Warbler said:
CP3S said:
The only place I have seen those trough-style urinals are in gay bars.
not sure if serious.
Of course I am being serious. Most gay bars I have been to use trough-style urinals.
Warbler said:
I said what I said not because I dislike gays, but because I dislike all the complications.
I'm cool with Jews. I like them, I really do. But man, do I dislike the complications their existence brings...
You really can't see why the things you said are getting the reaction they are getting?
Mrebo said:
I see no need to bully someone into silence. I know Warbler strenuously believes there should be no legal discrimination of any sort, he doesn't personally see any reason gay relationships should be seen differently than straight ones (though his church teaches otherwise), but he makes a comment on how - purely hypothetically - society could be simpler if there was a single form of sexuality and he's a terrible bigot.
Not trying to bully him into silence. I am really surprised to hear it coming from him, through. I genuinely found the things he said to be very offensive.
If I stated (purely hypothetically) that society could be simpler if there was only a single race (the white one, of course), would we be cool with this? Technically, Warbler is right, society would be much simpler without homosexuality, and then we wouldn't have to worry about being offending by people engaging in homosexual sex. Technically, if all humans were of the white variety, it would solve societies issues with racism, and we wouldn't have to worry about our daughters growing up to date brown people.
Mrebo said:
I was at a fancy restaurant in New York. In the bathroom was a wall with water running down it. I didn't see a urinal. I think I saw a man was peeing into the fountain/wall so I followed suit. But the towel guy (perpendicular to me) was staring at me the whole time. Made me wonder if it was in fact a fountain I shouldn't be peeing in. I still wonder.
LOL. I like this story.
Warbler said:
TV's Frink said:
Warb, your comment about everyone being straight was pretty offensive, no matter how much you say "no offense."
well I am sorry to offend, but life would be much simpler if no one was or wanted to be homosexual. I suppose you could also argue that everything would be just as simple if no one was or wanted to be heterosexual. But then you'd have a problem, humanity would cease to exist because no one was having babies(since everyone was homosexual and therefore men and women were not having sex with each other)
You seem to be saying that you are basically just anti-sex (or at least feel that sexuality makes things complicated), but have to accept sexuality as a necessary evil for the sake of procreation. Is this accurate?
Here, try this on:
C3PX said:
If I could work my will, there would be no religion, no one would believe in a god or gods, and they would be better for it. No one would want to be Christians and no one would want to be religious. Things would be so much simpler that way. No offense to Christians or religious folk intended.
I feel like had I said this during any of our religious discussions, you would have been rather hurt and offended, Warb.
To be completely honest, though I try not to bring it up, I totally feel like the world would be far better off, though perhaps a bit less interesting, if religion were to altogether die off and become a a thing of the past that everyone cringes or laughs about. Kind of like how we cringe or sometimes chuckle when we think about the fact that doctors used to slice open arteries to let their patients bleed their fevers out.
Why am I saying all of this here and now when it doesn't relate to the topic at hand whatsoever? Because I could never imagine Mrebo applauding my forthrightness for saying such a thing.
If our opinions are backwards, bigoted, hateful, and mean-spirited, perhaps applause is better deserved when you keep it to yourself. If someone here came out and admitted that if they could work their will there would be no black people, because, you know, it would be less complicated that way, I really hope nobody here would applaud their forthrightness for it.
By the way, religious people are okay by me, I've known a lot of awesome and very intelligent religious people.
TV's Frink said:
Not to mention, I can't admire my own junk.
That bad, huh?
;)
Warbler said:
oh good God.
LOL, Mr. Tolerant Bleeding Heart Liberal, ladies and gentlemen.
greenpenguino said:
sometimes I like to wear dresses too :(
It's annoying that I can never find high heels in my size too.
Not sure if serious...
Gaffer Tape said:
Warbler said:
oh good God.
I know I should feel insulted by that remark, but I can't help imagining that line as said by William Daniels's John Adams, and that makes me smile.
And this attitude is why I have long loved Gaffer Tape.
Sometimes I feel kind of disappointed that you moved out of this area right as I moved here. But then again, high five for having moved out of this area!
Bingowings said:
Men wear spats to stop gays from looking at their ankles.
Jolly good job too.
I don't want to be accused of being a pedagogue.
And comments like this are why I have grown to love Bingo.
Pedagogue. Hahaha.
Warbler said:
Mrebo said:
Warbler treasures those simpler times.
yes this, exactly. If I could work my will, there would be no homosexuals, everyone would be straight and be fine with it. No one would want to be gay and no one would want to switch genders. Things would be so much simpler that way. No offense to homosexuals or transgenders intended.
Fuck! How is it we have spent years in political debate, with you whole heartedly pulling for the Democrats while I waxed on about the virtues of conservatism?
Right now you are spitting the sort of hateful tripe that has gone a long ways in causing me to distance myself from anything republican related. To be honest, I'm actually pretty shocked to read this stuff from you.
Let's say I want to engage in sexual relations with some dude, or I aspire to become a women when I can afford it; how does this make things complicated for you? You said things would be simpler if no one were gay or transgendered. I'm having a really, really, really hard time imagining how any of that makes things less simple for you...
Gaffer Tape said:
I absolutely hate those communal trough-style urinals like you find in sports stadiums.
Sports stadiums use those? Ha! Weird! It seems I have probably never been in a sports stadium.
The only place I have seen those trough-style urinals are in gay bars.
Phew, for a minute there when I first read the thread title I was worried Chewtobacca was getting ready to pull a Trooperman on us.
Hmm, concerning Chewie's gray streaks... He is already 200 years old in the original trilogy, I wonder what the average life expectancy of a Wookiee is, and how old they are before they start turning gray? (Someone is totally going to try to answer that, aren't they?) Chewie has always struck me as still being a bit on the young and reckless side, leading me to assume that Wookiees typically live much longer than 200 years.
I guess I pretty much expect him to look like Chewie from the more recent Chewie promo costumes, this fan poster is the first thing to cause me to consider the possibility of him being an old Wookiee in the new film.
Gaffer Tape said:
CP3S said:
DuracellEnergizer said:
I'm surprised it managed to survive cancellation to last seven seasons.
It lasted seven years, spawned two spinoff series, and four feature films because it is freaking awesome.
Very true, but that doesn't stop its first two seasons from being crap.
Let's be fair and reasonable.
Rewind and compare TNG to contemporary shows of its day. Season one and two aired in 1987 and 1988, at this point we had been watching shit like The A-Team, Miami Vice, Remington Steele, MacGyver, and Matlock and thinking they were pretty badass.
Wanted to tune your TV in on some sci-fi in 1987? Sweet! Let's watch the 1985 reboot of the Twilight Zone, because that was about the only new sci-fi on television at the time before TNG hit the airwaves. Other than that, your best bet for sci-fi was finding reruns of the plethora of sci-fi shows from the 60's and 70's.
It is easy to look back at The Next Generation with everything we have now and say stupid crap about how unbelievably horrible the first two years were, and how utterly shocking it is that the thing managed not to get cancelled. Those two seasons were far above and beyond better than the vast majority of crap we had on TV back then, and the genesis of a much welcomed resurgence of science fiction television programming. Sci-fi TV shows short of fizzled out in the early eighties, and following the popularity of The Next Generation, the flood gates opened bringing us Babylon 5, SeaQuest, X-Files, more Star Trek, and tons of other 90's science fiction.
It was during this resurgence that we got the Sci-Fi channel, which may be a joke today, but at the time it brought back reruns of those old sci-fi shows nobody had been able to watch in years, as well as generated a lot of original content.
DuracellEnergizer said:
I'm surprised it managed to survive cancellation to last seven seasons.
It lasted seven years, spawned two spinoff series, and four feature films because it is freaking awesome.
stretch009 said:
Oh and to that other guy, I have way too many posts to be considered a noob.
"258"
LOL.
Considering many of us have been fixtures around here for a very long time, you are very much a "newbie". Not trying to be condescending with that, that would be ridiculous; everyone is new at some point. This is the first I've noticed you post in the Off-Topic, which doesn't mean you haven't been, just not enough for your user name to stand out to me. I have nothing against new comers, and I welcome you. We weren't being rude. At least not trying to be, just cracking an innocent joke. We have fun around here, don't take it personally.
And welcome to OT.com's deep seedy underbelly: the lawless unmoderated Off Topic forum. ;)
I've always said A-V-I.
I like that AT-AT and atat was brought up. My best childhood friend always called it an atat walker, and I always said AT-AT. We had debates about it, but they never went anywhere and we each continued to say it our own preferred way. He still called them atat walkers.
TV's Frink said:
The fact that these movies have a thread is disturbing.
I know! We gotta watch these n00bs more closely. God only knows what thread/ts they'll start next.
"I would argue that there was only one shot."
BAM! Nicely said J. J.
^That was the same thing I was thinking!
Today at work I was in an unusually playful mood (this usually comes with sleep deprivation for me), at one point one of my students pointed to my pupil gauge and asked me what it was, I whipped it out of my pocket, pointed it at him, click it on and made a wuwuwuwuwuwuwu sound, click it off, replaced it in my pocket and said, "Oh, it's nothing". He grinned really big and said, "AH! Like Doctor...Uh...*snaps fingers* Erm... Doctor, um... Whatever his name is!"
Close enough, kid.
A lot of people are very hard on him.
With current trends, things that are old are in again, so you have a lot of people dogging the TNG, DS9, VOY era and singing the wonders of TOS.
I grew up on TNG and the ST films. I always really liked Kirk in the films, and wanted to see the original TV series, but my family didn't have cable and there was no way to watch it. Then one year between seasons of TNG instead of airing TNG reruns they ran episodes of the original series. I was super excited about this and really enjoyed them, but even as a nine or ten year old, I felt the show was really silly and outdated.
I've never been able to get that into the original series, so I suppose the Rick Berman era Star Trek is my Star Trek. A lot of people would probably respond with, "Boo, you are a real Star Trek fan if you don't think TOS is the best!" if they read me say all of this. Fine, I am not a real Star Trek fan, and I won't claim to be. But I do really enjoy TNG, DS9, bits of Voyager, and the TNG crew films. This whole stretch of time was during Berman's reign as executive producer, so I guess I'm more of a fan of Berman's Star Trek than Roddenberry's.
darth_ender said:
Star Wars may yet show some greatness. "Come on, let's keep a little optimism."
HOW TO BUILD A PESSIMISTIC STAR WARS FAN IN FIFTEEN YEARS OR LESS
January 1997: "Oh yeah, Star Wars on the big screen again! That was fun, I wonder what nifty little new surprises we'll get in the next one?"
February 1997: "That Wampa was awsome! And did you see what they did with Cloud City? Nice!"
March 1997: "So many changes! I loved the new ending!"
Later in 1997: "I'm so buying these when they come out on VHS. Kind of cool having alternative versions of the films to mix it up a bit."
In a movie theater, sometime in 1998: "Wow! After seeing that trailer for the new Star Wars movie, I don't even care about the movie I am about to see right now. Man, I am excited! Just next year! Still so very far away though..."
Morning of May 18th, 1999: "Can't believe I'm going to be watching a whole new Star Wars film tonight! Gah, this day is going to drag on for so long! Oh well, I waited so many years for this, I can wait a few more hours! Can't believe all the early reviews are dogging it so hard, critics just need to lay off, they obviously just don't get Star Wars. This film is going to be great!"
Wee hours of the morning, May 19, 1999: "Uhhh... Well... Errr... It wasn't THAT bad. I mean, it had its problems. But it was fun. That lightsaber duel was amazing! Can't wait for the next one! It is going to be great, George was just getting back into the groove with this one. Going to go see this thing again tomorrow night!"
Sometime in 2001: "Ah, finally the very first Star Wars film to be released on DVD! That's weird... I was looking forward to seeing the deleted scenes, but I wonder why they spliced some of them back into the actual movie? Would have kind of liked to have it the way it was originally... I guess I'll be holding onto that TPM VHS tape. Wish George wasn't set on releasing these things in episode order, means we're going to have to wait until after 2005 for the trilogy on DVD. Hmm, I wonder if there are any bootlegs out there?... Just to tide me over."
Sometime in late 2001-early 2002: "Can't stop watching these trailers over and over and over again! Gotta love the internet! The name sounds kind of cheesy, but Attack of the Clones is going to be fantastic! Just from these trailers it looks incredible!"
May 16, 2002: "Seriously?! Wha... How... Huh... Uhhh... Arrrggg! What was that!?"
A short while prior to September 2004: "No, no, no, no, no! Please don't be true. I was so excited about this! Star Wars finally on DVD, and it is only going to be the Special Editions? I don't want those! Looks like I'll just have to be content with these TR47's..."
May 19, 2005: "Oh yeah, the new Star Wars came out today. Maybe I'll go see it sometime this week."
Sometime in 2006: "It is about time! Finally, one last good thing Star Wars related to look forward to. Just give me my originals and let me disappear into the shadows a content man. Star Wars and everything it has become in the last ten years can go on without me!
A little later in 2006: "I can't believe the versions of the originals we are getting on DVD are going to be the exact same quality as the LD bootlegs we already have. Whatever."
2007 - 2013: Announcements of anything new SW related: "Meh! Its gonna suck! It always sucks!"
One of the cool things about this place is we have a pretty eclectic group here. We have some older members who remember seeing the films as they came out, eagerly waiting years between to find out what happens next.
Then there are a bunch of us from the next generation who spent their childhoods watching and loving these films on VHS. This group missed out on the initial Star Wars mania. By the time we were old enough to buy action figures and toys, there was nothing left on the shelves. We had to rely on hand-me-downs and garage sales and thrift stores. So when things started picking up again in the 90's with new books, new figures, and new merchandise beginning to pop up in stores, it was an incredibly exciting time.
Then there are many here who are from later generations. They saw one of the prequels, and that got them hooked. Or someone bought them the DVD box set and they ended up really liking it. Sometimes I am surprised at the number who mention having seen the SE before the originals, or PT films before the OT films. It is really hard for me to relate to that. I can't even imagine. My childhood was VHS recordings of the trilogy on a nearly continuous loop, star ship schematics on my walls, mismatched SW bedsheets, beat up used SW figures triumphantly acquired at garage sales, and stacks of Marvel SW comics.
For some of us, our tenure as SW fans has consisted of lots and lots of eager waiting. And then we find ourselves having manure thrown in our faces. For fans who joined the party late, it is really easy to look at some of us and say, "Well, dummy, you just shuffle through the manure pile and pick out the good bits and the things you like from between the piles of crap and quit your moaning!" For that group of fans, they basically arrived at a large manure pile, and without having to blindly wait long intervals for things they fully expected to really enjoy, they can dig through it and take the stuff they like, and leave the rest.
We didn't know we were eagerly waiting for manure. And we sure never would have guessed that we'd have to work so hard just to get to keep the parts of Star Wars we liked. Given all of that, it is pretty hard to be optimistic when new things are announced. I'm willing to bet most of us pessimists were optimistic fans once, but these optimistic fans had the optimism gradually beaten out of them for the last fifteen years.
FigmentJedi said:
CP3S said:
This topic made me decide to watch a few Clone Wars episodes for curiosity sake. I watched the last three episodes of season four. Seems like a decent kids show. But wow, what a mess for continuity! Anakin seems like a really likeable and heroic character here. How'd he go from being as he was in AOTC, to mature and likeable in The Clone Wars, to entirely immature and unlikeable again in ROTS? None of it makes any sense.
At least with the finale they found a nifty way to get Ahsoka out of the picture to explain her absence in ROTS.
There's quite a few episodes that show Anakin's temper and conservative views. Scene in the Geonosian arc where he tortures and force chokes Poggle for information comes to mind.
Also, seeing Anakin as something more then just a whiny bitch makes his fall work better and you can legitimately believe Obi-Wan's old comment "He was a good friend". He's a more well rounded character.
Oh, I agree. I am sure it would. My issue is that in The Clone Wars, Anakin seems like a really cool guy, and the character he should have been in the PT. While in ROTS, which takes place later, he is back to being the same immature kid we saw in AOTC, only with longer hair.
This isn't a complaint about The Clone Wars, but rather a compliment. From the little I have seen, I think they did a great job with the character, I wish we had seen that Anakin portrayed in the films.
Fink come and we wanna go home!
My sorted list of favorite->"meh" for the ST:TNG movies:
1. First Contact
2. Insurrection
3. Generations
4. Nemesis
Completely agreed on all four.
Which part did you watch and how much?
It was a lower stakes, smaller scale story, which I appreciate. It had some neat prime directive dilemmas, and some good character moments. In some ways it felt more like a long high budget episode of TNG. If you enjoy TNG, then there is no reason not to watch it. It had a nifty space battle too that was more tactical and not all about explosions.
All in all, I feel it captured what TNG was all about far better than any of the other TNG movies. Or perhaps more accurately, it was the only TNG movie to come close to capturing what the TV show was all about.
Ah, gotcha. Not sure how I misread that.
But seriously, Insurrection and Nemesis are both far better than the J. J. stuff. Insurrection actually has a story, which is something I noticed movies don't necessarily have to have anymore. Nemesis had somethings I liked about it, more I didn't, you're not missing anything.
darth_ender said:
I'm starting to wonder if the irony and sarcasm of my original post was laid on too thick.
I don't think I like the thickness of your irony and sarcasm, it's super lame, way too thick, and it is gonna suck.
But, I'm a fanboy, so I am going to complain about your irony and sarcasm, then go see them opening day, and come back here and complain about them some more.