#be so careful a serbian film is next

[parola-di-winx]

stupid woman, this is the second time you’ve insulted me. you're definitely an Islamophobe, I don't believe in your support for Palestine. I wrote in arabic so you can see that I'm real.and I didn’t write the second message. you're just stupid

cannibal holocaust is like a mockumentary but the structure is found footage and some might even SAY it's the first of its kind ?!?! isn't that just inherently cool?? to have something that is considered the first time A Thing has ever been done??? like that's always so exciting to me. part of why texas chainsaw massacre is SO elevated in my brain probably. anyway it being the first found footage movie is especially significant because people have never seen that before. you know how blair witch came out and everyone was genuinely looking for these kids lost in the woods? imagine that TWO DECADES EARLIER the director went to COURT bc people thought he was actually distributing REAL people being murdered and worse. he had to ho back to south america and find all the actors and bring them to court with him to prove no one actually died. the worst part abt this movie is also the only part that's real unfort which is the animals that Have been hurt very graphically too for the making of this movie. which is not only fucking sad but so frustrating because none of that was even necessary like they had such good sfx at play and you had to kill animals for real ?? and like for what. none of those scenes were necessary

anyway the mockumentary aspect was film crew going to somewhere in the amazon forest to show Unhinger Wild Barbaric Native Tribes ooooooo isn't it sooooo scary look at all these evil insane things they dooooo........ and then said crew gets Lost. they never come back and a professor who iirc was like an expert in traditions and culture or whatever of people who live in the amazon is sent to find them. they do find the tribe the crew had made contact with and find the footage too. they find the entire film which besides the /documentary/ section also shows how the crew would the worst things to fire up the tribe or straight up Fake rituals and stuff that they would then sell as Evil Insane Scary Rituals . thank God eventually they get got and die horribly 👍👍

a third of the film is cinematically shot and i'm not sure what the excuse for that is. i think they were doing a mockumentary within the mockumentary? like the crew is doing a documentary in the amazon forest and then the professor and His team is doing a documentary about the search for the original crew. but then there are also more cinematic scenes of the professor showing the entire footage to his producers to convince them it shouldn't be aired/should only be aired in full to show the truth. it's kinda like. who is really the barbarian here. who is really the savage. i think it was trying to fly too close to the sun and comes off as slightly pretentious bc aren't you, deodato the real life director of this whole movie, still lowkey exploiting random people from the other side of the world ? like what business do you have trying to woke shame the usamericans ??? idk lmao i don't trust this mans he's done other. sort of equally distasteful Attempts at. something. i don't know what is goal ever is. but. people were traumatized and terrified of this movie when it first aired and i wish i was alive at the time to like. experience the mass hysteria that makes you believe this is true. it's surely a fascinating time capsule and now we have paranormal activity

do you wanna know the real gorey gross bits ? that's what we're here for right ? they had a girl impaled from her genitals to her mouth. it looked INSANE it's i think the most striking visual from the movie and it's done so well it still holds up fine. they had like this huge pole so that it would REALLY look extra painful and the top half was attached to a mouthpiece the actress could like bite into ? and the bottom half had like a bike seat type of end akfkakkf so she could kinda sit on it . insane. really good. i tip my hat

[ellie-the-oracle]

Freefalling From Great Heights - A Discussion & Analysis

Hey guys. So, I lied about getting off socials LOL I really need to go full on film theory here and talk about the fall. I do want to preface though and say that I am not a woman of science (I’m an art girlie), therefore I won’t be able to make any sort of proper calculations. Without further ado, I’m going to break down the whole fall and discuss how Tech could’ve and probably did survive. 

First and foremost, I want to go back and take a look at the most clear shot given to viewers of the height between the tram system and the perceived ground level. In this picture, we get a brief glimpse from Wrecker’s POV of how far down it is from the trams. 

While it looks quite high, considering they are practically in the clouds, it is important to note the amount of foliage this planet has; a vast amount large trees, specifically tall pine trees.

These types of trees are not uncommon in biomes that include bodies of water. Consider the images below.

 While it is not definitive, it can be safe to assume that there could have been a stream or body of water below in that valley. However, even if this was not the case, the trees are large enough that they can dampen a fall, even if it is from a great height. This leads me to my next point: 

How high of a fall can humans survive?

An NCBI article covers the case of a rock climber who had fallen from a total of 300 feet and survived. Though she suffered many severe injuries, she was able to recover after extensive medical care. According to this article, the way in which a person falls is imperative to survival. In particular, if a person is falling vertically, they can survive an average fall height of 23 feet and 7 inches (7.2 meters) with minor to moderate injury. Survivable injuries have a threshold of around 20-25 feet. Yet the rock climber was able to survive at even greater heights. That being said, according to an article by Arnold & Atkin Trial Lawyers, 20 feet and below can still prove to be fatal. Moreover, fatal falls usually are between 21 and 40 feet. Considering all the information thus far, it would seem that Tech is exceptionally fucked. But stay with me folks, I’m not done cooking yet.

While it is not common, humans have, in fact, survived free falls at extreme heights. Take for example Vesna Vulović, a Serbian flight attendant who holds the Guinness world record for surviving the highest freefall without a parachute: 33,330 feet (10,160 meters). She was in a coma for days and spent several months hospitalized. She suffered a fractured skull, three broken vertebrae, broken legs, broken ribs, and a fractured pelvis, leaving her temporarily paralyzed from the waist down. Despite all of this, she made a nearly complete recovery, only continuing to walk with a limp. 

In another case, Nicholas Alkemade, a British tail gunner of the Royal Air Force during World War II, survived a freefall of 18,000 feet (5, 490 meters). His fall was broken by pine trees and a soft snow cover on the ground. 

While the first case can be safely considered as a miracle, it's the second case that is interesting. The pilot survived a freefall from a height he should’ve died from. Yet, due to the large trees and the snow on the floor, his fall was cushioned and allowed for him to survive. 

Now, taking what we discussed and applying it to the Star Wars universe, the chances of Tech surviving is definitely in our favour. Firstly, we know there is a lot of foliage (bushes, grass, etc.), and there are also massive trees. But we must remember that this isn’t just some random, unprepared person that is falling. This is Tech, a highly skilled, highly intelligent, and well equipped clone trooper. It is also important to mention that he is wearing a helmet and a chest plate, which provides protection to critical body parts. Knowing him, Tech could have very well put his gear to use and used a grappling hook to attach to a tree and create momentum from his fall to swing onto the ground. He could have also gotten into the falling tram and found a way to cushion his fall. But let’s say he does neither of these things (perhaps due to the speed at which he was falling), Tech can still survive if he falls vertically into the pine trees and foliage, which will cushion his fall, just like Nicholas Alkemade and the rock climber, respectively.

Furthermore, based on all that has been discussed and considered, the chances of survival of a freefall from that height, while seemingly impossible, is in fact, possible and likely. 

Sources:

[brandtner]

User guide for CROATIA or DRAZEN KRLEZA

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Dear (name), Thank you for ordering from Yugotalia Corp. Here is a list of instructions for caring for your new Yugoloid DRAŽEN unit! We are not responsible for any damage made to you or your house. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Your DRAŽEN unit comes with : One (1) DALMATIAN DOG unit Two (2) ties and one (1) bow tie One (1)  suit One (1) military outfit One (1) poetry and fairytale book Three (3) bottles of rakija One (1) guitar ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Technical Specifications:   Name: Dražen Krleža. Will also reply to " Croatia", "Hrvatska", "Cro", "Selfish bastard", "Serbia" but he won’t be happy if you call him the last two names.... Age: 23 Place of manufacture: Zagreb, Croatia Height:  175cm Weight: TOP SECRET ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------- PROGRAMMING DRAŽEN is equipped with following traits: Singer/Guitarist    He is pretty good at singing and better at playing guitar. So if you need a good singer or guitarist in your band, you can use him! Fashion model     Need money? Don’t worry! DRAŽEN has the most beautiful beaches in Europe after all, so you can make him be the Fashion model! Teacher                He is good at teaching Croatian and he would be better art/poetry teacher! -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Removal of DRAŽEN from box 1. Play Croatian anthem really loud. He will jump out of the box and start singing along. While he is singing you can reprogram him. 2. Play Serbian anthem. He will jump out and look around house to find SERBIA. When he clams down you can reprogram him. 3. Make some croatian food and put it next to box. He will open the box and start eating. While he is eating you can reprogram him. He will later give you a little rakija as thank you for food. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Reprogramming After getting him out of the box, you can reprogram him to following modes. Grumpy (default) Hotheaded and proud (default) Gentleman Protective brother Romantic Sad OCC First two mods are his normal personality. Gentleman mode is what it means. And he will call you Master/Miss/Lady etc. Protective brother mode means he will be the over protective sibling you never had.... Romantic mod, you will have to find it out yourself Sad mod is basically when you remind him of Yugoslav wars, WW2 or WW1. Or any other war. (he hates wars) He will probably lock himself in his or your room for a few weeks. OCC is when he acts VERY diffrent than usual. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Relationships with other units SERBIA : His arch-rival is Serbia and Croatia will do anything to keep him away from his house and friends. If you put them together in romantic mode and lock them in your room for few weeks, you can espect some Serbo-Croatian babys.... SLOVENIA : He was actually pretty good friends with Slovenia, until they started having fights over their backyards. Croatia calls Slovenia a whiny bitch, since he is quite a crybaby to the EU when it comes to this, while Slovenia calls Croatia a selfish bastard since he simply won't let go. BOSNIA  : DRAŽEN sees him as his little brother, he cares about him. If you want them to have babys than you have to put them in romantic mode and wait few months. HERZEGOVINA : She is his cousin and they get along. GERMANY : He is DRAŽENS BFF. But even Germany is a bit afraid of Croatia's anger button. ITALY : They were enemies before but they are friends now. They can have romantic relationship if you want. Everyone else : Most of other units like him becouse he lets them visit his beaches. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Cleaning He can clean for himself and he can clean himself. If he trusts you he will want you to take a bath with him. If you see his scars, dont ask him how he got them, it will make him depressed/sad. Feeding He loves Balkan and slavic food, but he will eat anything you give him. Rest He loves to sail to islands. He sleeps whenever he wants to. Dont wake him up or he will go to his special mode. He also loves romantic films, books and Dating simulation games. He enjoys a good football game too! He loves to go to irish pubs. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- FAQ Q: His dalmatian dog is gone and he is too! A: Dont worry, he will come back as soon as he finds his dog. Q: He looks like he wants to kill me! A: Congrats! You unlocked his INSANE MODE! He will want to kill you and if he fails he will go and kill half of your town. He is good at hiding it so dont worry about police. You can get him out of this mode by talking to him for a few hours. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Problem: I did not get DRAŽEN. I got some little cute kid that speaks only croatian! Solution: We send you a Little!Croatia! If you want you can send him back and your DRAŽEN will come in few days! ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- He is actually quite polite, hospitable, caring and fun to be with, behind his egoistic facade. If you want any other Yugotalian or your Yugotalian is broken call this number: 066-545-7878-22 .

So i saw some people do this and i was like why dont i try this with yugotalia?

im sory for my bad english1 DON’T REALLY CALL THAT NUMBER. -Laura -Bruzi (fixed typos)

[eldritchsurveys]

727.

Do you think you’re clever? >> I can be clever, sure. Did you wear socks today? >> Yeah, because we actually went outside. I’m still wearing them because I really haven’t felt like taking them off yet. Can you remember how you celebrated your 10th birthday? >> I don’t really remember being ten at all, to be honest.

Know any magic tricks? >> No. Do you sleep well most nights? >> Eh... I guess I sleep all right.

Are your nails painted? >> No. Is there somebody you know that you really don’t trust? >> I don’t really trust most people I know, and that’s usually no fault of theirs. cPTSD is a bitch. Is there music in your head right now? >> No. When’s the last time you baked a cake? >> I don’t think I’ve ever baked a cake. What time was it half an hour ago? >> 1.23p EST. Did you ever play cowboys and indians when you were growing up? >> Absolutely not. When did it last rain? >> I want to say yesterday? Days are all starting to run together, obviously, so I might be wrong. Would you like to become a dancer? >> No. I would like dancing to remain a casual thing I do out of enjoyment. What colour is the bathroom of your house painted? >> The bathrooms are painted the same colour as the rest of the apartment -- off-white. Which country is to the north of your home country? >> Canada. Name one person of the same sex as you you wouldn’t mind doing: >> --- What is the most gory film you’ve seen? >> Hmm... maybe A Serbian Film, since that was like, its whole point or whatever. Is there anybody that you know that you just feel really sorry for? >> No. Do you like the Austin Powers films? >> Nah, that’s not my sense of humour. I can’t even look at the main character’s face without cringing.

Where is the worst place you have ever travelled to? >> I don’t have a worst place. They were all just fine places (or very good places). Ever fallen down a hole? >> No. Do you like to read poetry? >> Not particularly. Most of the poetry I encounter is inscrutable in a way that doesn’t jive with me at all (I don’t dislike poetic ambiguity as a rule, but there’s only a certain kind that I actually connect with). Every once in a while I’ll encounter a poem that speaks to me, but it’s not a frequent occurrence. What’s your preferred frozen snack? >> Mochi ice cream. Is rap music overrated? >> No? Do you work better in a clean or messy environment? >> Clean, absolutely. Do you know any vegans? >> Sure. I was also raised by an almost-vegan. Earphones or headphones? >> Headphones. Do you like bananas? >> Absolutely not. What’s a film you’ve seen that confused you? >> Beyond the Black Rainbow. I didn’t bother finishing it because I couldn’t see the point. Do you ever wear black lipstick? >> I’ve worn it in the past. I prefer more of a plum colour, though. You can take any illegal drug without any bad consequences, which one? >> Hm. I guess Ecstasy. What is next to your bed? >> A nightstand. Are your fingernails dirty? >> No. I can’t abide having dirty fingernails. What would you change about yourself appearence-wise? >> I’d rather not even entertain this right now. How long do you normally spend in the shower? >> Like five minutes. I am always on high alert in the shower and the quicker I can leave, the better. When’s the last time somebody called you “baby”? >> Sparrow usually calls me “babe”, no one calls me “baby” and I’d like to keep it that way. Have you ever had to keep something important from your family? >> --- Don’t you think things feel much better after a good cry? >> Actually, yeah, it does feel pretty cathartic when I just let it happen instead of berating myself for being emotional and shaming myself into submission. It kinda clears out the sludge a bit and lets me breathe a little easier, which helps me move on from whatever stirred me up in the first place. Do you think the UK should keep its monarchy? >> I don’t know shit about the UK and the monarchy and I don’t care. True or false: you’d do Mila Kunis. >> False, obviously. Which colour would you rather have your hair: pink, grey or green? >> Grey. Pink would be fun, though. Maybe grey with a big pink swatch. Don’t you just hate the sound of people eating? >> I really, really, really the fuck do. What’s your favourite music video? >> I have a lot of favourites. Helena by My Chemical Romance is one. Is it your aim to be perfect? >> Fuck no. Inner Critic can just die mad about it. Ever climbed to the top of a mountain? >> No. Have you ever fell for someone believing you could “fix” them? >> *shudder* No. I’m so glad I never had that impulse. I’ve wanted to make life easier for people that I cared about, and even that got me into way more trouble than it was worth. Someone’s paying for a fancy dinner, where do you eat and who do you take? >> I’m not sure. Can you honestly say you are truly happy with your life? >> I’m honestly not trying to be “happy” with my life. Sometimes life sucks. Sometimes it’s way too fucking hard. Sometimes it weighs upon me like eight hundred anvils and I can’t believe I somehow manage to get up every morning. I’m just trying to be okay with that variety of human experience, and not punish myself for not being “~happy~” all the time. Can you paint well? >> No. Describe a picture of yourself that you hate: >> I’d rather not??? If you could keep any animal as a pet, which would you choose? >> The only animal I want is a service dog. Something you did in the past that you’re embarrassed about: >> *shrug* Would you rather play a good or an evil character in a play? >> Evil! Especially if I get to ham it up and just be gleefully awful. Do you like porridge? >> Sure, it’s fine.

Has anybody ever lied to you just to impress you? >> I mean, I have no idea. Strangest gift you ever received: >> --- Do most people annoy you? >> No. Don’t you think you should really be doing something more productive? >> I think anyone that actually asked me that would end up producing a lot of blood from where I stabbed them. Have you ever felt really out of place? >> Absolutely. It’s become a bit of a default response, unfortunately. What’s your favourite shade of blue? >> Dusky greyish-blue. Do you have any odd phobias? >> No. What’s the longest you’ve gone without sleep? >> About four days or so. When was the last time you just wanted to be left alone? >> I don’t know, probably the last time I had an emotion of any sort. Do you believe in karma? >> Karma isn’t a concept that gels with me. Can you remember a world before iPods? >> I do. When was the last time it was sunny? >> This morning. It’s still a little sunny right now, too. Would you like to be photographed by Terry Richardson? >> Who? Don’t feel like googling. Smoke? >> No, thanks. The most I smoke nowadays is about a third of a clove every once in a while. It feels pleasantly buzzy, plus I like the taste. I can’t stomach smoking a whole one, though. It ain’t 2012 anymore. Would you rather have a lazy day or a day of being really busy? >> I’d like to experience the variety of having some really busy days in between all my regular lazy days. Do you like the way that spoken French sounds? >> It’s fine. What’s the best film soundtrack? >> Oh man, anything that Clint Mansell does I just want to absorb into my body. (So that’s... Requiem for a Dream, The Fountain, Moon, Stoker, etc etc etc.) Also, Interstellar had a beautiful score. Where did you go on your last date? >> Uh... I think our last “formal” outing was to the Valentine’s Day cocktails and chocolates event at Long Road Distillery. Do people find you “cute”? >> I don’t fucking know, man. Who does the best remixes? >> I’m not sure. What is most of your money spent on? >> Rent and bills, of course. And subscriptions.

[survivingacademia]

Weekend summary

August 10th

We had the opportunity to sleep until 8 this morning, but Marti and I were so used to getting up early that we both were up by 7. We have a planned trip to Ribe today, and everyone is very excited.

Breakfast was high-spirited. The kitchen staff had prepared a table with sandwich ingredients (buns, knekkebrød, salami, butter, salad, and so on), so we could all take a sandwich for lunch. Marti and I sat next to an American woman, Jodi, who is a writer, and this breakfast turned into one of my most pleasant memories so far.

The bus ride to Ribe was exciting as well, with Henning taking the mic every 5 minutes or so to tell us something about a church or a small village. The town itself was very beautiful. It’s Denmark’s oldest city, and its paved roads reminded me of home. We took a walk along the quay, through the small roads in the centre, past the Grammar school and to Ribe Cathedral, the oldest in Scandinavia. It was extremely beautiful. I have a thing about Catholic and Protestant Churches, somehow they make me feel more at home than Orthodox ones.

After that we split into small groups, and Marti and I rushed into the nearest bookstore. Marti bought a book, and we stopped at a few other shops on our way to the Art Museum. Unfortunately, the entrance fee was a bit too high, so we decided to take a longer stroll instead. We saw the old City Hall (there was a wedding), one of the mills, the Viking Museum, the Railway station and Ribe’s very own Flying Tiger.

Going back to the bus we stumbled upon Ellie, a student from the UK, and we had a cup of coffee and some Danish pastries with her. She is really into the Middle Ages, and she’s currently researching childbirth and witchcraft.

Henning decided it would be a good idea to take us to Kammerslusen, right next to the North sea, and we were able to stand just next to the water. Those Jylland winds would totally blow us away tho!

The afternoon included a lecture on Danish vocabulary with Robert.

Also, Marti and I figured out how laundry works and even got a box of laundry detergent on sale.

 August 11th

Sunday. Free day. Breakfast starts at 9, but I am hungry already at 7.

Everybody seems to be sleeping today, there are barely 10 people at the dining hall. Marti and I made a sandwich for later and chatted with Jodie again. She was lovely, as usual.

We decided to go to Odense today, and we actually bought tickets from the DSB app yesterday. We have to leave at about 9:50, walk about 3 km to Vejen, and then take a train. And can I just say, Danish trains, oh my God. So much leg room! They’re quiet, you know where you are because they constantly tell you, there are quiet cars if you want to sleep. Also, wi-fi.

We crossed Lillebælt on our way, and I couldn’t help but feel as if I am in San Francisco and I am crossing Golden Gate Bridge. For 2 shorts minutes, you are only surrounded by water. The sun was shining, and the view was so magical, I could cry of happiness.

However, our first hour in Odense was quite rainy. We couldn’t really take a walk in the King’s Garden because of the heavy rain, so we headed straight towards Andersen’s museum. Fortunately, the city was not that big, so we managed to navigate quite easily. The museum was lovely, very interactive. They had a lot of first editions, different passports Andersen owned, copies of books he made for his friends. There was also a wall dedicated to copies of his stories in 140 different languages, even in Bulgarian!

Quick lunch, then Andersen’s childhood house and his later home. A lovely cappuccino and a spandauer at Wendorff bakery. Lots of going around, my Health app is on 12 km today. Finally, a quick walk around King’s Garden.

I grabbed a very overpriced orange juice from a 7-Eleven just before we boarded the train. The way home seemed endless, maybe because we were both so tired. Dinner was surprisingly good – we sat with Kosta, the Serbian boy, and a German girl, and we discussed our days and Danish food. Henning showed up and encouraged us to try some rødgrød med fløde, basically jam and milk.

It was film night tonight! We watched Brødre, and Robert and Christian had took care of the popcorn and salt sticks. We might need therapy after this film tho.

[foundcarcosa]

cccxxxii.

Do you want your last ex to be happy, even if it means not being with you? >> Phoenix? I mean, I don’t wish ill upon him. He didn’t give me enough of a chance to love him, so I don’t have any stronger desires for him. If you have a smartphone, what’s the last app you downloaded? What about the last app you uninstalled? >> Shazam was the last I downloaded, and Dissidia was the last I uninstalled (it was just taking up too much space). If you were a straight member of the opposite sex, who are some celebrities you think you’d have a thing for? >> I mean, my attraction isn’t gender-locked, so I imagine it’d be the same women I think are cute now. Have you ever dyed your own hair? How did it turn out? >> Yeah. It turned out all right. Right-handed or left-handed? >> Right.

What is the wallpaper on your cellphone? >> The lock screen is a fan-made Dark Tower movie poster. The home screen is an art of Rustin Cohle that I found on tumblr. (So, basically, my phone is on some real Matthew McConaughey shit. As usual.) Does your first, middle, and last spell something? >> My initials? LFD... Left For Dead? God, I hope not. (Left 4 Dead is a great franchise, though...) Favorite TV channel? >> Hm. What is your least favorite breed of dog? >> Hm. In your opinion, are leggings appropriate to wear as pants? >> Sure, who cares. Have you ever had a teacher that also taught your parents? >> No. Is there any alcohol in the fridge? >> Yeah, there’s still some of the Svedka left, and there’s Sparrow’s last spiked Arnold Palmer. The rest of the booze is here in my room with me. Do you hate it when people smoke around you? >> Not unless they’re obnoxious about it. What do you want for your birthday? >> Well, my birthday just passed, so. Who is the most inappropriate person you know? >> Hm. Who in your phone has a heart after their name? >> No one. After breaking up, what’s the worst? >> I don’t know, that depends on the breakup. Do you have a second mom? >> I don’t even have a first. When was the hardest time in your life? What made it so hard & how did you overcome it? >> Hm.

How do you relieve stress? >> Stubbornness. I don’t have many specific coping skills for it. When you die do you want to have a funeral service? Why or why not? >> That’s up to the people responsible for my body after I’ve vacated it. I’m under no illusions that I require a say in what happens. What is your opinion on capital punishment? >> I don’t really care either way. What period of history was your favorite to learn about? If you don’t like history, what is your favorite thing to learn about? >> I’m not sure I have a specific favourite. Obviously ancient Scandinavian history crosses over with other interests of mine, and Hetalia gave me a pretty strong interest in certain aspects of WWII, but mostly I just... like history. Period. Where is your favorite fast food restaurant & what do you order when you go there? >> --- What do you think about smoking in public places? >> I don’t have a blanket opinion about this sort of thing. What’s your favorite cheese? >> Brie, pepper jack, asiago. What’s your favorite type of chocolate? >> Dark chocolate with sea salt and chili peppers. How do you like your steak? >> I don’t. What’s the last time you ate something you’d picked in the wild? >> I don’t think I’ve ever gotten a chance to do that. Arrange the following in order of preference: Pineapple, Orange, Apple, Strawberry, Cherry, Watermelon, Banana. >> Cherry, strawberry, apple, watermelon, pineapple, orange, banana. What is your opinion on “God?” >> That’s far too general a question for me. The word itself isn’t anything particular for me, and as far as my personal beliefs are concerned, I vacillate from panentheistic to polytheistic to both at the same time to neither almost daily. I don’t think specific religious paradigms suit me. As strange as it might sound, I feel much more comfortable believing in all at once. What is your favorite Christmas movie? >> It’s a Wonderful Life. Who are the three most important people in your life? >> Can Calah, Sparrow, Hallie. Why did you go to the doctor the last time you went? >> A checkup. What is your favorite boy band? >> Hm. What is your favorite Beatles song? >> I guess Hey Jude, I don’t know, I don’t really care for the Beatles in general. What is your favorite type of bird? >> Raven...?  What is something you hate, but wish you loved? >> Hmm. If you could profoundly release anxiety’s grip on one area of your life what would it be? >> Death. What’s the cutest thing your SO does, but denies it’s cute in any way? >> I don’t know, they don’t seem to deny anything like this Are you smiling in your Facebook profile picture? >> No. Does it irritate you when people go on and on about how amazing their boyfriend/girlfriend is? >> No. But, I mean, in a conversational sense, I’d be a little confused at how to proceed. What do I say to that, lmao... If you wear eye shadow, do you put on a dark color or a light? >> I don’t really have a preference. It’s been a while.

What do you believe in the most? >> Hm. What do you avoid like the plague? >> The plague. Hrnk. What is your main goal of the year? >> Hm. Do you listen to music while you drive? >> --- Waffle cone or bowl? >> Waffle cone, but maybe I should transition to bowls. Cones stress me out. Do you like video games? Why? >> I love them. They’re another form of storytelling, and I just enjoy playing them (the ones I play, I mean. not all video games). Do you take selfies with those animal filters? >> Sometimes. What book will you NOT read? >> IDK. What YouTube channel can you not stand to watch? >> --- Do you like big, normal or small glasses? >> Normal? How do you feel about colored contacts? >> I like them. It’s just difficult to wear them because my eyes are already sensitive. Is pregnancy beautiful? >> In a gruesome sort of way. Do you dance at weddings/parties or are you shy? >> I dance when I feel like dancing. Are you kind to animals at all times? >> Not all the time, no. Have you ever been bitten by an animal really hard? >> No. Do you trust dogs? >> I suppose? I mean, trust them to... do what? Act like themselves? Sure. Do you trust cats? >> See above. What stereotype do you fall into the best? >> I don’t know. Do you have to take stairs or an elevator to get to your house? >> There are two flights of stairs to this apartment. Have you ever seen a pelican in real life? >> I don’t think so. Do you carry pepper spray with you? >> No. Name three sites you have been bullied on. >> I’ve not been bullied on the internet. Yet, I suppose. Has there ever been a fire inside your house? Tell me the story. >> No. Have you ever had a scary encounter with a wild animal? >> No. Have you ever had a emergency surgery? >> No. Do you think your hair looks better natural or dyed? >> It looks fine either way. What’s one thing that makes your stomach hurt? >> Hmm. If you had kids, would you take them to Disney World? >> I don’t know. It seems like such a busy and hectic place. Hell, I’m not even entirely sure I want to go. Like, I do, but also... the sensory overload......... What unnatural hair color looks best on you? >> Hm. What is your least favorite pizza place? >> --- What is the name of your first pet? >> Roxie. What is your favorite fairytale? >> The Snow Queen, probably. Have you ever suffered a fracture? >> No. What countries would you like to visit? >> I don’t feel like making a list, lol. A lot of them. Had a serious surgery? >> No. Gotten stitches? >> Yes. Bitten someone? >> Yes. Would you ever cosplay? >> Sure. How slowly or quickly would you say you eat? >> Moderately? I don’t know. Have you ever drank from a real coconut? >> No. Do you have bird feeders hanging up outside? What about any hanging plants? >> No. If you were poor, living on the streets, & had no family to aid you, would you take up a job offer to work in a slaughterhouse? >> In general, I would not work at a slaughterhouse. Too messy for the likes of me. Have you ever had a grandparent come live with you? >> No. Do you keep your fortunes from fortune cookies? >> No. When you walk into your bedroom, is the light switch on the right side or the left side of the door? >> Left side. Who makes the majority of the food for Thanksgiving in your family? >> --- Does your house have a real chimney? >> No. If you had to endure one natural disaster (i.e. hurricane, tornado, etc), what would you pick and why? >> Hm. How did you learn to ride a bicycle? >> My father taught me. If you want any tattoos or piercings, what’s next on your list? >> I don’t have a list. Are you good at understanding baby talk? >> No, lol. I don’t bother trying to understand it, I just respond back whatever way comes to me. What was the last movie that you saw in the theaters? >> Infinity War. *grimace* Can you do a hand stand? >> No. If you could, you would go to the moon? >> Sure. Do you like candy canes? >> Some kinds. Have you ever gotten in trouble at school for wearing revealing clothes? >> No. Have you ever seriously thought about getting plastic surgery? >> No. Do you prefer your jeans normal or ripped? >> Either is fine. Have you ever actually woken up screaming because of a nightmare? >> No. Have you watched Breaking Bad? >> No. Have you ever been skating? >> Roller skating, yes. Do you feel comfortable singing in front of others? >> Yeah. Used to do it for fun on Monday nights. I miss Arlene’s... Name four favorite fast food restaurants & what you usually order at each one. >> Hmm. Name four favorite sit down restaurants & what you usually order at each one. >> Hrm. Would you say you’re more close-minded or open-minded? Is there anyone in your family or group of friends you’d consider close-minded? If so, does it ever bother you? >> I’m more open-minded than close-minded, but even I have my limits. I don’t know about anyone else. What is the most fucked up movie you’ve seen? Why? >> Probably A Serbian Film. Why? Because that’s literally the kind of movie it was made to be -- as fucked up as possible. It’s the whole gimmick. When it’s time to dress up for a special occasion, are you more likely to wear a dress, a skirt, or dress pants? >> Hm. If you eat oatmeal, do you add water or milk to it? What is your favorite flavor? >> Milk. I like brown sugar and maple. Have you ever been brave enough to cut your hair in a very different way? If you have, did you regret your decision after? >> Uh, I guess. I don’t consider it brave, it’s just fuckin hair. How attractive is a girl is a suit? How attractive is a guy in a dress? >> Both are fine. What does your dad do? >> He’s retired. Are your fingers long, or short? >> Longish. Are you allergic to any dogs? >> No. Have you ever used an epi pen? >> No. What is the meaning of your first name? >> Logan means “little hollow”.

Did you toss your hat in the air at graduation? >> No. Does it usually take you awhile to recover from illnesses? >> No. Would you rather get married outside or inside? >> Er. Do you put your elbows on the table when you eat? Do you think it’s rude? >> I put them on the table if I feel like it. I don’t think it’s rude because I’ve never been given reason to believe in that. Is you hair color the same as it was when you were a baby? >> I don’t know, I guess so? What are your thoughts on mini-skirts or mini-dresses? >> What sort of thoughts am I possibly expected to have?? It’s just fucking clothing oh my god lmao Have you ever died in one of your dreams? >> Yeah, and I got stuck on the Wheel. Which is tastier: fruity gum or minty gum? >> I prefer minty gum. Be honest, have you ever bullied anybody? Who was it? >> Not to my knowledge. What was the mascot at your elementary school? >> Hm. What is one romantic movie that you enjoy enough to watch more than once? >> Love Actually. Have you ever had a significant other NOT believe you when you said “i love you” to them? Why was that? How did you react? >> I don’t think so. Is there a band logo you would get tattooed on yourself? >> The Coheed and Cambria one, probably. If you had a baby, would you want to have it at home or in a hospital? >> In the hospital. Unless they could bring the drugs and machines to me.

What was the last thing you ordered online? >> I don’t recall. What’s your favorite planet? >> Mercury and Saturn.

What are three things that fascinate you? >> Theoretical astrophysics, chaos magic, anthropology. Have you ever suffered from an eating disorder? >> No. Do you enjoy doing yoga? >> Not really. Have you ever had to do a class in summer school? >> No. Have you ever had fondue? >> No. Have you ever taken photos in a photobooth? >> Once. If you have a dog, do you walk it regularly? >> --- Do porcelain dolls scare you? >> No. Which is worse, Teletubbies or Boohbas? >> Boohbas are the superior ones. Would you ever consider getting a tattoo on the inside of your bottom lip? >> No. Do you like to play air hockey? >> Sometimes. Have you ever been in a castle? >> Bishop’s Castle, which was pretty fuckin cool. Are you a lightweight when it comes to alcohol? >> No. Do you like tacos? >> Sure.  

[bangkokjacknews]

Nikola Tesla - The greatest inventor in history

Inventor Nikola Tesla contributed to the development of the alternating-current electrical system that's widely used today and discovered the rotating magnetic field (the basis of most AC machinery).

a Inventor Nikola Tesla was born in July of 1856, in what is now Croatia. He came to the United States in 1884 and briefly worked with Thomas Edison before the two parted ways. He sold several patent rights, including those to his alternating-current machinery, to George Westinghouse. His 1891 invention, the "Tesla coil," is still used in radio technology today. Tesla died in New York City on January 7, 1943. a Early Life Nikola Tesla was born on July 10, 1856, in what is now Smiljan, Croatia. He was one of five children which included siblings Dane, Angelina, Milka and Marica, in the family. Tesla's interest in electrical invention was spurred by his mother, Djuka Mandic, who invented small household appliances in her spare time while her son was growing up. Tesla's father, Milutin Tesla, was a Serbian orthodox priest and a writer, and he pushed for his son to join the priesthood. But Nikola's interests lay squarely in the sciences. After studying at the Realschule, Karlstadt (later renamed the Johann-Rudolph-Glauber Realschule Karlstadt); the Polytechnic Institute in Graz, Austria; and the University of Prague during the 1870s, Tesla moved to Budapest, where for a time he worked at the Central Telephone Exchange. It was while in Budapest that the idea for the induction motor first came to Tesla, but after several years of trying to gain interest in his invention, at age 28 Tesla decided to leave Europe for America. Famed Inventor In 1884 Tesla arrived the United States with little more than the clothes on his back and a letter of introduction to famed inventor and business mogul Thomas Edison, whose DC-based electrical works were fast becoming the standard in the country. Edison hired Tesla, and the two men were soon working tirelessly alongside each other, making improvements to Edison's inventions. However, several months later, the two parted ways due to a conflicting business-scientific relationship, attributed by historians to their incredibly different personalities. While Edison was a power figure who focused on marketing and financial success, Tesla was commercially out-of-tune and somewhat vulnerable. After parting ways with Edison, in 1885 Tesla received funding for the Tesla Electric Light Company and was tasked by his investors to develop improved arc lighting. After successfully doing so, however, Tesla was forced out of the venture and for a time had to work as a manual laborer in order to survive. His luck changed in 1887, when he was able to find interest in his AC electrical system and funding for his new Tesla Electric Company. Setting straight to work, by the end of the year, Tesla had successfully filed several patents for AC-based inventions. Tesla's AC system eventually caught the attention of American engineer and business man George Westinghouse, who was seeking a solution to supplying the nation with long-distance power. Convinced that Tesla's inventions would help him achieve this, in 1888 he purchased his patents for $60,000 in cash and stock in the Westinghouse Corporation. As interest in an alternating-current system grew, Tesla and Westinghouse were put in direct competition with Thomas Edison, who was intent on selling his direct-current system to the nation. A negative-press campaign was soon waged by Edison, in an attempt to undermine interest in AC power. Tesla, for his part, continued in his work and would patent several more inventions during this period, including the "Tesla coil," which laid the foundation for wireless technologies and is still used in radio technology today. Unfortunately for Thomas Edison, the Westinghouse Corporation was chosen to supply the lighting at the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago, and Tesla conducted demonstrations of his AC system there. Two years later, in 1895, Tesla designed what was among the first AC hydroelectric power plants in the United States, at Niagara Falls. The following year, it was used to power the city of Buffalo, New York, a feat that was highly publicized throughout the world. With its repeat successes and favorable press, the alternating-current system would quickly become the preeminent power system of the 20th century, and it has remained the worldwide standard ever since. In addition to his AC system and coil, throughout his career, Tesla discovered, designed and developed ideas for a number of other important inventions—most of which were officially patented by other inventors—including dynamos (electrical generators similar to batteries) and the induction motor. He was also a pioneer in the discovery of radar technology, X-ray technology, remote control and the rotating magnetic field—the basis of most AC machinery. The Fall from Grace Having become obsessed with the wireless transmission of energy, around 1900 Nikola set to work on his boldest project yet: to build a global, wireless communication system—to be transmitted through a large electrical tower—for sharing information and providing free electricity throughout the world. With funding from a group of investors that included financial giant J. P. Morgan, in 1901 Tesla began work on the project in earnest, designing and building a lab with a power plant and a massive transmission tower on a site on Long Island, New York, that became known as Wardenclyffe. However, when doubts arose among his investors about the plausibility of Tesla's system and his rival, Guglielmo Marconi—with the financial support of Andrew Carnegie and Thomas Edison—continued to make great advances with his own radio technologies, Tesla had no choice but to abandon the project. The Wardenclyffe staff was laid off in 1906 and by 1915 the site had fallen into foreclosure. Two years later Tesla declared bankruptcy and the tower was dismantled and sold for scrap to help pay the debts he had accrued. Death and Legacy After suffering a nervous breakdown, Tesla eventually returned to work, primarily as a consultant. But as time went on, his ideas became progressively more outlandish and impractical. He also grew increasingly eccentric, devoting much of his time to the care of wild pigeons in New York City's parks. He even drew the attention of the FBI with his talk of building a powerful "death beam," which had received some interest from the Soviet Union during World World II. Poor and reclusive, Nikola Tesla died on January 7, 1943, at the age of 86, in New York City, where he had lived for nearly 60 years. But the legacy of the work he left behind him lives on to this day.Several books and films have highlighted Tesla's life and famous works, including Nikola Tesla, The Genius Who Lit the World, a documentary produced by the Tesla Memorial Society and the Nikola Tesla Museum in Belgrade, Serbia; and The Secret of Nikola Tesla, which stars Orson Wellesas J. P. Morgan). And in the 2006 Christopher Nolan film The Prestige, Tesla was portrayed by rock star/actor David Bowie. In 1994, a street sign identifying "Nikola Tesla Corner" was installed near the site of his former New York City laboratory, at the intersection of 40th Street and 6th Avenue. Wardenclyffe Project Since Tesla's original forfeiture of his Wardenclyffe site, ownership of the property has passed through numerous hands, and several attempts have been made to preserve it, but in 1967, 1976 and 1994 efforts to have it declared a national historic site failed. Then, in 2008, a group called the Tesla Science Center was formed with the intention of purchasing the property and turning it into a museum dedicated to the inventor's work. In February 2009 the Wardenclyffe site went on the market for nearly $1.6 million, and for the next several years, the Tesla Science Center worked diligently to raise funds for its purchase. In 2012, public interest in the project peaked when Matthew Inman of TheOatmeal.com collaborated with the TSC in an Internet fundraising effort, ultimately receiving enough contributions to acquire the site in May 2013. Work on its restoration is still in progress. – Albert Jack Albert Jack AUDIOBOOKS available for download here  

Buy Now Audio Books Other Platforms Assorted eBooks More Awesome Inventions with Albert Jack Read the full article

[orangepunkwitch-blog]

With encouragement from Loki, I’m going to (hopefully) learn how to speak, read, and write Serbian both in the Latin alphabet and the Cyrillic alphabet.  If I can become very fluent in it, I might be able to do a grimoire in Cyrillic.

For those of you who don’t know: 50% of my blood is Serbian from my dad’s side of the family, and ever since I was younger, I’ve always been interested in learning the language that my grandparents spoke.  Unfortunately, they passed away before I gained enough interest to want to learn it (my baba passed away when I was in 4th grade, my deda passed away when I was in 7th grade), and my tetta (aunt; dad’s sister) knew some of it, but was actually too busy to be able to really take the time to teach me, and has passed away this past December.

Now, I have other family members that know the language, but some that immediately spring to mind are rather condescending people.  My dad’s cousin might know some of the language, but I’ll mainly be going to her for some recipes (bakala involves salted cod and potatoes and takes two days to make BUT OMGS IT’S SO GOOOOOD!  I’ll share the recipe here if she can write it down for me so I can share it with you guys!).  

So I have a book from the Teach Yourself series of beginner’s level of Serbian that I bought a few years ago, but didn’t get a chance to get around to it.  I plan to busy myself this summer, and this can be one of the things I busy myself with.  On top of that, when I used to be almost obsessed with Rammstein back in high school, I used to look up the lyrics both in German and English, and that’s how I picked up a teensy bit of German.  So with some Serbian bands that I’ve audio-ripped from YouTube (because I cannot for the life of me find any CDs or downloads of some of these bands), I hope to do the same.

Another reason why I’d like to learn it is because there’s the teensy, tiny possibility that when I’m a paleontologist, because I know the language, there could be a possible future excavation in Serbia, and I’d like to take that opportunity to not only be helpful due to knowing the language, but I’d be able to travel and meet some family there, too.  (Mostly cousins... and cousins and cousins and cousins...  And met only one of them once when my deda passed.)

The unfortunate thing about Serbia is that fascism and nationalism is kind of running amok over there among the civilians, and human rights regarding LGBTQ people and many more are... not very good.  I don’t know all the details, but I know things aren’t entirely too well in the country when it comes to certain topics.  The fascist part is what pisses me off the most.  I also heard there are Slavic white supremacists popping up (there’s a name for the Pagan movement or reinvention or something called “Rodnovery” that apparently has drawn in some Slavic white supremacists), though not sure if in Serbia or not, and the fact that there could be just pisses me off even more.  We should be past that shit, but we’re not.  So if you’re a person of color, a Muslim, a member of the LGBTQ community, etc., please be careful!  

I did however learn something about how Pagan their xtian orthodox practices are!  There’s like, a million fucking saints.  Some are real dudes, but the others are old Slavic gods that became saints, and the practices of celebrating these saints (also known as slavas) derives from Pagan roots.  And I kinda find that funny.  There’s a saint idol or something my dad buried in the front yard years ago to help sell this house, but obviously it hasn’t worked, plus NOTHING WILL GROW WHERE THAT SAINT HAS BEEN BURIED.  I wonder if the saint is actually an old Slavic god that’s going, “Uh-uh, not so fast...”  Loki, however, told me that the four gods I follow (him, Bastet, Thoth, and Cernunnos) are all I’m going to follow, and to not worry about the Slavic gods, yet learn more about my heritage.

So, why learn more about my heritage?  Well, I’d like to be able to take some of that and put it into my witchcraft so I’m not borrowing from so many other practices, especially from people who are being actively oppressed.  Yeah, white sage helps cleanse and whatnot, but so much of magick and witchcraft and whatnot I’ve seen come from the Native Americans and the Romani.  I don’t want my work to consist largely of that knowing that these oppressed peoples are denied their right to practice their personal/spiritual beliefs.  So kudos to those who make stuff up as they go along and share it online without it being anchored to one culture, because that’s what I’ve largely been paying attention to.  I’d also like to do incantations in Serbian (unsure about invoking Loki, I’ll have a talk with him about that) because I feel, for some reason, silly doing it in English sometimes.  I guess I can blame films and stuff like that on why I feel that way.

If I can afford a kiln next year (three fucking grand for the one that I want, holy shit, how much is one of my goddamn organs or limbs), I’d like to make statues of Loki and such, largely to sell online so that Lokeans get some decent idols for him instead of the common Loki-with-horns look I keep seeing.  But I’m going to ask Loki if he’d like me to make a Slavic (i.e. Serbian) name for him and carve it into a future statue for his altar.  It’s just a thought, of course.  I’ll most likely still call him Loki aloud, though, lol.

Just thought I’d publicly share my thoughts about another language that I don’t even know how the sentence construction works for that I plan to learn soon, mostly for Pagan reasons.  I can just imagine people of the future finding my Cyrillic grimoire and making a big fuss about it, lmao.

[violetsystems]

#personal

It is usually my favorite time of the year.  Although, I do remember a Halloween years ago when I sat in a corner at a party on my phone alone scrolling through tumblr.  My mom loves this time of year.  Her birthday is Monday and we usually walk in the day of the dead parade in my neighborhood.  Her costume this year is a gypsy witch which if anybody didn’t know by now is part of my heritage.  My Croatian grandfather dropped out in the sixth grade after his mother died.  He would tell me stories of the church refusing to bury her and how he had to take care of his siblings learning six languages in the process.  He and his brother were in the army and Navy respectively.  He married into a Bohemian German family where he had two daughters.  My mother lives in the house she grew up in.  I used to sit at the table on Sundays watching Shaw Brothers films while my grandfather taught me Serbian curse words.  My favorite movie back then was Chinese Superninjas and my grandmother was always asleep in a chair listening to a Cubs game.  Anytime anyone got decapitated I would look to my grandfather and he would be lost in an article about electronics.  The basement was filled with wires and circuit boards.  He was a licensed union electrician who fell into disability.  Before that he was an army mechanic in the war.  Magic and technology was what filled most of my adolescence.  My father’s side of the family was all Swedish, a son of a poor Lutheran minister and also in the military.  Back then, families were a little more nuclear.  My mom’s cousin and my dad’s sister met around the same time my dad and my mom.  Subsequently, I have twin cousins who are eerily double related.  I also have a cousin on that side of the family who lives in Hong Kong as is adopted.  I learned the hard way sitting at a dinner table at a school called Li Po Chun where she lived and taught.  I spoke about music and art at that school to survivors of the Iraq war who openly hated Americans like myself.  I remember my cousin telling me how important it was how I cut through that hate and fear talking about music with them.  That night the oldest living relative was at the table.  It was the first time I ever set foot in China let alone Hong Kong.  Her daughter who was half Kenyan and her son who was half Chinese sat at that table along with her husband from Beijing.  Louise sat at the head of the table attended by a live in nurse.  She was in her nineties at that point.  Her husband had passed but was a Swedish missionary who travelled the world helping people depending on your political views.  I said out loud how it was good to meet someone who I was blood related to halfway across the world.  She gave a hushed and sad smile.  “Your dad never told you did he?”  My cousin was adopted.  Later after dinner I sat with her son and drew.  It was his favorite activity to share.  He taught me Chinese characters and I taught him the Korean characters I knew.  We never talked about blood ever again.

Being an only child, these experiences of connection to family can be intense.  There really isn’t much of a legacy for me back here in the states.  My parents are divorced.  My dad remarried into a family that is very different from what I am used to.  His wife is nice but religious.  Some of the family are police.  My dad told me once her brother had fallen into a culture of online forums for gun rights.  I spoke to my dad over the phone just the other day.  We gently brushed politics over Pelosi and Mnuchin.  My dad is an accountant.  It’s easy to shift the conversation to something like stocks.  But truthfully, I know he and his wife support things like the supreme court nomination.  That frightens me in more ways than anyone can know.  But those kind of politics have done nothing for me in this situation I have found myself in over the last four or five months.  The only piece of government action that affects me favorably at all has been the CARES act.  More specifically, the fact that the bulk of my pension is affected by the tax legislation.  It literally saved my life.  That expires at the end of the year and who knows when the next round of layoffs will happen.  And yet politicians are sitting in offices they were bought into arguing concepts about when life begins.  Which is funny because politicians don’t really care about life.  They care about money, power and how to control the bulk of it.  The tones of an election year are deafening over ideological talking points.  I hear people like Ken Griffin talking about how he’d rather not pay fair taxes.  I also hear Ken Griffin donates heavily to the campaigns of Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio.  He has his prize Basquiat hanging in the Art Institute along with his history of supporting the Christian right.  I never made the connection as to why abortion protesters were always allowed to protest outside of that school.  They used to stand there for hours with signs in front of my building.  Years later, there’s a chick fil a right next door.  It seems odd until you realize the money is all connected, ideologically and otherwise.  In America these days, freedom is only attached to religious expression and the money attached to it.  A woman’s right to choose factors nowhere into this.  However you feel about abortion or religion in general in America should fall down to a basic function.  Is it government’s job to dictate what you do with your life on an ideological level?  Or is it their job to use your tax dollars to maintain infrastructure?  In an era where the Senate in America is only concerned about loading the courts with yes men and women, it’s pretty obvious.  The stimulus to keep the economy going is nowhere in sight.  People like Ken Griffin talk loudly about how the answer is getting people back to work and not incentivising people to hurt the GDP.   Liam Gallagher and Johnny Marr are among a host of musicians who have hit back at London Chancellor’s Rishi Sunak’s suggestion that people should “adapt” their jobs during the ongoing coronavirus pandemic.  They would much rather get you back in the machine in any number of startups their sons created.  Ken Griffin got rich of his daddy’s connections in times like these.  Just like the health care industry gets rich putting you at risk.  I put my money in the markets too with no help or advice.  For the record, I’m doing quite well these days in my portfolio without any handouts other than my pension.

All the while, I’m trying to apply for jobs in the most insensitive, impersonal and isolated time of my life.  I’m alone in ways I cannot explain or even comprehend.  And I’m stuck in the middle with people I love like ghosts on the net trying to find a voice.  These people in power say they care.  Say they have divine insight from God about how you should live your life.  Have all the time in the world to type their feelings and beliefs on twitter but do absolutely nothing to help the country heal.  And I sit in financial webinars with banks and investors who all say the same thing.  The country needs help from the government to recover from these dangerous times.  A time where health care is so important and so expensive.  Who profits from all this death?   The doctors and lawyers that move to Saipan and other tax havens to escape their fair share of the blame?  The country is number one at dying these days from a disease that’s easily mitigated by keeping to yourself and wearing a mask.  Sounds poetic.  And yet everyone can’t keep their distance from me when I walk out the door to restock my fridge.  They can’t help sabotaging every attempt to keep my mental state in tact when I face crippling social exclusion.  I do still have friends.  Mostly in the neighborhood.  And yet there’s enemies too.  It seems living in this town for years has only one advantage.  Everyone thinks they know everything about me.  They think I’m a Chinese spy.  They think I’m a Satanist.  They think I’m in league with a secret organization hell bent on destroying American freedom.  And they act out on it every day in my public space without my consent because they think they know me.  But they never ask my name.  They never look me in the eye.  They gossip and plot behind my back.  And sooner or later, I just get bored and adapt.  I apply for more jobs overseas.  All the jobs in China.  A few in New York.  But New York is more of the same.  Startups for daddy’s little business school graduate.  A bunch of cock sure closet misogynists who have learned the slick talk corporate snake oil about freedom.  These people care so much about your uterus they voted for a guy who literally said in the most vulgar terms to impregnate women forcefully.  You think those people care about human life at any stage of conception?  They care about votes.  They care about people to brainwash.  Cheap labor.  I literally had to listen to a Bloomberg pundit talk about how a baby boom in the COVID era would be great for shareholders.  Trillion dollar companies that pass the savings onto investors instead of the consumer.  I hear nothing but people banging the war drum to increase the cost of things.  Inflation is a good thing when the wealth disparity is so wildly out of balance.  These times seem dark.  Almost comedic.  But when you shine the light for years from this lighthouse you know one thing.  These people are nothing but husks on a balance sheet.  They have no culture and no history other than burying and exiling the truth until it drowns in the river like a mob hit.  And America is drowning in this cesspool day after day.  I’m an only child.  There’s a chance my legacy will die and never be retold.  But then again, there are things out there more precious than blood.  And the streets run red with it everyday without a care in the world.  What price do you put on a life when you value none of it?  Ask Ken Griffin.  I’m sure he could buy your silence.  Or maybe he has enough money to throw away to silence you for good.  It’s the Chicago way after all.  I should know.  <3 Tim

[kinojournal]

Go East

“There is a great need in the cinema for truthfulness, but truth is not necessarily sordid and not necessarily downbeat. Unfortunately, the art films have dealt mainly with the evils of society. But society is more interesting than rape or murder. I think you can do more through positive action than in pointing out the foibles and stupidities of man. Yes, any man is capable of killing any other man, we know that, we don’t have to stress that. To say that it’s right and normal, to continue to say it, to have society and the Establishment confirm that view, is wrong.

Pictures are supposed to clarify people’s emotions, to explain the feelings of people on an emotional plane. An art film should not preclude laughter, enjoyment and hope. Is life about horror? Or is it about those few moments we have?”

John Cassavetes

Eastern European cinema in the eyes of Western viewers is war-alcoholism-prostitution-poverty-crime-corruption… social drama, to be short, and one that local alcoholics-rapists-politicians-criminals-prostitutes will never watch, and even if they watch, they will not change their lives only because some pretentious director has decided to pass judgment on the society in which he lives, and moreover, manipulatively lead the characters through clearly calculated obstacles and conflicts, such useful tools of drama aka plot devices, which are so contrived that fade from the viewer's head the next moment after the end of the titles with a list of funds to support underdeveloped uncivilized countries of intolerant people and socially vulnerable minorities (Bulgarian film "Lesson", Serbian "Clip", Slovak "My killer dog", "Goat" and so on).

This exhibitionist savoring of the post-Soviet countries’ defects as well as of the rest of the socialist camp, which came during the devastation of the 1990s, is a prosaic interpretation of the surrounding reality, where people, running after the desired capitalism, despised the spiritual significance of life of which they ironically remembered in times of dictatorship and continuous bans. Social reforms and material well-being will not solve people's problems or make them happy (what about teenagers suicides in Japan and the abandoned pensioners in South Korea?). So the festivals’ favorite topicality in Eastern Europe is for the directors a confirmation to continue with cynical avoidance of subjects like selflessness instead of consumerism, like the nobility of humiliation as a consequence of nonconformism, in which there is nothing to be ashamed of, and like suffering as purification, not as punishment.

Exploitational approach causes pity, which is counted on as alms in the form of festival prizes. The only point is that whether it is a social drama or any other film, if it changes the world, it is unintentional and independent of the author, who can only show a true and honest portrait of a person without any judgment, conclusions or criticism. (The Dardenne brothers do not consider the law to help unemployed youth in Belgium introduced after their film "Rosetta" to be their merit.) Cinema became a journalistic TV report or an exotic sentimental photo in the style of National Geographic still form), ceased to be nuanced and profound, where it bypasses what lies on the surface in order to pay attention to what is behind the outer layer. In other words, what is important is an effect in the form of a state of being charged as the character with certain thoughts and experiences, and not the cause in the form of a tragedy, no matter what kind of disaster, because no one really cares about tragedies anyway.

N.I.

"The artist draws attention to the invisible evil that everyday morality forgets of, or even, in general, contributes to the fact that this unknown vice - the vice of mediocrity - develops and feels as the master of the situation. Artists were required to write in such a way that it could be understood by "ordinary people." Musicians were required to create melodies that a "simple person" (that is, one who had not received a musical education and was probably not gifted with hearing or attachment to music - otherwise it is no longer simple in that sense) could remember it from the first time and sing. This is how Zhdanov taught Shostakovich and Prokofiev what melodies should be: so that they could be memorized and sung at once. Everything else was called "confusion instead of music." The philosopher was not to say anything "far-fetched," "confusing," or "incomprehensible," as Heraclitus, Hegel, and other unconscious and bourgeois thinkers, the class enemies of the "ordinary man" did.

So, a "simple man" who firmly knew how an artist should write, how a musician should compose melodies and select harmonies, wrote in the editorial office, expressed his indignation at any non-trivial thing published in the magazine. Why print this. This cannot be printed. The people do not need this. Once brought up, she herself became an educator. She began to educate others. At some point, obviously, the "common man" was already the statistical majority of our society. It was profitable and convenient to join the "simple". ”

Olga Sedakova

http://olgasedakova.com/Moralia/280

[chroniclesofawkwardness]

Enter the Dragana

I.

The title is a homage to the 1973 film Enter the Dragon starring Bruce Lee. I don’t know if what follows will have anything to do with the movie, but Enter the Dragana sounded cool.

Meeting roommates can be exciting, nerve-wracking, or a host of other adjectives that describe the tension between humans. My first encounter with Dragana was very brief. We hadn’t said much more than “hi” to one another before she left on vacation to Greece for a week. My little head thought she was an attractive woman, but all I knew for sure was that one of the four small rooms in the Crazy House now had a new tenant to help Raymond and Vesna pay for their son’s private school tuition and the washing machine none of the tenants could use. 

In the summer of 2008, I took a bus from Novi Sad to visit my sister-in-law, who was attending the Trieste Joyce School in Trieste, Italy. I’d paid Raymond’s mother a portion of my month’s rent before I left and promised to pay the rest upon my return to Novi Sad. She seemed cool with it. Raymond, however, was not. All hell broke loose when I returned from Italy. Raymond felt I was late on my rent. I don’t know if this meant he and Vesna couldn’t pay their son’s tuition on time, but I knew I had to change my living arrangements before somebody got hurt because there was no banister for the stairs that led up to our rooms, or someone found out that we four roommates were living in the Crazy House without any formal rental agreement. 

“You and I should get our own place,” Dragana told me one day. I’d heard from more that one novosađanin that people from Vrbas were crazy, but I wouldn’t know the full extent of Dragana’s pantyless, partying ways until I agreed to share an apartment with her to escape the Crazy House.

The apartment was modern for Novi Sad standards. It had a decent-size living room and kitchen, along with an upstairs you could get to using a staircase where each step as designed for alternating feet. The lone bathroom was at the top of stairs, to the left was a large bedroom and closet. 

Dragana was already in party mode the first night we spent together at our new place. Dragana had already taken the bedroom upstairs, so I laid claim to the pullout sofa bed in the living room. I soon noticed an odd reddish glow coming from the kitchen. I discovered that Dragana had used red nail polish to paint the kitchen light fixtures red. I worried that her artistic endeavor could be a fire hazard. All she cared about was whether or not the music was loud enough. I couldn’t fall asleep later that night because Dragana and her guy friends didn’t seem to be able to stop talking for more than ten seconds. As I lay on my back plotting my revenge on the sofa bed, one of them came downstairs. He must have detected that I was pissed off by the lateness of the hour and the unending noise. 

“I sorry brother,” was all he said. I wanted to tell him that he couldn’t just stick brate on the end of a sentence and expect that we’d be instant homies,

Dragana had a seemingly endless stream of male friends. I think Bojan’s father owned a construction company, which would explain why Bojan would always leave some money for Dragana either before or after a night out. Srđa would pull up porn sites on Dragana’s laptop and die laughing as she’d squirm uncomfortably. Boško had beaten up his girlfriend and spent three years in prison for involuntary manslaughter after shooting the wrong guy while working as a nightclub bouncer. Dragana said he regretted not bringing me a gift. She never said what the gift could have been, but I didn’t think Boško was the type of guy I should accept gifts from. 

For all of Dragana’s male friends, the guys she loved were the soccer players. 

Mladen played soccer for one of Belgrade’s two major sports clubs, Partizan (Partisan). I don’t know how he met Dragana, but I do remember that damn ham sandwich. Once, as I was tossing and turning on the sofa bed trying to fall asleep at around 4 AM, the room flooded with light from the hallway, Dragana and (this time) Mladen were home. I decided sleeping was pointless and I’d just get out of bed. As happy drunk Mladen stumbled toward me with the sandwich, he yelled something at me I’ll never forget:

“NOOOO SLEEEEP MYYY FRIEEEEND!!!”

“Shit,” I thought. This is going to be a long night. I was hungry, so I accepted the sandwich without knowing where it had been. As I ate, Mladen and Dragana swayed and sauntered up the stairs as best they could. Soon after, I could hear music playing in the bedroom, but more prominent were the unmistakable sounds of human copulation. Wide awake, I lay flat on my back with my eyes open. I could only take it all in. I don’t remember how long their session lasted. The next thing do I remember is Mladen leaving our apartment at about 8 AM. I never saw him again. Dragana’s belief that she was special in his eyes was misguided after all. 

When she came downstairs later, I confronted her about the previous night’s soundtrack:

“I heard you and Mladen fucking last night. I don’t care if you do that, but if Mladen is going to be in town, could you let me know so I can crash somewhere else?”

“But… I had the music on!”

“I know… I heard that too.”

I slept upstairs after that. 

II.

At that time, there was what I considered a trashy British TV show running on Serbian TV called Footballers’ Wives; the day Dragana showed up at our door with a Maltese puppy, I thought we might get our own spinoff, Footballers’ Dogs. 

Leno the Maltese belonged to another soccer player, Diarra, from Senegal. I think he was under contract with Belgrade’s other major club, Crvena zvezda (Red Star) His relationship with Dragana wasn’t sexual that I know of, but somehow they made an arrangement for Dragana to look after Leno while Diarra was playing in Turkey. 

We were only supposed to have Leno for a week, but he stayed with us for nearly a month. Dragana would complain that she’d take him out for hours but he wouldn’t relieve himself. Once, as soon as they hit our apartment door, Leno ran expertly up the stairs (much more deftly than Dragana’s own thoroughly confused Shar-Pei) and shit in the corner of the shower cabin in the bathroom. I don’t know if the little guy was waiting for the privacy of being behind a curtain, but he looked up at me afterward with a sense of accomplishment, as if to say, “Look what I did!”

I already knew Dragana could be gone for hours, days, and sometimes weeks at a time. As long as she paid her share of the rent, I didn’t mind. I thought sleeping upstairs would mean I’d see her even less. Sadly, any hopes I had that a change in sleeping arrangements would bring me a measure of peace were quickly dashed. 

Many people Dragana’s age were students at the University of Novi Sad. Dragana, on the other hand, had openly bragged to me not long after we moved into the apartment that although she was technically a student, her parents paid off her professors to give her credit for attending class. I never once saw her with a textbook of any kind. She thought of herself as a model and tried to get me to vote for her in the Ms. Serbia on Facebook contest in or around July 2008. She came in second place. Her performance must have been a boon to her confidence because her modeling aspirations led to two of the most bizarre incidents of our time together. 

On one occasion, she called me the night before she knew The Man in the Cowboy Hat and I would be passing by Štark Arena (formerly Belgrade Arena) to ask if I could bring her the hair extensions she sometimes wore. I don’t know if she had a photoshoot scheduled, or what. Picture me with an old-school Nokia in one hand rummaging through a woman’s closet with the other:

“Which one? Blonde or brunette?”

“The brown one!”

“Can’t I just bring whatever looks like hair and let you sort it out?”

Click.

Another time, she’d been to a club opening and hadn’t come home that night. The only phone in the apartment was downstairs. It rang five times, stopped for a few seconds, and then rang several times again. I ignored the ringing at first because I thought it was just Dragana’s grandma being persistent. But, by the time the pattern had repeated itself for what felt like twenty minutes, I was in panic mode. 

My brother was serving in the U.S. Army and had been deployed to Iraq. As the ringing kept on, I began thinking the only person who would call so many times was someone from the U.S. Embassy in Belgrade who’d somehow gotten my number and was calling to tell me my brother had been killed. 

When I finally answered the phone, I was boiling mad and sick to my stomach:

“Is Dragana there?”

 I’ve never been so angry at another human being. I yelled something like this at him in English:

Listen, you stupid motherfucker. Do you have any idea what it’s like to think your only brother is dead and you’re about to get the worst news of your life? If you EVER call here again, I will find you, and I will fucking kill you. Understand?

He was calling because Dragana was late for a photoshoot. 

After that, the phone didn’t ring for the rest of the day.

III.

The last incident I’ll never forget occurred when Dragana and a group of friends came to our apartment to remember a friend of theirs who’d been killed in an accident. Dragana was inconsolable that night and repeatedly mentioned taking drinks for her friend’s soul. I never got the person’s name, nor do I know exactly what happened to him or her. I was upset about all the noise she and her friends were making, but at the same time, I’ d never seen Dragana so emotional, so human. She never mentioned her friend or what happened that night around me again. I suppose some things shouldn’t have to be rehashed. 

Dragana was practically living in Belgrade by the time I moved out of the apartment. It was a miracle she paid her portion of the rent for as long as she did. My life was never quite the same after Dragana entered it, which is not a bad thing. I appreciate the experience. Wherever she is today, I hope she has consistently found whatever hair extensions she’s needed. She reminded me that no matter how different we think we are from another person, we all share in a common humanity, with a seemingly infinite capacity to frustrate and fascinate one another. 

Choose your roommates, partners, and puppies carefully.

[ferrerochocobo]

When you get pretty much told you make a person feel physically uncomfortable and full of anxiety- it's understandable that you'll feel bad.

But when that person WON'T give valid reasons, hasn't told you why and refuses to engage in convo so you can solve it- are you really the weirdo- or are they?

Now, I gotta say- I'm 5'7, a bit buxom and a bit awkward af.

You know that kid doing yoga/foam sword fights on your lawn at 6 am? That's me.

I have no qualms about my weirdness. At 28, I learned to stop questioning it.

Because when you have Aspergers, you can either become a miserable fuck who makes everyone else's lives miserable out of your own lack of understanding how conversation works OR you can try to fit. And while you do, make people laugh.

My dark humor was what actually saved me. And I went from a girl who was usually in a hovel and obsessed with dark things like Silent Hill and death to helping people conquer their fears. And teaching them what was behind all that gory stuff that scared them in a horror movie.

Despite that, I occassionally am still considered a bit scary to those who don't know me. Especially if they haven't met me in person. Because trust me- meeting me in person- you'll find I'm talkative but bashful when complimented. (I especially blush when I'm in cosplay and someone who knows me compliments my outfit.)

I hide constantly behind a belief that I'm tough. That nothing scares me and that I've waded my way through the goriest films that would make you lose your lunch to. Don't ever call me on that. I'll fumble up nervously- citing A Serbian Film as my darkest film.

But for God's sake, I wish people looked deeper. I wish they saw that I have repulsions, fears, hopes and dreams. Just like them.

You know someone tapped my shoulder a few days ago to get my attention and it put me in a foul mood? I don't like being touched. By anyone. It's an Aspie thing.

You remember that? Well that's me internally anytime someone touches me.

Regardless- past that is someone who covers her eyes during horror movies, loves Cardcaptor Sakura and has celestial bedsheets. I write so much smut and sketch so many outfit designs, I have the gray pencil stain down the side of my palm.

And as I hide myself in Silent Hill, that is my attempt to indicate to you I feel detached and unwanted. I realize it's subtle. I realize my depression buries itself even in things I love- but it's those very monsters that have taught me to be strong.

Those things that go bump in the night? I know them. I was them. And I only really become them over again when someone puts me under harsh lighting. In essence- I turn into the scary thing you project me as to get you to leave me alone if you're going to hurt me. As long as you try to understand- I won't. But the minute you become intolerant- I turn on you the same way you have to me.

I've heard in the Amazon- if you cross a snakes' path once- you never go back that same way. For a long time, I was that kind. You could cross me once, and I would make you regret it when returning.

I was quick to bite, wound and emotionally wreck people in a show of empty pride or vindictiveness.

I hurt people.

And cried everytime my proverbial knife went in them. Wishing they would leave me alone. Wishing the world in one hand would leave me alone while in the other, wishing they would try to see past my surface. All the while- self-sabatoging each time things fell apart.

I became a hermit in any way I could. My bed was my refuge. Curled up in the fetal position often as my clean clothes laid on the floor.

I stopped caring. And stopped allowing love to fill my life. All the king's horses and all the king's men indeed could never put me together again.

It was only after medication and therapy that I began to rise from that. I was who had to fix myself.

I was shown love by people who healed themselves and wanted only to help me understand the thing I feared.

Love scared me. And as my best friend has made my wallpaper- it rings true.

"How can anyone be afraid of love?" "How can they not?"

It was love and acceptance that pushed out fear and hatred. The hug you never got but could feel your friend 100 or so miles away give you when your world broke.

Do you know how hard it is to hug someone so tight, all their pieces come flying home? How much that takes and to have them finally understand they're loved?

The person who does it saves you. They don't save you from life or depression- they save you feom yourself.

As my world brightened, my fandoms brightened. And there, FFXV came into view. Bright colors and fun and a dark antagonist. I have the best of both worlds in that fandom. Between Prompto or Ardyn.

And lemme tell you.

....

It's hard choices, man xD

But symbolic. One is light while the other is dark.

So now we come to the conclusion.

Earlier, and for a week now- I have been treated as weird. Unwanted. And not told why.

I have wracked my brain trying to figure out why someone who doesn't even know me- I make nervous. They have made me cry, be in a bad mood and in general- not want to go on the Discord server we share.

But tonight- something turned in me. My give-a-shit light flicked off.

And then I realized it-

I don't give a fuck if they're afraid of me. They don't know me. And eventually- they're going to wear themselves out scared of someone simply wanting their own acceptance.

When someone says what they said to me- it stings. Oh, it stings. But try this on for size-

(Continued in next post.)

[swipestream]

Sensor Sweep: Algernon Blackwood, Irish Dogs, Snipers, Battle Angel

RPG (Tenkar’s Tavern): We’re very excited to announce the next release in our Original Adventures Reincarnated line: Expedition to the Barrier Peaks! As with previous releases in the OAR series, this one will include scans of the original 1E editions, a conversion to 5E, and new 5E material filling in some gaps from the original 1E module.

OAR3: Expedition to the Barrier Peaks is slated for a September release. It will be solicited to distributors soon and will be available for pre-order once the book is at the printer.

      Anime (Fantasy Literature): “They say if you try making anime for 3 days, you’ll never be able to quit and that in 3 days you’ll also be broke. But even if I were to go broke, I still don’t think I’d be able to quit.” These words from Tezuka, upon receiving an award late in life, express his passion for his work in anime, but he had an equal passion for manga.

      Fiction (James Reasoner): I backed the Kickstarter for this anthology, and now that it’s been published and I’ve read it, I’m glad I did. It’s an excellent collection of military fiction, some with contemporary settings, some historical. I’ve always liked war stories, and these are very well done. My favorites are “A Place More Kind Than Home” by Ron Farina, a tale of a Marine coming home from Vietnam that does a perfect job of capturing the mid-Sixties era.

    Fiction (DMR Books): So, there I was rereading my Altus Press edition of “The Moon Pool.” As I’ve noted elsewhere, this edition features all of the great Virgil Finlay illos for “The Moon Pool” as reprinted in Famous Fantastic Mysteries. As I gazed once again upon Finlay’s striking illustration of the moment when Dr. Throckmartin’s colleague, Charles Stanton, is taken into/devoured by the Dweller in the Moon Pool, a thought occurred to me. The estates of Merritt and Finlay really missed the boat when they did not take the opportunity to have Finlay’s illo made into a black light poster.

  Cinema (Jon Mollison): Up for some pro-Russian propaganda? I got a flick for you. Be warned, though. It’s half cool, half head-slapper.  A Sniper’s War presents the story of Deki, a Serbian who enlists in the Russian backed “Ukrainian Separatist” movement that sprung up in the district between Ukraine proper and Russia proper during the big NATO-Russia standoff. He wanted to show his gratitude to Russia by shooting the NATO types that ruined the best country on earth – his beloved Albania. It’s a message film with an odd mix of messages. Part pro-Russia, part pro-Communist, and part pro-Orthodox Church.

  Dogs (the Journal.ie): Paul Howard, the creator of Ross O’Carroll Kelly, once remarked that “the social contract between humans and dogs might be the best bit of business we have ever done”.  I find it hard to disagree.

While cats briefly ruled social media in the early 2010s with a strong run of viral videos and memes, dogs have reclaimed their prime position since 2016. Some people attribute this to the simple goodness of dogs as being a welcome antidote to the avalanche of bad news which descended during that year.

  Cinema (The Dark Herald): First things first.

I am approaching this subject from a place of familiarity.  I first saw the Battle Angel OVA when I was stationed at Camp Lejeune better than twenty-five years ago.  And there is no getting around it, this film is basically an expanded version of the OVA. Yes, I understand that its supposed to be about the first few books in the manga series but sorry, no. It’s the OVA with some background material thrown in.  That was clearly and obviously the inspiration for the whole project.  James Cameron is a nerd with a taste for hard science fiction, it’s hardly a surprise that he fell in love with Alita.

  Fiction (DMR Books): Algernon Blackwood was born one hundred and fifty years ago today in the English shire of Kent. Blessed with a name seemingly custom-made for an author of weird fiction, he went on to influence generations of horror and fantasy writers.

As detailed in Mike Ashley’s Algernon Blackwood: An Extraordinary Life–a biography I highly recommend–Blackwood spent the first thirty years of his life roaming Europe and North America. After that, he made up for lost time, penning reams of tales–the exact count is still unknown–some of which are considered among the best in the entire weird fiction canon.

  History (Men of the West): Hotel is a French term, derived from hostil, a lordly house, a palace. The designation Public House, signifying a house of public resort for refreshment and conviviality, is a modern substitute for Tavern, derived from the Latin taberna, a hut, a wooden booth; frequently also for Inn, or rather, as originally written, Inne, which expressed the Anglo-Saxon for a mansion. And here we may at once observe that by far the majority of our mediæval inns and Hostelries [see Hotel] grew out of the mansions of the nobility during the prolonged absence of their owners.

  Fiction (Hi Lo Brow): J.-H. Rosny aîné’s children’s atavistic adventure La Guerre du feu (Quest for Fire).

At some point during the Ice Age, the people of Ulam — a proto-Franco-Belgian Neanderthal tribe — are attacked by a rival tribe, and their precious fire is stolen. (Although they know how to tend a flame, they can’t generate a new one.) The tribe’s leader promises a woman to whichever young warrior succeeds in bringing back life-giving fire to the tribe. This is a slim novella, but it is action-packed: Naoh, our protagonist, and his two comrades encounter monstrous beasts, alien hominid tribes (some of which appear to be proto-Asian, proto-Scottish, etc.), and must use their wits to overcome all sorts of obstacles.

    Gaming (Sentinel Hill Press): Perhaps the most impressive memorial to Keith is the H. P. Lovecraft Historical Society’s titanic radio play production of his Fungi from Yuggoth/Day of the Beast campaign for Call of Cthulhu – The Brotherhood of the Beast.  They didn’t just bring it to life in audio form (complete with 4 different endings), but they produced a plethora of HPLHS-quality props that would be just as useful for a table-top game.

    Comic Books (Barebonesez): When Pa passes, the three Cartwright boys (not Hoss, Little Joe, and Adam… the other Cartwright boys) find themselves with a heapin’ helpin’ of farm land to take care of. Aaron and Horace want to continue in the footsteps of their father, who made the land pay off for him, but third brother Jack wants to dump the dump as quick as possible.

      Cinema (James Reasoner): I was surprised to come across a Clint Walker Western I hadn’t seen before, since he’s been a favorite of mine for many years. I was a big fan of his TV show CHEYENNE when I was a kid, and I remember watching YELLOWSTONE KELLY and other movies starring him at the Eagle Drive-In. FORT DOBBS was the first film in which he starred, and you could almost imagine it as being a longer episode of CHEYENNE.

Sensor Sweep: Algernon Blackwood, Irish Dogs, Snipers, Battle Angel published first on https://medium.com/@ReloadedPCGames

[cineastesview]

Celebrating Val Lewton

Filmmaker Val Lewton was hired by RKO to make movies to rival the Universal monster movies that had made that studio tons of money. Lewton took a different approach to the scary movie. With a smaller budget than Universal, Lewton managed to create a slate of psychological, atmospheric films that hold up today.

Cat People (1942)

Based on Lewton’s own short story, Cat People tells the story of a young Serbian woman, Irena, who believes herself to be a descendant of a race of people who turn into cats when angered. Costing only $141,659 ($7,000 under budget), it brought in almost $4 million in its first two years and saved the studio from financial disaster, cause primarily by Orson Welles. Add to your Netflix queue.

I Walked with a Zombie (1943)

Lewton wrote this as a version of Jane Eyre in the Caribbean. A nurse is hired to move to a tropical island to take care of a woman who exhibits strange sleepwalking behavior. She also attempts to navigate the world of the voodoo traditions. Add to your Netflix queue.

Leopard Man (1943)

Revisiting the idea of catlike violence, Leopard Man explores the characteristics of a serial killer. What starts as a publicity stunt for a nightclub act, turns into a frightening hunt for the culprit.  Add to your Netflix queue.

The Seventh Victim (1943)

Perhaps not the strongest storyline of Lewton’s films, it is still notable for its unsettling atmosphere and creative camerawork. A young woman stumbles on an underground cult in Greenwich Village, while searching for her missing sister. Add to your Netflix queue.

The Ghost Ship (1943)

A young officer believes his ship’s captain is mentally unbalanced and endangering the lives of the crew. The ship’s crew, however, thinks it is the vessel that haunted and cursed, as several mysterious deaths occur. Add to your Netflix queue.

The Curse of the Cat People (1944)

Following the death of his wife Irina in the first film, Oliver Reed moves to Tarrytown, New York, remarries and has a small girl. Their daughter is visited by the spirit of Irina who keeps a loving eye on her. Add to your Netflix queue.

The Body Snatcher (1945)

Based on the story by Robert Louis Stevenson, it stars Boris Karloff as an unscrupulous carriage driver turned grave robber. Influenced by the Burke and Hare murders and the acts of Dr. Knox, the film ends with a brilliant action scene. Add to your Netflix queue.

Isle of the Dead (1945)

In Isle of the Dead, Karloff plays a general quarantined during a battlefield plague with a group of people haunted by peasant superstitions of vampiric demons. It was inspired by a painting of the same name by Arnold Böcklin. Add to your Netflix queue.

Bedlam (1946)

Anna Lee is wrongfully imprisoned in the Bedlam asylum by a dastardly Boris Karloff. He is attempting to silence her for the poor conditions in the asylum, so she must leverage the inmates’ anger to effect change. Add to your Netflix queue.

Do you have a favorite Val Lewton movie?

This post reflects my real opinion. It is also an #ad as part of Netflix’s #DVDNation program. DVD Nation is a group of red envelope enthusiasts who share a love of cinema and help others discover great recommendations in movies and TV shows. Members complete activities to earn points, level up to the next membership level, and unlock benefits.

[flauntpage]

NBA Summer Vacation Watch: And Now Our Watch Has Ended

Ah, the fleeting glance of summer. The already fading warmth from your skin, the trips that seemed like yesterday receding into memory like the once frolicked in ocean tides. The outfits saved special to match the ancient frescos on narrow, cobblestone streets where one posed casually as if it were routine (*cough* Jimmy Butler), the foam party raves attended in Ibiza (James Harden), the beaches chilled upon, the sea-doos ripped, the joy of chillage—all these memories made will stave off the biting chill of winter and may we hold close the easy-breezy, best versions of ourselves that we got to know in these months, even as the NBA season begins and with it the upsets, disappointments, and probably dumb things said.

But don’t despair. The end of NBA summer vacation means the end of NBA Summer Vacation Watch, but with it come the accolades we’ve all been waiting for. Who takes the title of NBA SVW MVP 2018? Is it summer vacation’s favorite son, Patty Mills, who romps around in board shorts for three months straight and basically lives on the beach? Or will it be upstart sun and fun-seeker, JaVale McGee, who showed up all offseason in improbable locales, up for anything? Jimmy Butler and Joel Embiid are also in the running, both serving looks and the same dedication to their seemingly never-ending vacations that they show for the game.

Read on, vacation watchers, for the last drops squeezed out of summer and for this year’s king of the beach.

Klay Thompson

In some ways, we all end where we begin. So it’s only fitting for SVW to come full circle back to Klay, doing circles on a camel in Qatar with Tracy McGrady. Summer Klay is made of different material, summer Klay loves to sit in the sun and bake. Soon regular season Klay will return and that smile will fade like a suntan, replaced by a face permanently fixed in the middle distance.

Rating: We’ll miss you summer Klay, but we’ll see you next season.

Jimmy Butler

Leave it to Jimmy to say au revoir to the summer in literal Paris, France, with a dramatic black and white vignette and his back turned to the camera so we know where he is in case we somehow do not see the tower, right there, that he is dunking on. Do not feel sad for Jimmy. From solo gondola rides down the canals of Venice, to posing on the beaches of Mykonos, to casually strolling the rainy hills of Tuscany, to Paris—Jimmy had a summer. And whatever this year looks like for him, we can agree that his real season is summer.

Rating: Ne me quitte pas.

James Harden

The Beard took a big yacht to Providenciales, Turks and Caicos, to stand majestically in the sea in a matching splatter ensemble, looking like Poseidon himself come up from the waves to say what's up.

Rating: I would not recommend this to literally anyone else, but maybe James Harden should go to one beach rave every summer, just to get his whole entire psyche this properly tuned for the rest of the year.

Victor Oladipo

Well that only took all summer but behold, we’ve finally got Victor Oladipo right where we’ve always wanted him: on a beautiful beach in Mexico gazing out to the horizon and making his caption an inspirational quote from a song in Disney’s Moana.

Rating: You can exhale now, thwart is officially over.

Carmelo Anthony

Hoodie Melo was last season, this season it’s Ghutra Melo.

Rating: When your whole regular season is also summer vacation the offseason doesn’t quite mean the same, but you can still be an inspiration to the rest of us.

Chris Paul

CP3 took every single Houston Rocket to the beach and, lord, we might be thanking him for the rest of our lives.

Rating: I dare any conspiracy theorist to deny this inspirational travel and subsequent beach landing ever happened.

Pau Gasol

Pau’s stay-cation continues, however he is using the whole entire country of Spain for his low-key jaunts instead of a trip to the local museum or sad public pool like the rest of us. Gasol has also used his perpetual travel to perfect the quintessential vacation photo pose of looking slightly back at the camera, face caught between a breathless smile, a relaxed little laugh, and a moment of awe.

Rating: Not to start any additional retirement rumors, but are we sure Pau has not already joined Manu in going off into the sunset, or in this case, Barcelona at dusk?

Andre Drummond

Finally, it happened to me right in front of my face and I just cannot hide it—Andre Drummond is on a beach somewhere (who cares where!!) with his top right the hell off, shorts way the hell on, sun shining down on sand spraying all over while he brings his rando tug-of-war team of whoever the heck these people are to victory.

Rating: The sand spraying wildly around in this video is the equivalent of a Microderm abrasion for your soul—close your eyes and enjoy it. But not for too long, you need to see the video.

Pascal Siakam

As far as I can tell Pascal has dedicated his summer vacation to getting gigantic instead of relaxation, but here we have the two culminating in a very natural, extremely powerful way. There’s the ocean, there’s some palm trees, this can count as a vacation now.

Rating: A vacation AND a scientific breakthrough—congratulations to Siakam for discovering that the human body is capable not just of an 8-pack of abdominal muscles, but a 16-pack.

Marcin Gortat

We go live to Gortat showing off the typical Polish vehicle of leisure, a souped-up part riding mower, part ATV, part civilian tank, best loved for the mileage it gets traversing rugged hills and ostensibly allowing its rider a moment of triumph wrapped in, I want to say, terror. Gortat is also in Florida for no good reason, AKA the only reason to ever really go there.

Rating: Comforted to know that when basketball’s behind him, Marcin has a retirement career of casual arms/car dealer in front of him.

Thon Maker and D.J. Wilson

A two-fer! A rare summer vacation occurrence as special as a July strawberry moon. Thon has been keeping a low profile all summer after pummeling the Philippine basketball team very early in the offseason, so it is very nice to see him perched atop the back of a speedboat with D.J. Wilson in Miami.

Rating: But was the Thon song playing?

Bojan Bogdanović

Here we have the elder Bogdanović of the league floating in the Adriatic Sea. Overall this is looking a little too much like an alternate poster for The Meg for my liking, but Bojan seems to be having a good time.

Rating: Honestly this photo makes my heart rate speed up but for all the wrong reasons! The mysteries of the deep are not to be toyed with!

Bogdan Bogdanović

The younger Bogdanović, of no relation to the former, was leading a hike of chums through the hills of Montenegro, on a kind of Fellowship of the Ring journey complete with one real dwarf-lookin’ dude.

Rating: What is the Serbian film scene like and would they buy rights to this recreation?

C.J. Miles

Miles is having a dad of a summer, which mostly means trailing his beautiful family around, just happy to be along for the ride. Speaking of rides, earlier this summer C.J. rode a horse in a tank top and I don’t think I’ve had a bad day since.

Rating: 🎵 I can tell you my love for you will still be strong/After the dads of summer have gone 🎵

Miles Plumlee

Just when you thought you’d get through an entire summer vacation without seeing what fresh hell a Plumlee is up to, there’s one of them working out at Burning Man.

Rating: Not only is this family cursed, but it insists on cursing itself anew at every opportunity.

Maurice Harkless

But how’s this for a cranial cleanser after a Plumlee tried to go scorched earth on summer vacation—Maurice Harkless staring wistfully out from a balcony into a tropical pastel sunset, periphery lined with gently whispering palms and a majestic peak of unknown origin in the distance. Truly there is no better image to leave you with as a parting gift and tribute to this time we shared together.

Rating: Like a dusky purple sun sets into a calm and clear sea, summer vacations must come to an end and Maurice Harkless and I will be there, watching.

AND THE 2018 NBA SUMMER VACATION WATCH MVP IS…

JaVale McGee

Congratulations, JaVale! You did not take this title by simply hopping on a pool inflatable and cruising into it. You put in tireless training all offseason long by working your smile and suntan overtime in many an exotic locale and it’s paid off. From the airports of Qatar, to South Africa, to swimming with pigs and romping with iguanas in the Bahamas, and even your local mall—you really did it all. You are an example to us all when planning summers to come because you proved a vacation can be anything so long as a bucket hat and chill attitude are along for the ride.

NBA Summer Vacation Watch: And Now Our Watch Has Ended published first on https://footballhighlightseurope.tumblr.com/

[casualarsonist]

Nostalgia Killer - Uncharted 2: Among Thieves

I used to have a podcast, and this was a segment on it. I’m going to be extensively shitting on Uncharted 2, so this seems like the best banner under which to do that - at least this way you’ll know what you’re in for.

Before booting up Uncharted 2 (the remastered edition) I’d had delightful premonitions of what I was going to write here, largely based on my memories of my last two or three playthroughs of the game. I was keen to witness the visual upgrades of the PS4 version, of course, but I was also looking forward to talking about Among Thieves’ wholesale gameplay improvements over its predecessor, the improvements that solidified its place as one of the greatest adventure games in video game history. So I started the game up and worked my way through the iconic opening section as Nate wakes up in a crashed train dangling precariously over a cliff edge…and after I’d finished it I put the controller down and didn’t come back to it for six full months.

Something had changed. Not within the game itself - the remastered edition is exactly the same as the original, 1080p upgrade aside. And despite the accuracy of H. Bomberguy’s life-ruining video accusing the series of being completely devoid of freedom, offering little more than a collection of expensively animated tunnels that one is relentlessly forced down, it wasn’t this revelation that had shaken me either. No, something had changed in me - perhaps in my expectations, or in a misremembered idea of the game’s qualities, but this was not the enjoyable experience I recalled. Finishing Uncharted 2 this time around was a chore, and my nostalgic review became an article, and my rose-tinted memory darkened to a crimson scorn. Here I come kiddies, ready to shit on your memories again. This is Nostalgia Killer.

                                                                    ***

For the uninitiated, Uncharted 2: Among Thieves is a 2008 third-person action-adventure game, and the second of Nathan Drake’s grand Playstation 3 adventures. To Naughty Dog’s credit, they worked hard to tighten up and polish a lot of the ideas and mechanics of the first game (reviewed here) with more enjoyable gunplay, more lifelike animation, and more varied and detailed environments. The narrative improvements are marked, and they’ve been particularly ambitious when it comes to the interactions between characters both in cutscenes and otherwise. But while the game succeeds in being a refinement in all these areas, there are still some serious growing pains evident in its design, especially ten years on from its release. I’ve said of Uncharted 4 that if you’ve played one Uncharted game, you’ve played them all, and it was here in Uncharted 2 where that adage begins, where all the familiar beats and tropes would be defined and repeated ad nauseam. Sadly, this isn’t a trend only visibly when viewing the series as a whole, but glaringly obvious within this game alone.

The story follows Drake as he’s dragged ‘back in’ to a life of roguish non-legal adventuring by a pair of shifty old colleagues - Harry Flynn and Chloe Frazer. Coaxed by the thrill of uncovering the location of Marco Polo’s lost fleet and the treasure it carried, Drake and Flynn infiltrate a Turkish museum to steal an artefact containing a map leading to their next location. Flynn double-crosses Drake in a stunning twist (sarcasm), and after serving three months in a Turkish prison, Drake is freed with the help of Chloe and his old friend Sully. Chloe reveals that she is a mole within the army of Serbian mercenary Zoran Lazarević - the man who hired Flynn, who subsequently hired Drake, to find the treasure. The two groups then cross paths back and forth for the next six hours as Drake invariably discovers the next clue to the location of the treasure, and the bad guys invariably show up immediately after to take it away from him.

And while I can understand what they’re trying to do with the format - that is, to make an interactive Indiana Jones film - it’s not long at all before the formula gets tired and very predictable, not the least because the first two acts are essentially one plot point repeated over and over again. See, the thing that Indiana Jones films had going for them was the fact that they’re only a couple of hours long, and one can pretty easily fill a couple of hours with exciting content, even if your bag of tricks is relative small. But when you scale the length of your film up to the equivalent of a quarter of a day whilst retaining the same limited bag of action movie cliches, soon you need to start repeating yourself - a tactic that offers diminishing returns when you’re relying not on depth of story or character to engage people, but on a short-lived dopamine rush inspired by seeing someone hanging off the edge of something precarious. Indiana Jones only fell of a bridge once, not once every ten minutes, and given the Uncharted series’ three types of gameplay (cover-based shooting, climbing, and ‘puzzles’), there simply aren’t enough ideas to sustain a six-hour run-time. Running and gunning - ON A TRAIN; running and gunning - UP A MOUNTAIN; running and gunning - IN A COLLAPSING BUILDING. It’s the same thing Call of Duty has done to death (running and gunning - IN THE FUTURE), and the reason why no-one buys those games for the single player any more. Change the location as many times as you want, but if the people and the situations in your story just repeat themselves again and again and again, you’re not building a game that someone can come back to repeatedly and get the same level of enjoyment out of.

But then again, perhaps that means that they’ve gotten it exactly right - the Transformers films aren’t made to be watched twenty times, they’re designed for maximum impact the first time around - and the first time round, Uncharted 2 is a blast. It’s also accessible, undemanding, and easy to pick up and play at pretty much any time. But much like the Transformers films, the bright lights and flashy colours are designed to distract you from the overwhelming emptiness at the game’s core. Who is this Serbian war criminal? Why do you care? Why is he seeking the Cintamani stone?Because ‘power’. How is it that his group keeps finding Drake at the exact point that he locates the next clue? Stop asking questions. And why do all these bad guys keep threatening to kill people and never actually do it? I said stop asking questions! And just how the fuck did he get hundreds of troops and weapons and vehicles and a fucking tank up to the peak of a forgotten, remote mountain buried deep in the Himala-AAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHH!!!!! Again, one can overlook this kind of narrative short-changing if you’re watching a dumb ninety minute film, but if you’re paying £50 on launch for a six-to-ten hour game, the sheen really starts to wear off when the boards you’re climbing up crumble from beneath you for the 400th time.

But hell, you say, this is just the Uncharted we know and love, right? Sure, it doesn’t have a lot going on, but what it does, it does really well. I imagine that just as many people will feel justified in loving the series for these reasons as much as I feel justified in complaining about them. But I can’t imagine anyone looking back fondly on that level with the tank that will one-shot kill you, or the bit in the mountain temple with the snipers and rocket launchers that will one-shot kill you, or when you’re on the train and have to fight the helicopter and the armoured shotgun troops that will one-shot kill you, or the final boss battle where you run around in circles so he doesn’t one-shot kill you. Because what you forget when you haven’t played the game for a while is that it’s filled with the most horrendous and incongruent difficulty spikes. Enemies take anywhere between one and a dozen hits to kill depending on when the game decides it’s going to change the rules, and while some times eliminating everyone you see will allow you to progress, other times hordes of belligerents will then suddenly spawn from nowhere just because. I’d say that it was dreadfully archaic design that comes from the days when monsters would literally wait in a closet until you stepped on a specific floor texture, except that even Doom kept its enemy health consistent.

I know that it’s ‘action movie logic’, but there’s something uniquely frustrating in Uncharted 2′s design when you’ve just spent fifteen minutes getting fucked over and over again by a handful of enemies, only to be blowing them away by the dozen five minutes later with the exact same weapon you’ve been using all along. Noticing the change just adds insult to injury, and all the while the game autosaves every minute because the developers know that if they made you restart from the beginning every time you died you’d throw your console into oncoming traffic

Which is a shame, because while it is indeed a far more polished release, Uncharted 2 still exhibits the same bad design habits that plague the first Uncharted game - design habits that I know Naughty Dog can leave, behind because I just replayed The Last Of Us, and that game is fucking superb. It still contains a lot of the cover-based shooting gameplay of Uncharted, but there’s something about the balance in difficulty, as well as the variation in weapons and enemy types that makes all the difference in the world - when the developers decide they need to change the pace they don’t change the rules of the game, instead they change the scenario, and this means that while each new set of circumstances might present a greater and greater challenge to the player, your skills at playing the game can improve to meet them as you become more acquainted with the game’s internal rulebook. You’re not coddled for hours before being thrown into an intentionally unwinnable battle, then coddled again, then punished, then coddled, etc, etc. The end result here is that Uncharted 2 often feels cheap in how it tries to challenge and thrill the player, and I can’t go and put myself back in the mindset of a person playing it for the first time in order to understand why it’s seen as something so perfect.

If you still love playing Uncharted 2, I’m not here to convince you that you’re wrong. To be honest, I’m not entirely sure what the purpose of writing this article is at all, other than to document the fact that I went back and played one of the most lauded video games in history expecting to write the glowing follow-up review to the first game that I’d promised to do so long ago, and found that without the initial thrill, and contemporary comparisons to make, a lot of its lustre is stripped away. Uncharted 2 is fine, and it’s certainly a hugely influential work, but it’s actually pretty fucking annoying in retrospect. And the fact that you can forget that so easily is perhaps the game’s greatest achievement.