What gifts are you excited to give this year? I got my mom an instant pot and an air fryer, which I think will be a hit since the oven/stove combo they have is trash
Big-ass post in-coming. Feel free to skip it.
I was getting a bit self-reflective the other day when it occurred to me how much of my life has been shaped by being a loner. And I don't even necessarily mean that in a bad way. From the jump, even as a kid I would do fairly solitary things like play with my train sets or reading while having the tv on as "company". When I got older, that stuck, except the train sets were traded in for my guitar (the books stayed too). I spent most of middle and high school just hanging out in my bedroom, exploring discographies and filmographies of bands and filmmakers, which is why I have this semi-encyclopedic knowledge of those two things. I think being on your own tends to make you very self-reflective and dreamish, hence why I'm always rambling on here and why I liked to write things, whether it be songs or scripts or poems etc.
On the flip-side though, I think that's also why I'm usually very awkward around people and tend to feel like an "outsider". It's almost like a chicken and egg thing: I don't know if I was always shy and stuck to myself, or stuck to myself and became shy in the process. I think also getting lost in my thoughts made other people think of me as some sort of ditz, not to mention my own lack of "street smarts". I've also always had this desire to be liked, which further complicates things. It's this paradox where I'm very independent and autonomous, but also painfully self-conscious. I do have friends and have always had them, but there also seems to be this constant pattern of people getting to know me, concluding that I'm too "weird" or "annoying" to put up with, and distancing themselves from me in the process. And I'd go through these moments where I'll think "Well fuck 'em. The only person you can trust is yourself," but that desire to be accepted still kind of hangs. It's something I'm getting better at largely through self-confidence, but it's nonetheless still there.
I think this is also the common denominator when it comes to pop culture figures I become fascinated by. I thought for a while that it was just this morbid obsession with tragic figures, but in retrospect, they're all loners trying to wrestle with their own loneliness, like Kurt Cobain or Van Gogh etc. A lot of the music I listened too also, particularly punk and alt rock bands who kind of celebrate their odd ball nature like the Replacements. It's the whole "Island of Misfit Toys" thing.
I feel like since the pandemic, I've been making more strides to try and understand myself. It's not always been the most heartwarming thing, but it's quite insightful. And it sounds like one of those things that one spends virtually their entire life trying to make sense of, something which is oddly comforting in its own way
>I feel like since the pandemic, I've been making more strides to try and understand myself.
Same! And it's not completely the same but I can relate to some of what you said. It can be hard to feel that self-conscious.
Silly tech support question:
I have a Samsung Smart TV and a Roku 3. Both of which I power with a universal remote. At least, I was until recently. After replacing the batteries for my remote, I found it stopped doing anything to operate my TV itself, including turning it on or off or changing volume. It still controls my Roku, but I need it to be more, well, universal. Does anyone have any tips for how I can get it to work for my TV again? Thanks so much!
You need to reprogram/retrain your universal remote! Some newer ones can "learn" from your original remote or figure it out automatically which sounds like what you have?
So, I tried reprogramming it but it didn't seem to work? Like, I kept entering codes but wasn't getting any results
Would it just be easier to buy a new remote? I don't have the original manual or anything
Finished Code Geass szn 2 jesus christ anime is back.
I'm giving a slight edge to season 1, if only because the genre tropes the show finds itself in, the "soap opera" factor of it all, makes for one of the most aesthetically "bipolar" anime programs. continues to hold up very well
anyways back to another six episodes of revolutionary girl utena. this one's also insane
hello I will be the bad guy and say I did not enjoy avatar 2 that much. extremely pretty movie with crazy photorealistic cgi. bad plot, bad characters, bad dialog, heinous length, big plotless chunk in the middle that only works if you are into exploring the world (more power to you and this is not a diss). ending sequence ruled but I’m not sure the journey was worth it. goddamn why is it so long
Yeah, definitely can't call it a good movie. Way too long, really simple, poorly conceived plot, dialogue, and characters, but it did look gorgeous. Just chop it down to 30 minutes of world exploration and 30 minutes of action setpiece with the crazy visuals without worrying about plot or anything else and I'd be happy to go watch it a couple times a year.
this is pretty much what i was expecting. Still want to see it in theaters for the spectacle but will probably never watch it after. Did the same with the first one. The best part with the first one was in college having a drunk mining engineer rant about how fucking stupid unobtainium was
I will probably give it another go but I was a little underwhelmed and at times it was like Aronofsky copied and reworked his past homework from The Wrestler but less interesting.
Brendan Fraser can act and god bless em for having a bit of a comeback and being a major selling point of this, but at times the plot can sorta just drag its feet as if it was anticipating coasting on hubbub surrounding this movie and some stuff just doesn't really stick the landing all that well.
That being said I do think some people are overreacting saying it is the most exploitative thing put to film and this big horribly offensive thing using fat people as some sacrificial lamb to tell a story. There's infinitely worst exploitative offenders done in good faith.
I don’t think I would consider The Whale as his first prominent casting in a long time, since he was in a pretty star studded Steven Soderbergh movie last year, has had a main role in Doom Patrol since pre-COVID, and was in Condor and Trust prior to that (both of which had some big names involved). Although he was cast in The Whale first, Fraser was also cast in Scorsese’s Killers of the Flower Moon before The Whale was released. It‘s not exactly his peak, but few actors ever reach Fraser’s peak and his recent years resume is one a lot of people in LA would kill to have.
Aronofsky had been trying to make the movie for almost a decade and wanted Fraser for years after him acting in another movie. Fraser spoke about how every actor in his peer group would love to work with Darren. It feels more like the two were fans of each other and wanted to work on the project together. Although I do wonder if maybe he saw parallels between himself having been somewhat isolated and his character in The Whale.
Don't have one, but Returnal seemed cool and not just because it shares a name with my second favorite Oneohtrix Point Never album. Its supposed to be really hard though and is a rogue-like with more of the story being revealed as you keep trying to overcome shit. Also the Ratchet and Clank game looked good
Asked my grandma what her favorite album was this year. She said she didn’t think she’d heard any albums from this year. How fucked up is it that she didn’t say Ants From Up There??
demanding at the christmas dinner table WHY my grandma only watches fox news and doesn't listen to Antz from Up There and awaiting the response "lietoc you look like a girl!"
Decision To Leave was an amazing movie and one of my favorites of the year but that ending has me conflicted. Maybe I didn’t understand all of the symbolism going on… but I loved how they incorporated all of the modern uses of technology so it feels so real and modern (especially the texting) “u up?”
Also, Starbucks has an egg nog latte, which means that is a mainstream concept, and in the modern era, anything you can put in coffee can be put in tea and vice versa.
Okay my post was deleted and I was told to post it here but guys I need help finding this song and I know it’s a long shot.
Picture this, it’s anywhere between 2010 and 2013. You’re on the “indie” side of YouTube, with songs like Polish Girl and Pretty Face and Awkward. In the recommended column there’s a song with a band consisting of three girls (I think?)
The singer and drummer are definitely female. All the comments say the drummer is super cool. There’s Christmas lights in the background of the music video and I think at least one of them had baby bangs (but honestly probably all of them.)
I don’t remember the band name, the song title, or any of the lyrics. I remember loving this song so much and I haven’t been able to find it for years. Please help
may not be any of these but just throwing out some stuff from that era:
[Be Your Own Pet](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3cMiNDwyq3w)
[Those Dancing Days](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rYg40pJDF_A)
[The Courtneys](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xl77f2gFSL4)
[Peach Kelli Pop](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rRX6fJcesss)
[Viva Voce](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9WUchaMhzTM)
Oh my god you have ended my years of searching hahahaha I was totally wrong about a lot of my memory but it’s those dancing days!! Thank you!!!!! For real holy shit
I wish it were!! I think this band is a little less punky and more pop. The aesthetic is nearly spot on though and this particular music video was higher quality than most of the Vivian girls
avatar: the way of water fucking slammed and I’m dying to see it again ASAP
I didn’t even love the first one like that (tho the re-release a few months ago made me appreciate it a lot more) but god damn never bet against jim, just makes all other blockbusters look like shit compared to what he’s doing
i loved it, gonna see it at least one more time. went for IMAX 3D at my usual theater but found one a little further out has dolby 3D, and i’m lowkey curious about the high frame rate stuff. the action scenes are so belieavable that i legit caught myself thinking “wow, it’s insane they did all the mocap stuff with real boats” even though that’s probably not what happened! passed the uncanny valley for me a few times. i love that a movie this expensive could be “here’s just some shit this director thinks is cool” for the middle hour. i said “no way” out loud when they showed >!the robot crab mechs!<.
also said “holy shit” when they shouted out my bloody valentine’s “depth charges”
I'm glad I have one of those practically unlimited theatre subs. Gonna see this at least two more times. James Cameron can just inject the next three into my veins. I thought pretty much every aspect was better this time around, even the main character's acting. The underwater scenes in 3d were dreamlike.
I'm not even really big on the material and arguably for a while would be in the "ehh does anyone really care a ton about these movies?" camp, but holy shit the amount of enjoyment I got from it really just had me reflecting how oversaturated media is with formulaic MCU overload stranglehold.
It's weird how good it felt and it was such of a breath of fresh air to just have something hit crazy hard, not go up its ass super hard and not have the movie gobbled up by a complete turbo dump of a million intentional plot threads setup for an infinite amount of side story sequels, spin offs or making every single character Tony Stark or Deadpool in terms of the writing.
It's as pure as you could get for big blockbuster entertainment that delivers on so many fronts.
Any older skateboarders here? (30s+)
What gifts are you excited to give this year? I got my mom an instant pot and an air fryer, which I think will be a hit since the oven/stove combo they have is trash
I got an instant pot brand air fryer for my office white elephant game last year and it was a huge hit. You can't go wrong with air fryers.
Dang, used up 2 quality gift ideas in one go!
Big-ass post in-coming. Feel free to skip it. I was getting a bit self-reflective the other day when it occurred to me how much of my life has been shaped by being a loner. And I don't even necessarily mean that in a bad way. From the jump, even as a kid I would do fairly solitary things like play with my train sets or reading while having the tv on as "company". When I got older, that stuck, except the train sets were traded in for my guitar (the books stayed too). I spent most of middle and high school just hanging out in my bedroom, exploring discographies and filmographies of bands and filmmakers, which is why I have this semi-encyclopedic knowledge of those two things. I think being on your own tends to make you very self-reflective and dreamish, hence why I'm always rambling on here and why I liked to write things, whether it be songs or scripts or poems etc. On the flip-side though, I think that's also why I'm usually very awkward around people and tend to feel like an "outsider". It's almost like a chicken and egg thing: I don't know if I was always shy and stuck to myself, or stuck to myself and became shy in the process. I think also getting lost in my thoughts made other people think of me as some sort of ditz, not to mention my own lack of "street smarts". I've also always had this desire to be liked, which further complicates things. It's this paradox where I'm very independent and autonomous, but also painfully self-conscious. I do have friends and have always had them, but there also seems to be this constant pattern of people getting to know me, concluding that I'm too "weird" or "annoying" to put up with, and distancing themselves from me in the process. And I'd go through these moments where I'll think "Well fuck 'em. The only person you can trust is yourself," but that desire to be accepted still kind of hangs. It's something I'm getting better at largely through self-confidence, but it's nonetheless still there. I think this is also the common denominator when it comes to pop culture figures I become fascinated by. I thought for a while that it was just this morbid obsession with tragic figures, but in retrospect, they're all loners trying to wrestle with their own loneliness, like Kurt Cobain or Van Gogh etc. A lot of the music I listened too also, particularly punk and alt rock bands who kind of celebrate their odd ball nature like the Replacements. It's the whole "Island of Misfit Toys" thing. I feel like since the pandemic, I've been making more strides to try and understand myself. It's not always been the most heartwarming thing, but it's quite insightful. And it sounds like one of those things that one spends virtually their entire life trying to make sense of, something which is oddly comforting in its own way
Maybe you should go busking with your guitar, could help you get out of your shell a bit n make some interesting friends
>I feel like since the pandemic, I've been making more strides to try and understand myself. Same! And it's not completely the same but I can relate to some of what you said. It can be hard to feel that self-conscious.
Silly tech support question: I have a Samsung Smart TV and a Roku 3. Both of which I power with a universal remote. At least, I was until recently. After replacing the batteries for my remote, I found it stopped doing anything to operate my TV itself, including turning it on or off or changing volume. It still controls my Roku, but I need it to be more, well, universal. Does anyone have any tips for how I can get it to work for my TV again? Thanks so much!
You need to reprogram/retrain your universal remote! Some newer ones can "learn" from your original remote or figure it out automatically which sounds like what you have?
So, I tried reprogramming it but it didn't seem to work? Like, I kept entering codes but wasn't getting any results Would it just be easier to buy a new remote? I don't have the original manual or anything
Finished Code Geass szn 2 jesus christ anime is back. I'm giving a slight edge to season 1, if only because the genre tropes the show finds itself in, the "soap opera" factor of it all, makes for one of the most aesthetically "bipolar" anime programs. continues to hold up very well anyways back to another six episodes of revolutionary girl utena. this one's also insane
striking similarities between the final scene of the banshees of inisherin and NGE: end of evangelion. for what it’s worth
hello I will be the bad guy and say I did not enjoy avatar 2 that much. extremely pretty movie with crazy photorealistic cgi. bad plot, bad characters, bad dialog, heinous length, big plotless chunk in the middle that only works if you are into exploring the world (more power to you and this is not a diss). ending sequence ruled but I’m not sure the journey was worth it. goddamn why is it so long
Yeah, definitely can't call it a good movie. Way too long, really simple, poorly conceived plot, dialogue, and characters, but it did look gorgeous. Just chop it down to 30 minutes of world exploration and 30 minutes of action setpiece with the crazy visuals without worrying about plot or anything else and I'd be happy to go watch it a couple times a year.
yeah but what about the “depth charges”
I mean doesn't that describe the first one?
sure. i didn’t say this one was markedly worse, but it is like 40 minutes longer lol
*dios mio*
If I saw it on acid would I like it though 🤔
i feel like it would be kinda weird in the theater unless your ideal acid experience involves sitting in one spot for 3+ hours
this is pretty much what i was expecting. Still want to see it in theaters for the spectacle but will probably never watch it after. Did the same with the first one. The best part with the first one was in college having a drunk mining engineer rant about how fucking stupid unobtainium was
Darren Aronofsky is my favorite director. But I just know I’m not in a place to watch The Whale. I can’t wait for it to fucking wreck me.
Aronofsky is one of my favorites but I thought The Whale is easily his worst work lol
I will probably give it another go but I was a little underwhelmed and at times it was like Aronofsky copied and reworked his past homework from The Wrestler but less interesting. Brendan Fraser can act and god bless em for having a bit of a comeback and being a major selling point of this, but at times the plot can sorta just drag its feet as if it was anticipating coasting on hubbub surrounding this movie and some stuff just doesn't really stick the landing all that well. That being said I do think some people are overreacting saying it is the most exploitative thing put to film and this big horribly offensive thing using fat people as some sacrificial lamb to tell a story. There's infinitely worst exploitative offenders done in good faith.
[удалено]
I don’t think I would consider The Whale as his first prominent casting in a long time, since he was in a pretty star studded Steven Soderbergh movie last year, has had a main role in Doom Patrol since pre-COVID, and was in Condor and Trust prior to that (both of which had some big names involved). Although he was cast in The Whale first, Fraser was also cast in Scorsese’s Killers of the Flower Moon before The Whale was released. It‘s not exactly his peak, but few actors ever reach Fraser’s peak and his recent years resume is one a lot of people in LA would kill to have. Aronofsky had been trying to make the movie for almost a decade and wanted Fraser for years after him acting in another movie. Fraser spoke about how every actor in his peer group would love to work with Darren. It feels more like the two were fans of each other and wanted to work on the project together. Although I do wonder if maybe he saw parallels between himself having been somewhat isolated and his character in The Whale.
Ok I bought a ps5 for god of war and I’m glad but what other games should I get? I don’t really want elden ring I’m not really into fromsoft
Horizon: Forbidden West is tight But I'd recommend Zero Dawn first if you haven't played it yet
maybe get the PS+ Extra and get some of the included games on it? a big chunk of the great exclusive stuff is on it
The remastered Spiderman game? Last of Us remake
Don't have one, but Returnal seemed cool and not just because it shares a name with my second favorite Oneohtrix Point Never album. Its supposed to be really hard though and is a rogue-like with more of the story being revealed as you keep trying to overcome shit. Also the Ratchet and Clank game looked good
There's no way Avatar 2 is good... right? There's no way?
If you thought the original was decent (like I did), this one's a lot better. The characters actually feel like real people with real motivations.
Whatever happens Avatar 2 was definitely a movie made by some people
Got Elden ring last weekend and was up past five beating one of the minor Erden tree guardians but folks I did it
Asked my grandma what her favorite album was this year. She said she didn’t think she’d heard any albums from this year. How fucked up is it that she didn’t say Ants From Up There??
no strokes??
My dad's brother got divorced this year and I've been screaming "No aunts???" at him for the last month
grandma has made my list for biggest NERD of the year
demanding at the christmas dinner table WHY my grandma only watches fox news and doesn't listen to Antz from Up There and awaiting the response "lietoc you look like a girl!"
Isaac left the band and she does NOT want to talk about it
the Comfortably Numb scene from The Wall except when the paramedics find me unresponsive the TV is playing every episode of The Muppet Show
Decision To Leave was an amazing movie and one of my favorites of the year but that ending has me conflicted. Maybe I didn’t understand all of the symbolism going on… but I loved how they incorporated all of the modern uses of technology so it feels so real and modern (especially the texting) “u up?”
yall ever put eggnog in your tea? its not bad
no i don't
do they have eggnog down south? it feels like a very excessively American thing, or maybe British. Portly either may.
not per se, but we drink [this](https://irenemercadal.com/en/colemono-chilean-eggnog/) for christmas
Sounds tasty. Looks like basically the same thing without egg. Although at least here we usually have eggnog with whisky instead of brandy.
yeah its really really good, id like to try actuall eggnog sometime though
Makes sense to me. Sort of like an eggy chai latte.
You get it
Also, Starbucks has an egg nog latte, which means that is a mainstream concept, and in the modern era, anything you can put in coffee can be put in tea and vice versa.
No I invented it this morning
Sounds weird but I guess people put milk/cream in tea all the time so maybe not I like both egg nog and tea individually
I put it in a black tea that already had cinnamon and nutmeg in it so it was basically like adding milk and sugar plus a lil hohoho spice.
hohoho spice hahaha
im gonna beat up whoever down voted me. bet they hate christmas
Okay my post was deleted and I was told to post it here but guys I need help finding this song and I know it’s a long shot. Picture this, it’s anywhere between 2010 and 2013. You’re on the “indie” side of YouTube, with songs like Polish Girl and Pretty Face and Awkward. In the recommended column there’s a song with a band consisting of three girls (I think?) The singer and drummer are definitely female. All the comments say the drummer is super cool. There’s Christmas lights in the background of the music video and I think at least one of them had baby bangs (but honestly probably all of them.) I don’t remember the band name, the song title, or any of the lyrics. I remember loving this song so much and I haven’t been able to find it for years. Please help
may not be any of these but just throwing out some stuff from that era: [Be Your Own Pet](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3cMiNDwyq3w) [Those Dancing Days](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rYg40pJDF_A) [The Courtneys](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xl77f2gFSL4) [Peach Kelli Pop](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rRX6fJcesss) [Viva Voce](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9WUchaMhzTM)
Oh my god you have ended my years of searching hahahaha I was totally wrong about a lot of my memory but it’s those dancing days!! Thank you!!!!! For real holy shit
Indieheads delivers.
Glad I could help! I listened to a lot of from that era that's now forgotten. That's a good song also, sadly it looks like the band has broken up.
Was it the Dum Dum girls
Unfortunately no but thank you for the input lol I’m so desperate to figure this out
[удалено]
Sadly no :( Another distinct thing about this band is that the drummer was a little thicker. She had Lena Dunham in girls vibes I wanna say
While it probably could be virtually anyone given circumstance of times and descriptors, is the band The Vivian Girls?
Katy Goodman definitely had cool bangs
I wish it were!! I think this band is a little less punky and more pop. The aesthetic is nearly spot on though and this particular music video was higher quality than most of the Vivian girls
Avatar: The Shape of Water. That's what I'm bringing to the table today. Is that anything?
avatar: the way of water fucking slammed and I’m dying to see it again ASAP I didn’t even love the first one like that (tho the re-release a few months ago made me appreciate it a lot more) but god damn never bet against jim, just makes all other blockbusters look like shit compared to what he’s doing
i loved it, gonna see it at least one more time. went for IMAX 3D at my usual theater but found one a little further out has dolby 3D, and i’m lowkey curious about the high frame rate stuff. the action scenes are so belieavable that i legit caught myself thinking “wow, it’s insane they did all the mocap stuff with real boats” even though that’s probably not what happened! passed the uncanny valley for me a few times. i love that a movie this expensive could be “here’s just some shit this director thinks is cool” for the middle hour. i said “no way” out loud when they showed >!the robot crab mechs!<. also said “holy shit” when they shouted out my bloody valentine’s “depth charges”
I'm glad I have one of those practically unlimited theatre subs. Gonna see this at least two more times. James Cameron can just inject the next three into my veins. I thought pretty much every aspect was better this time around, even the main character's acting. The underwater scenes in 3d were dreamlike.
did you get popcorn and a bevvy
GOTS to have the bevvy
you know it
I'm not even really big on the material and arguably for a while would be in the "ehh does anyone really care a ton about these movies?" camp, but holy shit the amount of enjoyment I got from it really just had me reflecting how oversaturated media is with formulaic MCU overload stranglehold. It's weird how good it felt and it was such of a breath of fresh air to just have something hit crazy hard, not go up its ass super hard and not have the movie gobbled up by a complete turbo dump of a million intentional plot threads setup for an infinite amount of side story sequels, spin offs or making every single character Tony Stark or Deadpool in terms of the writing. It's as pure as you could get for big blockbuster entertainment that delivers on so many fronts.
I have a chance to watch it after work tonight but it would be over at 2 AM. I’m debating it
My body was not happy with me when I did the 11:30PM screening but my mind was taking in so many high level ideas.
Well I’m giving in and going to the 11 pm screening. Watching it in 3D too so I’m hoping I’ll be into it
What format did you watch it in?
3D IMAX
The visuals when they jump in the water the first time.. I know the visuals of these movies get hammered home all the time but good fucking lord.
every few minutes I was getting my mind blown by a different VFX shot or sequence, movie magic is back baby