly shaped black helmets, which I think most of us would have put money on already.

(7) STEPHANIE CLARKSON (1971-2016). Laurie Beth Brunner reported on Facebook that Boston area fan Stephanie Clarkson passed away today.

Stephanie died peacefully this morning at 5:30 a.m., with her mother keeping her company and holding her.

I like to think that her body was simply inadequate to the task of containing her spirit, and so it let her go free. 🙁

Thank you all so much for all the love and support you have shown to Stephanie, to her family, and to me as well. I know that she loved you all and was so grateful for everything everyone did for her, even when she was sometimes unable to express it.

Good night, Stephanie, and flights of Muppets sing thee to thy rest.

(8) MISSION OVERACCOMPLISHED. There’s a Kickstarter raising funds to reproduce NASA’s manual for the 1969 Moon landing — “Apollo 11 Flight Plan Re-Issue”.

We are starting from the beginning and reproducing every single page, using accurate fonts, colors, spacing and paper, as well as reproducing all vector graphics based on very high resolution scans of the original Apollo 11 Final Flight Plan.

A lot of people think this is a good idea. So many, that it’s raised $59,369, far in excess of its original goal of $11,274. And there are still 26 days left to go.

(9) NEIL CLARKE, IMPOSTOR? That’s the title of his post – “Impostor”. Fortunately, he sounds like he’s on his way to recovery.

It’s easy to start something when people have little or no expectations from you. I can’t tell you how many people told us Clarkesworld would be “dead within a year.” Somewhere around the third year, that changed. Being taken seriously was intimidating. Success felt great, but I was always ready for the rug to be pulled out from under us.

And then, four years ago, I had a near-fatal heart attack. It’s the sort of thing that reshapes your priorities and forces you to examine what you’ve been doing. I think that might have been the first time I honestly admitted to myself that I was a professional editor and deserved to be paid for my work, no matter how much I enjoyed it. That said, I’m still very good at ignoring the voice that says “you earned this.” That list of accomplishments… that’s what my childhood heroes did. In that light, it’s often a case of “I’m not worthy.”

That brings us to today. I can’t quite say that I’m a recovered impostor, but that I can blog about it is a promising sign. I can see why hiding behind the magazine has worked for me and I also understand why others feel I should “own my brand.” Perhaps I can step out periodically and see what happens. As I said, frightening, but maybe I’m ready.

(10) KEEP ON TRUCKING. Gareth D. Jones reviews The End Of The World Running Club by Adrian J Walker” for SFCrowsnest.

This sounds good, I thought. A post-apocalyptic tale about a man who has to run the length of Britain to find his family. The cover does not look like a Science Fiction book, though, it looks like a ‘literary’ book. More worryingly, when it arrived, it had a sticker on the front cover advertising the ‘BBC Radio 2 Book Club’. My dad used to listen to Radio 2. Technically, I am now in the right age bracket to listen to Radio 2 myself, but do I really want to put myself in that bracket and read that kind of book? Too late. The book was in my possession and I was committed to reading it.

Within a few pages I was hooked….

(11) LOVE THE HEADLINE. At SF Site News, Steven H Silver showed some flair in his title: “Muppets” Take Ankh-Morpork:

The Jim Henson Company has announced they are developing a film based on Sir Terry Pratchetts Wee Free Men, with a script to be written by Pratchett’s daughter, Rhianna Pratchett. The project is a collaboration between the Jim Henson Company and Narrativia, a company set up to promote Pratchett’s works. Rhianna Pratchett and Sir Terry’s assistant, Rob Wilkins, will serve as Executive Producers on the project. For more information…

(12) OPEN MOOSE SURGERY. I missed this at the time in 2015 – a thorough restoration of the iconic Rocky and Bullwinkle statue that used to be in front of the Jay Ward Studios.

In a post on Vintage Los Angeles on Saturday, Martino recalled meeting Ricardo Scozzari, who restored the sculpture. “I tracked down the brilliant restoration genius who put our friends back together and lovingly restored them,” she said. “THEY ARE BASICALLY BULLET PROOF NOW! And it wasn’t easy! The statue was falling apart when it was removed from its iconic location on the morning of July 22, 2013. Meet the man who rescued our local landmark! Ricardo Scozzari!”

“I restored the statue twice,” said Scozzari. “Once on the Sunset Strip and the final time as you see it now. It was a fun project. Bullwinkle had ‘open heart surgery’ — literally. I had to open his chest to strengthen his internal structure. Oh the pictures I have. He looks just like he did back in 1961. Same number of strips on his bathing suit and everything.”

bullwinkle and rocky

(13) WAILING AWAY. Plonk your magic twanger, Marty — “Michael J. Fox and Coldplay Recreate ‘Back to the Future’ at NJ Concert”.

On Saturday night (July 16), Coldplay kicked off the North American leg of its Head Full of Dreams tour just outside New York in East Rutherford, NJ’s MetLife Stadium. They were back in the same venue the following night, so what did they do to break the mold? Stage an iconic scene from American cinema. Did you ever doubt Chris Martin’s dramatic flair?

During the show’s final encore, Coldplay brought out Michael J. Fox, Gibson Les Paul in hand. Together, they transported the crowd to Back to the Future‘s Enchantment Under the Sea dance, with a couple of ‘50s classics. First, they played a little of the Penguins’ “Earth Angel” and after that — of course — Chuck Berry’s “Johnny B. Goode.” The homage came as a request from Martin’s son, Moses, who was hoping to get a real life taste of his favorite movie.

Fox (who was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease in 1991) has been known to reprise the famous scene at the annual benefit for his Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson’s Research. For the 2013 benefit, he performed alongside Chris Martin in New York City.

(14) ROAD WARRIOR. Pornokitsch presents “Gail Carriger on ‘The Traveling Writer: A Tip Sheet’”.

I started attending conventions as a fangirl long before I was a professional writer. I knew what to expect and when I got my first Guest of Honor invitation I was over the moon. I still get a little thrill at the very idea that someone wants me to attend a convention… as a guest!

But it’s not the same thing. Whether heading out on a book tour or invited as a guest to a small local sci-fi convention, attending programming at a larger conference, or visiting one of those monster book festivals or comicons there are some things I think a professional writer should always keep in mind.

So here, for your amusement (and perhaps education) are my highly subjective… Tips for the Traveling Writer

  1. Thou shalt follow the 6, 2, 1 rule

What’s that? At least six hours sleep, two full meals, and one bath.

Actually, I usually try for 8, 3, 2. I recommend a morning swim (at most cons I get an AM pool to myself) plus a hot tub mini soak and shower. People often forget about the hotel pool when there is a major event, so if you like to swim don’t forget the bathing suit and goggles.

(15) SUFFERING FROM THRONE WITHDRAWAL? ScreenRant recommends 15 Fantasy Worlds to Explore While You Wait for the Next Season of Game of Thrones.

1. The Kingkiller Chronicles, Patrick Rothfuss 2. The Gentlemen Bastard Cycle, Scott Lynch 3. The Dark Tower, Stephen King 4. Saga, by Brian K. Vaughn and Fiona Staples 5. The Passage Trilogy, Justin Cronin 6. Bone, by Jeff Smith 7. American Gods, by Neil Gaiman 8. Mistborn, by Brandon Sanderson 9. Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell, by Susanna Clarke 10. The Stormlight Archives, by Brandon Sanderson 11. Paper Girls, by Brian K. Vaughn and Cliff Chiang 12. The Magicians, by Lev Grossman 13. Rat Queens, by Kurtis J. Wiebe and Various Artists 14. The Wheel Of Time, by Robert Jordan 15. The First Law Universe, by Joe Abercrombie

(16) WE HAVE A WINNER. You never know where the next title is coming from…

(17) BACK IN TIME. The New Yorker presents an interesting video – “A Split-Screen Tour of Los Angeles, Seventy Years Ago and Today”.

Bunker Hill, an area of roughly five square blocks in downtown Los Angeles, holds a place in city lore similar to that of the water wars or the construction of Dodger Stadium: beginning in 1959, it was the subject of a massive urban-renewal project, in which “improvement” was generally defined by the people who stood to profit from it, as well as their backers at City Hall, at the expense of anyone standing in their way. In the early part of the twentieth century, the neighborhood had been home to some of the city’s most elegant mansions and hotels; by the nineteen-fifties, these had mostly been subdivided into low-income housing, and the area was populated by a mix of pensioners, immigrants, workers, and people looking to get lost—a period memorialized in several noir films and the realist gem “The Exiles.” The Bunker Hill Redevelopment Project was adopted in 1959 and somehow lasted an astonishing fifty-three years. The result, and what it means, are the subject of this short film by Keven McAlester, which compares what the same streets in downtown Los Angeles looked like in the nineteen-forties and today.

[Thanks to Bartimaeus, Dawn Incognito, JJ, James Davis Nicoll, Carl Slaughter, John King Tarpinian for some of these stories. Title credit goes to File 770 contributing editor of the day Sciphideas.]

112 thoughts on “Pixel Scroll 7/19/16 Dropkick Me Pixel, Through The Scrollposts Of Life

  1. Chip Hitchcock on July 20, 2016 at 7:10 am said:
    (17) It’s better seen as a pedestrian. (They missed the good stuff, by being in a car.) The Library Steps, across from the front doors of the Central Library, and the fountains at California Plaza, can’t really be appreciated any other way.

  2. @Paul: AND threw in a Rickroll for good measure.

    Trump is no stranger to plagiarism.

  3. Trump is a stranger to reading. He says he has no time, though a recent article on him shows him in a room with lots of magazines, all with his mug on the covers. I wonder if he’s devolved into a kind of person who only reads headlines.

  4. (15) Speaking of SJW credentials, am I going to be the first to point out that only 1.5 of those fantasy worlds are created by women? Seriously, no Earthsea, no Death Gate, no Velgarth, no Temeraire, no Sunrunners, no (insert current hot fantasy series which I’m going to kick myself for not thinking of before the edit window closes)?

  5. Preview from upcoming Trump RNC speech:

    Today, I consider myself the luckiest man on the face of the Earth. Not because it is easy, but because it is hard. Mister Peña Nieto. Pay. For. That. Wall. Because the only thing we have to fear is immigrants themselves. I have nothing to offer but blood, tears, sweat, saliva, and smegma. But I’m never going to give you up, never going to let you down, never going to run around and desert you! Because I love you, you love me, we’re are a happy family!

  6. @Petrea. I didn’t look because I was afraid of that. Yeah. No Elliott. No Bear. No freaking Hobb. Gah.

  7. Cheap eBook Alert: Marc Laidlaw has reissued his entire back catalog in digital format for $2.99 each. This deal is currently available on Amazon but I don’t know if it’s happening on any of the other services.

  8. (1) – I had a similiar experience with Pokemon Go, downloaded it on a whim, as I have enjoyed Pokemon games in the past but I rarely play games too often these days for various reasons. After work I decided to go for a short stroll to see if there were any Pokemon around my neighborhood, my brother and his girlfriend came along with me, and somehow over an hour and a half later we had gone way WAY further than I had planned, my feet were blistered in my meant-for-casual-strolling shoes and I was having the time of my life lol The only reason I stopped and went home was that my phone was dying lol

    (2) Good on twitter for finally banning Milo Jerkface but that took way too long and poor Leslie should never have had to deal with any of that in the first place, how many people being driven off Twitter or those who just avoid it knowing this could happen will it take to get Twitter to do the right thing?

  9. PSA for all fellow PokéGo players:

    To check the server status, you can go to ispokemongodownornot.com and look at their handy-dandy graphs. Very useful before taking a crosstown bus to see what Pokémon are lurking in a different area.

    (In other totally unrelated news my legs and feet ache.)

  10. RedWombat: Hummingbirds are jerks.

    Aren’t they? I put up hummingbird feeders in the Great North Woods every summer, just for the pleasure of watching them attack each other on the way to the food. Such small, magical, vicious little things . . . heh. Do you know the Emily Dickinson poem about the hummingbird, the one that starts “A route of evanescence”?

  11. Heather Rose Jones– Thanks! As it happens, I already have your book in that bundle, but it’s a nice bundle with stuff I need.

  12. @ Lis

    Well, that is one of the ulterior motives of bundling! I figure that the people I’m promoting it to already know whether they like my stuff. The question is whether they like it enough to go for this other stuff it’s similar to.

    I’m actually incredibly tickled to have been invited into this StoryBundle. Look at the company!

  13. @RedWombat – Thanks! It’s rare for someone to remember to follow up a prediction like Phantom’s. I tried to remember, but completely forgot about that argument until today. All I can say is “Hah!”

  14. 15. Huh. No Godstalk/Kencyrrath chronicles either. Or any of Bujold’s Chalfont series.

  15. @RedWombat – heh. I wouldn’t expect that to make a dent in Phantom’s truthiness-based (trumpiness-based now?) reality though. I still regularly run across people who were (and still are) so! very! invested! that Marvel’s Black Panther and Thor and et al were going to be complete failures. When pointed out that both had massively succesful launches, they then were even! more! invested! in how these were just short term numbers. Black Panther is still currently outselling almost every other non-Star Wars Marvel book, and Thor is still outselling it’s predecessor pretty consistently.

    It’s almost as though there was an enhanced demand for these sort of characters and stories which wasn’t being met…but no, it’s just the stupid free market, making the wrong decisions again.

  16. I did not support the new Ghostbusters because I saw no reason to do it as a reboot, when there was literally EVERY OTHER PLACE IN THE WORLD they could have put the all-woman team…

    And I am just tired of reboot movies in general. No more, no money for them.

  17. Aaron: I’m trying to remember a time when Phantom was right about something and coming up empty.

    He was right about remembering his login.

  18. 2) & Sean O’Hara: Agreed. Kicking off the instigator is a good start, but they need to do something about the minions too, or they’ll just find another instigator to follow. It’s an interesting dilemma; do you do more good by knocking off the guy at the top, or by nailing the little guys to make it clear that following the guy at the top will get you in deep shit? (Obviously, the answer I prefer is “both”.)

    Re Ghostbusters: I probably won’t see it, because it’s not at all my kind of thing (nor was the original). But I have a bunch of die-hard GB fans in my social circle, and they’re all giving generally positive reports along the lines of “a few flaws, but overall a good, fun movie”. Several of them have mentioned that they intend to see it again. That says “winner” to me.

  19. Ghostbusters: Going to see it Saturday. Am very excited about it.

    Al the Great and Powerful (or so he claims) said,

    I did not support the new Ghostbusters because I saw no reason to do it as a reboot, when there was literally EVERY OTHER PLACE IN THE WORLD they could have put the all-woman team…

    Yes, they could. And it would have received exactly the same reception from the whiny manbaby contingent.

    I mean, let’s say, instead of an all-woman Ghostbusters reboot, there was an all-woman Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles reboot.

    In what world would the hue and cry not go up, that “there was NO REASON to reboot it, and certainly NO REASON to do it with all women,* they could have done this with ANY OTHER PROPERTY, why are they ruining my childhood with girl cooties?!”

    *Do it with all men, of course, for “no reason,” and, oddly enough, it’s considered normal.

    Seriously. Try the thought experiment with “literally ANY OTHER” traditionally all-male franchise. Put an all-woman team in it. Where are the manbabies not going to complain?

    The problem isn’t putting an all-woman team in Ghostbusters. The problem is Certain People going Librarian-poo because they put an all-woman team “literally ANY PLACE […] IN THE WORLD.”

    From the Mattel news delightfully reported above,

    Mattel has also changed its marketing strategy to position its dolls as more than a pretty face, with ad campaigns such as “You Can Be Anything” highlighting the potential of women in various professions.

    Oh, please let’s cross the streams. Barbie-as-Ghostbuster, right now!

  20. Different topic, different post – (1) I am nodding right along to Rachel Acks’s post about Pokémon Go. Only in my case, I’m not the player (no smartphone to play it on), but my husband is. I just look over his shoulder and ooh and ahh at the goings-on.

    And Sunday night when the full moon was shining bright, I went with him on a midnight critter-catching walk.

    Seems the memorial ground/cemetery we live near has several Poke-stops and a Pokemon Gym. So we used the game as a sort of self-guided tour of notable tombs, gardens, and war memorials. We were very respectful! We learned a lot!

    Across the street from the cemetery is a (non-related) huge church which seems to have also been designated a Pokemon Gym. We wandered over through its brightly lit but deserted parking lot, sat on the bench in front of the entrance, and quietly took over the gym. Later, after we’d made a circuit of a nearby park and a creek path and circled back through the neighborhood for home, we saw someone had taken it over from us. Then we looked across the parking lot and saw, sitting on that same bench, the very group of people who had done it. We waved. They waved back.

    All told, we walked about a mile over a slow and ambling hour. We also climbed a tree, startled rabbits, admired gardens, and discovered what looks like a boat launch in a creek that I would not have thought suitable for boats. It was a good way to spend the hour from midnight to one. And I slept really well that night.

  21. @ Petrea: Yeah, I noticed that too. I’d be tempted to point people who watch it for the cutthroat politics at The Goblin Emperor; not as much violence, but the politics are every bit as cutthroat. Or the Raksura books, which are my latest obsession; that series does have a fair amount of violence (but not gratuitous), and the women are the dragons!

    @ RedWombat: I hadn’t heard about the new Barbies, so I did a quick google. And lo and behold, someone (not Mattel) has done a matching lineup of potential Kens with more-realistic body shapes.

  22. @RedWombat – I somehow missed your post, the best part for me about when hummingbirds spar for flowers is that they squeak at each other so angrily while doing so! lol

    @Dawn Incognito – Oh bless you a thousand times, I want to build a shrine to your glory! I was having such a hard time getting logged in today and now I’m out of pokeballs to the point of hanging out outside the closed library down the street, reading a book while I wait the five plus minutes it takes for a Pokestop to let me grab some balls again lol

    My tip which probably everyone knows is that dimming the screen helps with the battery issue but the game is also set to darken the screen but still be “on” if you hold your phone upside down, which is interesting!

    And my new cutting machine finally came this week so it’s just been a week of fun distractions with me trying to get this complex beast set up properly heh heh

  23. Sunhawk, I’d love to take the credit, but I got the tip from my boyfriend who got it from a Forbes article 🙂

    Last night we hit City Hall, which has several closely-packed Pokéstops. People had lit them up with lures, and it was a midnight Pokémon party! There were literally scores of people and it was quite the convivial atmosphere. Everyone has been very friendly so far, even when they find out I’m on a different team from them. (Mystic represent!)

    (My feet still ache, but I’m sure I will have very well-developed calves in a couple of weeks.)

  24. Just finally bought my voting tokens and mailed in my site selection ballots for the 2018 Worldcon and 2017 NASFiC. Remember, if you’re mailing in yours too, they need to be received by August 6.

  25. I’ll be going to a big building filled with doctors and nurses tomorrow morning, to let some guy with a sharp knife filet my arm, stuff it with crabmeat*, then put it back together better (hopefully) than it’s been for the past few years.

    So it’ll probably be a few days before I get back on the Internet. I might be posting under the influence of some RLLY GUD DRUGZ for a while, and will definitely be typing left-handed for about six weeks, so I’ll apologize in advance.

    I’ll be off work for about three months, so hopefully will be able to make a dent in the TBR pile. (See? Bright side to everything!)

    (Oh, and hey, Heather Rose Jones, I’ll probably take the opportunity to pick up that StoryBundle with one of your books included. Been meaning to give your work a try.)

    *”stuff it with crabmeat” = reverse shoulder arthroscopy, to replace the failing prosthetic shoulder joint installed after my bad fall at the end of 2012.

  26. Bruce Arthurs: So if you were a Scroll title, it’d be The Left Hand of Narcness?

    Hoping your surgery goes well and you get the relief and improved functionality you want!

  27. Bruce Arthurs
    Whatever it takes, man. Lucky the really good keys are on the left side of the keyboard, eh? When we start seeing more Ks and Ms and Ps (and the less popular vowels) in your comments, we’ll figure you’re on the mend.

  28. Bruce Arthurs on July 20, 2016 at 9:22 pm said:

    I’ll be going to a big building filled with doctors and nurses tomorrow morning, to let some guy with a sharp knife filet my arm, stuff it with crabmeat*, then put it back together better (hopefully) than it’s been for the past few years.

    So it’ll probably be a few days before I get back on the Internet. I might be posting under the influence of some RLLY GUD DRUGZ for a while, and will definitely be typing left-handed for about six weeks, so I’ll apologize in advance.

    Best of luck and I look forward to the left-handed drug-fuelled comments 🙂

  29. Al the Great and Powerful on July 20, 2016 at 7:32 pm said:

    I did not support the new Ghostbusters because I saw no reason to do it as a reboot, when there was literally EVERY OTHER PLACE IN THE WORLD they could have put the all-woman team…

    And I am just tired of reboot movies in general. No more, no money for them.

    I’d have liked to see an original film rather than a reboot but Ghostbusters is as good as anything for a reboot. I very much like the fact that while the setting was old (a bunch of sciencey types in New York catching ghosts) the characters were new.

    Most of all it was FUN.

  30. A brand new movie starting a completely new franchise, with an entirely never-before-seen team, if that team was all-female, would inspire loads of anger, angst, and long-winded Maysian rationalizations regarding why this is misandry and a prelude to the collapse of Western Civilization.

  31. Bruce Arthurs writes: I’ll be going to a big building filled with doctors and nurses tomorrow morning

    A big building filled with doctors and nurses?

    What is it?

  32. Bruce Arthurs: I’ll be going to a big building filled with doctors and nurses tomorrow morning, to let some guy with a sharp knife filet my arm, stuff it with crabmeat*, then put it back together better (hopefully) than it’s been for the past few years.

    I’m disappointed to hear that it’s not real crabmeat — I love crabmeat stuffing! but glad to hear that they’re going to fix you up, and I hope that all goes well.

    I, too, am looking forward to your drug-addled comments, which will no doubt be très amusants. 😉

  33. Mike Glyer: He was right about remembering his login.

    Nah, the first time he logged in, he clicked “Remember my password”.

  34. I seem to remember Phantom being pretty spot on about motorbike safety. It stuck in the memory because for once he didn’t come off as someone looking for an argument.

  35. Bravo Lima Poppa on July 20, 2016 at 7:04 pm said:

    15. Huh. No Godstalk/Kencyrrath chronicles either. Or any of Bujold’s Chalfont series.

    I’m assuming this is just a rogue autocorrect, but since I live near the Chalfonts, it raised a smile on my face.

    The Curse of Chalfont: “Waitrose is out of organic hummus again.”

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