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Chalk me up as another Big Bang drop out, I really enjoyed the early seasons, found it less enjoyable from about 5 onwards and didn’t even bother with the last two seasons.

TV Anime. Bad art. Bad acting.

ST: DS9 - the most non-Trek Trek. They don't go anywhere! Plus of course, it's not Star Trek. It's Babylon 5.

I have to agree on zombie movies. Dead bodies degrade far too quickly for there to be a real threat for very long. In hot and humid conditions (say, a midwest summer) they rot away in a couple weeks, in hot and dry conditions (the desert southwest) they dry out in a couple days, and in the winter they just plain freeze in a matter of hours.

And all three destroy tissue on a cellular level, which means even a zombie virus can't keep the body moving anymore.


I never got much into video games either, especially console games. Definitely not ones based on reflexes and hand-eye coordination; button-mashing just doesn't translate into action to my brain.

Of course, this may be because I got into 'light' medieval combat recreation (or 'boffer swords', as the heavy and more serious medieval combat recreation fans put it) as a teenager. My reflexes got set to 'analog' instead of 'digital' fairly quickly.

Why 'light' instead of 'heavy'? There was no way in this world I was going to wear a gambezon and heavy armor in the 90+ degree heat and 80%+ humidity of a typical midwest summer.

Which brings me to another thing I don't like - LARP. I may like RPGs, and I may like fighting with padded swords, but I prefer my RP characters to NOT be limited by the amount of exercise and practice I don't have time for...


EDIT: Holy... I just noticed. Today marks the ten-year anniversary of my joining the forum. Where did the time go?

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:

Also, didn’t How I Met Your Mother totally whiff the ending? I remember people turning on it like it was Lost.

I really liked it, but I was also never invested in "the mystery" of who the titular mother was. It was never going to be a satisfying mystery in the sense the "whodunnit it was Col Mustard all along!" sense, with the show's basic structure leaning heavily on a Ross/Rachael will they won't they between two characters that you know from the beginning won't. In total fairness, I also have a bit of unique viewing of it. My own mother died in the middle of the show's run and it made me acutely aware of the way the story was being told and the ending it was building towards. That said, there's no doubt the show needed to wrap up sooner and in particular the final season is a bloated mess of trying to keep a good thing going beyond its time. I just didn't have the dumpster fire reaction to the final episode the rest of the world seemed to when it didn't line up with their theories. Then again, I almost never react that way... twice that I can think of off the top of my head.

 Ouze wrote:

 gorgon wrote:
I dunno. The more I sit back and watch, the more I think the internet -- but mainly social media -- has changed us. Maybe not wildly so, but noticeably and measurably. Probably dovetails into Marshall McLuhan's work -- "the medium is the message", etc.

This is one of the more interesting tangents I've seen develop in a while. The funny thing is, if we try to split it off into a separate thread to discuss, my money says it gets locked within 3 pages. We've lost the ability to rationally debate what caused us to lose the ability to rationally debate, essentially.

I fear that's the case, yes.

Voss wrote:
Zombies are a joke. Even if you could have rotting corpses shambling around, all you need to do is be able to walk and it isn't a problem.

A modicum of thought and really basic tactics takes care of the problem permanently.

Future proofing already exists: cremation. For folks who find the idea of burning grandma's remains offensive, I'd love an explanation as to why letting her corpse wander around and eat people is _less_ offensive.

Yeah, tbh, most zombies are only scary by virtue of plot or the idiot ball being passed around the main characters/government. They're not fast or smart enough to be a viable threat, and any competent military would put down an outbreak fairly quickly. Worst case scenario, they literally rot away and it requires effectively virus "magic" for them to not be an ineffective mess in a year. Even the more feasible zombie types like in 28 days later don't work out because they will die in about a week or so since they aren't ever shown to scavenge food or drink water, which means they should run out of gas/adrenaline fairly quickly and you can just wait them out in an even shorter time frame. Zombies IMO make the most sense in a fantasy setting since it's literal necromancy and an intelligent force controlling them from behind the scenes that makes them a viable threat.

Voss wrote:
Zombies are a joke. Even if you could have rotting corpses shambling around, all you need to do is be able to walk and it isn't a problem.

A modicum of thought and really basic tactics takes care of the problem permanently.

Future proofing already exists: cremation. For folks who find the idea of burning grandma's remains offensive, I'd love an explanation as to why letting her corpse wander around and eat people is _less_ offensive.

Meemaw died for her right to party so you best respect it. Why you gotta roast her for that?

Football. The american kind. I just.. hate it. I don't understand what the point is, and why it's so popular. People around here make such a big deal over it, and I hate having to pretend I know what other guys are talking about when strangers make small talk. They just assume every guy loves football and can't wait to talk about it. The game is stupid, and fantasy football is just D&D for people who think they aren't nerds. Best day of the year is Superbowl Sunday, because that marks the end of people going crazy over football till the next 8 months or so.

I do like the idea of tailgating though, just because I like anything involving food.

 Necros wrote:
Football. The american kind. I just.. hate it. I don't understand what the point is, and why it's so popular. People around here make such a big deal over it, and I hate having to pretend I know what other guys are talking about when strangers make small talk. They just assume every guy loves football and can't wait to talk about it. The game is stupid, and fantasy football is just D&D for people who think they aren't nerds. Best day of the year is Superbowl Sunday, because that marks the end of people going crazy over football till the next 8 months or so.

I do like the idea of tailgating though, just because I like anything involving food.

Agreed football is weird including some of the patriotism or half time shows like when Beyonce knocked the power out. My older dad once said he prayed the other team would be punished for cheating in one case. I had to suppress a laugh. As far as the patriotism I'm more talking about flying military aircraft over the stadium. Isn't that expensive and highly unnecessary? I once saw them fly a b2 stealth bomber over the stadium and it just boggled my mind.

 flamingkillamajig wrote:
As far as the patriotism I'm more talking about flying military aircraft over the stadium. Isn't that expensive and highly unnecessary? I once saw them fly a b2 stealth bomber over the stadium and it just boggled my mind.

The military started paying the NFL to do stuff like that as a recruitment/promotion thing, and yes it is expensive. You can just search NFL military and lots of articles will pop up.

Because I play/played RPGs people assume I like/play D&D 3/3.5/PF when I really do not like that system at all and even stopped playing for a decade or so after 3 came out because I just didn't care for it as a game.

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:
A lot of people keep telling me to watch Black Mirror because I like the Twilight Zone, anthologies, and sci fi. I tried three episodes, and each one was a horribly depressing evening-killer. I don’t need that in my life.

Betting you watched the pig one as one of the three.
I was lucky enough to see San Junipero first.
It's not perfect but it's got some cool concepts.

 Ahtman wrote:

 flamingkillamajig wrote:
As far as the patriotism I'm more talking about flying military aircraft over the stadium. Isn't that expensive and highly unnecessary? I once saw them fly a b2 stealth bomber over the stadium and it just boggled my mind.

The military started paying the NFL to do stuff like that as a recruitment/promotion thing, and yes it is expensive. You can just search NFL military and lots of articles will pop up.

Because I play/played RPGs people assume I like/play D&D 3/3.5/PF when I really do not like that system at all and even stopped playing for a decade or so after 3 came out because I just didn't care for it as a game.

That's quite an interesting story on the costs. You know I may be wrong but some put USA military brochures on our gw managers cashier table. I can see the legit reasons tho. A lot of tabletop wargame guys join the army.

I get football, but I don't really watch or follow it. I just enjoy it when someone turns it on. The strategy is fun and the segmented nature gives it a lot of little moments of drama. I generally enjoy college a bit more, but its a good game for television. I just only need to watch a handful of games each season. I certainly don't need 3 a day.

Voss wrote:


That all said, its also worth noting that AD&D has been dead and gone for two decades now...

SHUT YER CAKE HOLE!

(still running 2nd ed campaign.. did such a fun job of it, my kiddo went to college and meshed HORRIBLY with the 4th ed ruleset.. lol)

 Grimskul wrote:

 timetowaste85 wrote:
I like fantasy, so people assume I like Harry Potter. I loath Harry Potter as much as anybody can hate a work of fiction.

THIS. The number of people who have gawked at me like a mad man for not having read Harry Potter is more than I can count. It's little more than a wish fulfillment bildungsroman story to me, and not a particularly great one at that and which actively gets worse as Rowling doubles down on being woke and retcons things into absurdity. If I want magic in my story, I'd prefer LoTR or Warhammer, none of this magic school stuff.

This too. I know HP fans are as rabid as any, with my girlfriend and her former/my briefly former flatmate being die-hard fans. With the exception of those two, most if not all HP fans I meet would quite happily slit my throat as I slept for even insinuating that the books are anything but the 5th Gospel of the Bible, or that I don't like ROwling for any number of political reasons. Don't get me wrong, I love the books, but they aren't a masterpiece of literary talent.



My best friend in college was pretty much the opposite of me in terms of preferences but assumed I liked everything she did too - music, TV shows (she was into "trash" like Kardashian's and RuPaul's Drag Race). I cannot enjoy reality TV to save my life. I ended up getting a taste for some of her music but not much of it.

On the other hand, many people assume I don't like one of my favourite bands simply because I'm a dude, or that its purely based on attraction to the lead singer. My girlfriend assumed I wouldn't enjoy Pretty Woman but did assume I would like Queer Eye. She was wrong on the PW account but I actually quite like QE.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Vulcan wrote:
I have to agree on zombie movies. Dead bodies degrade far too quickly for there to be a real threat for very long. In hot and humid conditions (say, a midwest summer) they rot away in a couple weeks, in hot and dry conditions (the desert southwest) they dry out in a couple days, and in the winter they just plain freeze in a matter of hours.

And all three destroy tissue on a cellular level, which means even a zombie virus can't keep the body moving anymore.


I never got much into video games either, especially console games. Definitely not ones based on reflexes and hand-eye coordination; button-mashing just doesn't translate into action to my brain.

Of course, this may be because I got into 'light' medieval combat recreation (or 'boffer swords', as the heavy and more serious medieval combat recreation fans put it) as a teenager. My reflexes got set to 'analog' instead of 'digital' fairly quickly.

Why 'light' instead of 'heavy'? There was no way in this world I was going to wear a gambezon and heavy armor in the 90+ degree heat and 80%+ humidity of a typical midwest summer.

Which brings me to another thing I don't like - LARP. I may like RPGs, and I may like fighting with padded swords, but I prefer my RP characters to NOT be limited by the amount of exercise and practice I don't have time for...


EDIT: Holy... I just noticed. Today marks the ten-year anniversary of my joining the forum. Where did the time go?

On zombies - I hate slow moving zombies. Its one of the reasons I stopped watching the Walking Dead. Its the same as horror movie cliches - the characters die 80% of the time but their own stupidity, and 10% by stupidity of others.The other 10% is characters being equally stupid by being attached to someone who gets infected and not shooting them immediately, or by being weak-ass concientious objectors.

The zombies I do like are more like Infected. We're talking 28 Days Later, World War Z (movie version, sorry!) or even the Croatoans from Supernatural season 5. While not zombies, they are close enough, and pose a serious enough threat in forcing the living to move faster than a brisk walk. The WWZ movie in particular, where the zombies can climb high walls using their own bodies as ladders and swarm in higher numbers than bullets can kill - that is interesting, and takes care of the issues of decay and "running out of steam" that undead zombies have, while the Supernatural Croatoans have the advantage of being supernatural, so those rules are never an issue.


Just on the video-games one - I'm totally into video games, but I don't play PC. Never owned a PC stronger than to do schoolwork unfortunately. I didn't even do ICT at school and know as much about computers as a trained monkey. But every Tom, Dick and Harry thinks that because I'm a nerd I know what a motherboard is or how to code. I have to google something every time my laptop does a thing I can't fix. And more than that, every gamer I meet thinks I must AT LEAST have a steam account, but I don't because PS4 is enough to satisfy me and I prefer the controller anyway.

I also don't LARP or cosplay, but my peers at school assumed I was every kind of nerd there is because I painted 40k figures.

As someone who read all the Harry Potter books, buying the last three in hardcover and two copies of the last one because we didn't want to chance being spoiled...those fans need to shut up. HP was an exciting series on par with the Dresden Files or King's Dark Tower, and it's done. If someone gives you guff for not reading HP, give them guff back for not reading its predecessor, So You Want to Be a Wizard (which is like an American Harry Potter but the magic works and the kids aren't stupid).

Now that I think about it, if Harry Potter had been American, Voldemort wouldn't have gotten past "avada--" before finding his face full of lead.

 Ahtman wrote:

 flamingkillamajig wrote:
As far as the patriotism I'm more talking about flying military aircraft over the stadium. Isn't that expensive and highly unnecessary? I once saw them fly a b2 stealth bomber over the stadium and it just boggled my mind.

The military started paying the NFL to do stuff like that as a recruitment/promotion thing, and yes it is expensive. You can just search NFL military and lots of articles will pop up.

Because I play/played RPGs people assume I like/play D&D 3/3.5/PF when I really do not like that system at all and even stopped playing for a decade or so after 3 came out because I just didn't care for it as a game.

There was also a time when NFL players used to be in the locker room for the Star-Spangled Banner during regular-season games.

I do quite like Harry Potter overall. It's a fun little universe with a lot of really fun details and well realized side characters that flesh out the experience. The books themselves get a little bloated along the way, but tie up better than most long running series. Had I been the right age, it would have been for me what Star Wars was, so I get it, even if my appreciation isn't on the same level as it is for people who grew up along side it.

Ok, I would firmly fall into the geek culture stereotype checking most of the boxes.

What happens is when a very wide "generalist" such as myself runs into the geek "specialist" of a given genre of geekdom.

People get all excited that I understand what they are talking about and can follow along... until we get too deep down the rabbit-hole.

Hentai, Vampire the Masquerade, Emo culture, Fantasy Battle (in general), Japanese visual novels are a few items I am not as keen on.

There is this strange assumption that whatever that person is REALLY interested in I must naturally be equally excited about.

Funny how confused and hurt these people get when they realize their favorite thing I find boring or irritating.

You all have the right to what you like, it is far nicer to be happy over some interest than to tear-down everyone else's.

I'm Irish.

I loathe Guinness.

 Ratius wrote:
I'm Irish.

I loathe Guinness.

Releatable.



Automatically Appended Next Post:

 gorgon wrote:

 Ouze wrote:

 gorgon wrote:
I dunno. The more I sit back and watch, the more I think the internet -- but mainly social media -- has changed us. Maybe not wildly so, but noticeably and measurably. Probably dovetails into Marshall McLuhan's work -- "the medium is the message", etc.

This is one of the more interesting tangents I've seen develop in a while. The funny thing is, if we try to split it off into a separate thread to discuss, my money says it gets locked within 3 pages. We've lost the ability to rationally debate what caused us to lose the ability to rationally debate, essentially.

I fear that's the case, yes.

I'd say what little ability we had got lost mostly online.
The percived anonimity is imo the biggest issue for that. Because you don't sit in a persons face you suddendly can forget all manners because the online communication has become so automatic and natural for us and is percived at most as a debate in a small circle for us even though the whole discussion / rant / gakstorm we are brewing up is visible for literally everyone.

 Ratius wrote:
I'm Irish.

I loathe Guinness.

I hear that. Not Irish, but spent enough years working in a bar listening to half cut evangelists espousing the miracle drink, while lamenting how it didn't taste the same as it did in Ireland.

Didn't like it in the UK, didn't like it when I was in Ireland.

If I want to drink ditch water I've my own field I can go and collect some from, I don't need to spend £6 a pint on it in a pub!

The funny thing is you hear all the time "its an acquired taste - keep trying it and it'll grow on you".

I'd rather drink warm Dutch Gold tbh (gold dutch is the lowest form of lager life there is. Period ).

There's anther one for the list. I don't like alcoholic beverages, and I don't understand people who can't have fun without alcohol.

But when you live in a small town with nothing else to do, everyone assumes you drink too because everyone drinks, right?

That’s not just in small towns. It seems like wherever you go people get angry if you say you don’t drink.

 Ouze wrote:
People seem to assume that all people who work in IT love Star Wars, Star Trek, and LOTR. I'm not really into any of those things. I'm passingly familiar with all of those IPs but definitely not a big fan of any of them.

I also don't think I've really seen any anime I've liked very much yet.

Other than LOTR, that's pretty spot on for me.

Additionally, I work in IT and folks assume that I know anything and everything IT-related. Evidently I'm supposed to know why a certain phone app doesn't work they way they want. :/

Knowing a lot of math apparently means my math skills are best used in simple division, subtraction or similar. As someone that studied some calculus it almost feels like trying to get da vinci to work a painting for 20 dollars or something at some small town gallery or a master chef making the most basic pancakes.

Sorry if I tooted my horn at that but it almost feels insulting. If you need help with division or subtraction find your nearest 5th grade math student to help you. Also to be fair everybody does everything with calculators these days and often people are forgetting simple math so just get a calculator.

 Ratius wrote:
I'm Irish.

I loathe Guinness.

Well, it is pretty gross.

 flamidngkillamajig wrote:
Knowing a lot of math apparently means my math skills are best used in simple division, subtraction or similar. As someone that studied some calculus it almost feels like trying to get da vinci to work a painting for 20 dollars or something at some small town gallery or a master chef making the most basic pancakes.

Sorry if I tooted my horn at that but it almost feels insulting. If you need help with division or subtraction find your nearest 5th grade math student to help you. Also to be fair everybody does everything with calculators these days and often people are forgetting simple math so just get a calculator.

People need to know how to do math the "hard" way in order to develop their number sense and logic. But as someone with a math degree, I hear you.

About six or seven years back, I was in a shop, playing some pick up games of warmachine. We were trying to get several games in so my opponent suggested a 15 point duel, partly because he was new and didn't have much.

I stood there, floored for a good minute, as he proceeded to pull out his phone, activate his calculator program and use it to add _three_ single digit numbers and subtract a fourth number.

It made me immensely sad.