Range_This11
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Posts posted by Range_This11
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Summertime: Gin and tonic w/ lime, preferably Bombay Sapphire or Nolet's Silver
Autumn: Usually switch to scotch neats, either Johnnie or Glenlivet
Winter: Brandy/Whisky Old Fashioned, which according to Lewis Black is the unofficial drink of Wisconsin. Can rarely find a bartender who can make them properly in New England.
Spring: Stoli Vodka Gimlet
I'll drink pretty much any beer, but New Glarus Brewing Co.'s Spotted Cow is the best beer I've ever had in my life. Despite being one of the most popular beers in Wiscosin, the brewing company refuses to sell outside of the state. A guy I know who managed a bar in New York used to make keg runs until the company threatened prosecution. If you're ever in the state, do not leave without trying it.
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First of all, I don't think that Putin would have listened to Ronny Raygun if he was president.
Second of all, your assessment of the President's apparent weakness on the international stage is unfounded. Gallup polls from April suggest that a vast majority of the world approves of President Obama by a significant margin. Leaders like Putin or Assad would not have rolled over even if General MacArthur was bearing down on them, so your attempt to pin a chain of unrest throughout the world on a "spineless" U.S. president is absurd.
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An observation - the United States has less influence around the world today than say, ten or twenty years ago.
I think this has more to do with the political atmosphere and the current president then it has to do with military strength or technological capability.
Put another way, if the United States had someone similar to Putin for President, I don't think Putin would invade Ukraine.
Your perception of lack power and influence that the U.S. projects has nothing to do with our President. In the last ten or twenty years, we've seen many other countries enter the world stage as serious power players. It's not that the U.S. is dwindling, it's just no longer the only show in town.
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My brother tried explaining BHO to me about a month ago after he saw some in a dispensary. All I really remember of the conversation though was that it's extremely rich in TCH, expensive, and DANGEROUS. He easily had mentioned the word dangerous at least 5 times while trying to explain how to produce it.
I think it depends on how you extract it.
Perhaps doing it in mass amounts there's some danger.
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And people tell me that the reefer doesn't pose a significant health hazard...
It takes a seriously dumb human being to blow themselves up trying to make hash oil. And to be honest, I'm not even sure how it would be possible. There's no room for combustion in that process. Something is fishy.
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Watched Blade Runner for the first time last night.
a) Harrison Ford is so damn young it's weird.
b) Very confused with the music throughout the movie, especially the saxophone.
c) The plot was classic sci-fi and posed a very solid question. But the way it was executed was rushed and kinda lame. But I kinda expected that from a 1982 movie.
I'm just glad I can say that I've seen it now, since I'm in to sci-fi and Blade Runner was one of the first big sci-fi movies.
Hold off on the "first big sci-fi" line there. 2001, Planet of the Apes, Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956!!), 1953 War of the Worlds, Solaris, Alien, Star Wars, THX 1138 just to name a few that predate Blade Runner.
Loved Blade Runner. We studied it in school, and I even still loved it after that. Ya know it's a good movie when that's the case.
I watched The Lego Movie last night. Pretty awesome.
Blade Runner is one of my all-time favorite films
Film noir mixed with Sci Fi in a meditation on what it is to be a human? Talk about a film-gasm. Plus a YOUNG Rutger Hauer--the "time to die" monologue he has at the end was a complete deviation from the original script and one of the most beautiful moments in cinema history.
I thought the music was perfect, but I'm a sucker for synth music in film--though I never used to be. Anything in David Lynch or John Carpenter films is almost a guaranteed synth fest.
Blade Runner 2 with the original crew is in the works, and they have publicly asked Harrison Ford to star again. With him returning to his role in the upcoming Star Wars film, it's possible he might agree to return as the one and only Deckard.
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Well, what happened is that most people grew up. RS grew too efficiency based, solo affair. No time for socializing.
RS always was, its just most of us were 12 when we started so we had no idea about efficient methods nor the patience to actually try them.
I dont think the low efficiency average player ever went away. Even today Im sure they still make up most players.
I don't know man....
There was always a most efficient way of completing tasks, but the serious statistical analysis was something I never saw until after '07.
I played pretty seriously until I realized that the amount of cash required to max out was not something I wanted to dedicate my spare time to. I was about 20 when that happened, and by that time I was much more interested in playing Battlefield and drinking with my real friends. Once I hit 21, going out and chasing women became more fun to me.
I still look back on the time I spent on RS as good though. I mostly played with a group from my hometown and never joined up with any clans or even the HYT group.
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I've been single for four years now and I'm not planning on changing that anytime soon. I'm gonna run up the score until I get it out of my system.
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Jack Dempsey, the fiercest boxer to ever step in the ring.
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I was 2005 member, but started this TIF account when my original Runescape account got banned. I wanna say I started playing in 6th or 7th grade in 2002. That was when we still had dial-up at my parents' house and I mostly played in study hall at school. Quit playing shortly after Dungeoneering came out. I don't know if the game sucked or if I just got too old for it. Probably a little of both.
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Did you ever watch the original Cosmos series with Carl Sagan? Also, if you love the Matrix films you should check out the ones I mentioned in the post above. Not as deep of a story line philosophically speaking, but they're on par with the fight sequences!
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The Raid: Redemption
Raid 2
Utterly AMAZING movies. Best fight scenes and excellent stories to go with them. Redemption has a better plot, but I thought that Raid 2 had better cinematography.
If you haven't seen them, I can assure you that you will not be disappointed.
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I've never had much interest in superhero movies.
I just finished watching Werckmeister Harmonies (2000) a few minutes ago and it's already at the top of my all-time favorites list. In a 2.5 hour film, there are only 39 takes. If you have the patience for slow cinematic poetry I'd highly suggest it.
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The luxury of foreign films is that we get to filter out the best of the best, which for some countries could be just one film a year.
Very true, and places like Turkey or Hungary don't have a film industry like the US does. They're not pushing out hundreds of run of the mill popcorn flicks each year too.
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So many excellent films I've seen recently:
The Ugly Swans--totally underrated Russian sci-fi film
Blue Is the Warmest Color
The Turin Horse
All about Eve
Ain't in It for My Health: A Film about Levon Helm
Grand Budapest Hotel--for me, it doesn't seem like Anderson can ever top The Life Aquatic
Stalker--saw this for the 8 millionth time, but Tarkovsky never ceases to inspire me and reassures me that this is the greatest film ever made.
I've pretty much lost faith in American cinema at this point in my life except for a very small number of American directors, none of which get much love from the movie-going public. Now, get off my lawn.
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Got to experience Dave Chappelle's utter train wreck of a set in Hartford tonight. Crowd was awful and would not stop yelling, so he sat on the stage in front of 10,000 fans, smoked cigarettes, read from a book, and talked about random shit until his 30 minutes were up, then promptly left. Crowd booed him off stage, but in my opinion it was really the crowd's fault for it. Be prepared to read about this in the news. It was a very surreal moment. I've never seen anything like it before.
On a brighter note, Dimitri Martin performed a surprise set, Flight of the Conchords was good, and the other comedians were very entertaining.
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Shutter Island was Scorsese, not Nolan. :razz:
Ouch, you're right of course. Now that I think of it, that's interesting considering it was the only film out of the list where I did really care for the character. I wouldn't have called this out as Nolan's problem on my own, but considering that...
I thought Shutter Island coming out around the same time as Inception proved to be perfect directorial counterpoint. Both films dealt with reality/unreality and memory. Shutter Island remains one of my top Scorsese films of a time.
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This is an interesting blog entry that someone wrote called Seventeen Ways of Criticizing Inception: http://bigother.com/2010/08/08/seventeen-ways-of-criticizing-inception/
The author is much less diplomatic as I try to be, but makes really good points.
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My biggest gripe (and I am echoing others who have said this) with Nolan is that he allows his characters to be in total control of their world. Now, I know we should and do suspend reality when we watch a film, but the point of fiction--be it film or literature--is that it has realistic elements. It is a false story, but it offers us an insight into our own lives. As humans, we do not have total control of our environments. How, then, are Nolan's characters supposed to resonate on a human level with the audience if they are devoid of all the characteristics that make us human?
Whenever Nolan makes a film, you can almost certainly be sure that he is going to use an exciting plot twist at the end of the film. While this isn't necessarily a bad thing, having that as the central pillar of a film can be troublesome. A second viewing of the film is much less compelling than the first viewing. A great director would create a film that allows viewers to learn something new each time they view it. Also, Nolan's films are busy, glitzy, and filled with CGI. Again, not necessarily a bad thing, but something a great director would not need to use as a crutch.
All that said, I don't think Nolan is a totally godawful director. While I wholeheartedly disagree with his approach to film from an intellectual and theoretical standpoint, he is a very knowledgeable director--but his films are like candy. It tastes great, and you could eat it three times a day, but what the body really needs is a good steak and some potatoes. Many people laud Nolan as the best director of our generation and I feel like it's my duty to have a dissenting opinion.
I just enjoy ripping on him as much as I possibly can.
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Watching Skyfall put me in a James Bond kind of mood and the recommendations to Nom about which to watch got me thinking about which was my favorite and which could be considered "best" (which I realize is highly subjective). So starting with Dr. No I've been watching the series in order. Having just watched On Her Majesty's Secret Service for the first time I have to say George Lazenby isn't my favorite Bond, but the movie itself is not nearly worth the criticism it seems to get. It's much closer in tone and story to Flemming's novel (almost exactly, in fact), which, while a huge deviation from the rest of the series, is not necessarily a bad thing. It's much more story driven, with fewer gadgets and clever witticisms, and tends to drag on a bit, but overall I really liked it. The ending was particularly powerful, and if Lazenby had shown that kind of emotion through the whole thing I'm sure it would have been better received.
With the exception of Quantum of Solace (which deserves some forgiveness as the writer's strike meant parts of it had to be written by Daniel Craig and director Marc Forster), I've yet to see a Bond film I thought was truly bad. Although, The World Is Not Enough is definitely my least favorite so far. Still, I've only seen a couple of the Roger Moore Bonds and neither of the Timothy Dalton ones, so that may yet change.
Up next, Diamonds Are Forever.
http://www.wegotthiscovered.com/movies/christopher-nolan-talks-bond-24/
Well, get ready for Christopher Nolan to take a big steaming cine-dump on the bond series. Biggest turd of a director in the last 20 years.
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Well, I might as well catch up on the movies I've seen lately.
Oblivion 5/10. It was about average.
Lincoln 6/10. As a historian, you're supposed to leave it at the door. Sometimes you just can't.
Man on the Moon 7.5/10. There were really times I would forget it was Jim Carrey, and I do so very much love Andy Kaufman.
Wild at Heart 7/10. Typical David Lynch bizarro, which I love.
Metropolitan 9.5/10. If you are an intellectual or just very well-read, you will LOVE this movie. A tongue-in-cheek movie about NYC bourgeois college kids and their 90 minute discussion of party etiquette and social norms. Very fast paced and witty.
Today...
in Off-Topic
Posted
Happy Election Day!
Go out and VOTE!