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Mike O

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Join date
20-Jun-2006
Last activity
30-Jul-2025
Posts
2,348

Post History

Post
#907500
Topic
Ranking the Superman films
Time

I think Superman Returns is an interesting attempt to do something somewhat different. It has one foot in the past and one in the present in the worst way, however, and can never get over its identity crisis. That said, I think Bryan Singer is one of the best action filmmakers working today, and it has a couple of very impressive set pieces; the plane rescue in particular is genuinely exciting.

Man of Steel has the opposite problem: it wanted to do something other than “Lex Luthor tries to kill Superman with Kryptonite” and went so far in the other direction that I feels like an Outer Limits episode abut a guy who discovers he has alien origins.

Post
#906424
Topic
If you need to B*tch about something... this is the place
Time

NeverarGreat said:

Mike O said:

DuracellEnergizer said:

I learned to avoid most on-line religious debates a long time ago. Sometimes you get respectful dialogues between the different parties, but most of the time it’s just a bunch of uncouth jackasses tossing insults and strawman arguments back-and-forth.

I learned this a long, long, long time ago. I stuck to it for many years (though it was largely pre YouTube, which has made even more chaos). For some fucking reason, I broke my own rule and now I’m in this mess. I wish I knew why this shit was lingering and bothering me so much. I hear these kinds of things (frequently more well-written) on House, True Detective, and Bones, among countless others, literally hundreds of times. I wish I could figure it why this was happening to my brain. The SSRIs worked for 15+ years. I keep thinking that I’ve chosen an impossible question related to the meaning of life and impossible questions precisely because my demented OCD brain knows that’s a perfect way to trap itself.

If I may be so bold, what is the impossible question you have chosen?

I ask because I grappled with depression and the impossible question: ‘why is there something rather than nothing’ for years before understanding that the question was wrong. The question should be ‘IS there something rather than nothing’, and this can be meaningfully answered. The ramifications of this answer now form the basis of my life philosophy.

I’m sorry that you’re dealing with this right now. PM if you’d like to talk about it.

Short version: I was brought up Catholic. Certainly not extremist, but 16 years of Catholic school. I got a top-quality education, a good sense of community, a solid moral grounding, and a lot of good things from it. My parents weren’t progressive, but they never said “Don’t watch a movie because it’s evil” or any such nonsense, and were always willing to take me to therapists and doctors, and did frequently. Were very pro-science, and weren’t Carrie’s mom by any means. Got a lot of it, but wasn’t rammed too far down my throat. Overall, I drifted from some of it, but liked it. Definitely came to disagree with a lot of the politics, but had pretty positive experiences overall. I’ve read some things here and there on the various atheist debates, etc, and basically came to make up my mind that I was sticking with a lot of it culturally because I’d had good experiences, and had a very live-and-let-live policy as regarded people’s religious beliefs. I have friends with a variety of them, and we’ve never had problems. One told me he was an agnostic, we shrugged and haven’t ever needed to discuss the topic again. It’s a non-issue. I never have or will forced any of my beliefs on anyone, and stopped being judgmental long ago. My faith is shaken, but largely still there. It’s not a huge part of my life. But I was comfortable with my live-and-let policy, and still am, and live in a culture where it isn’t super theocratic. Everything I’ve read in the thread which bothered me so much is same arguments that have been made hundreds of times in various places, and the same kind of stuff I heard on Bones, House, True Detective, and countless other places. Everything should’ve been totally fine. I don’t know why I was so bothered by it, much less obsessively keep returning to it. It’s frustrating given that I had other problems and didn’t really need this stupid OCD loop about something I made my mind up about long ago.

Sorry that was so long.

I think for many people with depression, the question is more “Is something enough?” In my case, I have a lot to be grateful for, for which I am very thankful. My life is good, and I shouldn’t be as obsessive as I am about things.

Post
#903537
Topic
The Place to Go for Emotional Support
Time

As I mentioned over in another thread, in spite of having no personal participation and being fairly secure in my own beliefs (Short version: raised Catholic, gave me a good education a lot of moral values, wasn’t a literalist basically kept what I liked [respect for others, forgiveness, kindness, and some humility], chucked out most of the right-wing political attitudes, mostly felt like overall, it made me a good person and felt pretty satisfied with it it, always had a live-and-let policy as regarded religion, never forced anything I thought on others and never had anything forced on me, overall was pretty satisfied and comfortable.), I stumbled into a blazing theological row over at DVD Talk (Complete with videos!), and wound up in a weird panic attack. This is fine, they’ve happens before, but this one seems to be going on for days. I have Aspergers, depression, some panic attacks, and I’ve long suspected some mild OCD. All of a sudden all of this worry about about something I had not only made my own decisions about long ago, but have heard at least 1,000 times before on Bones, House, True Detective, and countless other things, keeps running in OCD loops in my head. It’s like a buzzing in my brain, it’s driving me insane! I’m fucking sick of this shit! I was finally past all of this. My life was messed up enough-living with my parents working a dead-end job in spite of having a college degree, being almost 29, and needing therapy for a long time-I didn’t need this madness returning to me. Do I seriously think I can solve the meaning of life in an Internet debate or on a cycle in my head! I haven’t had my anxiety go on this long for a long time, and I know that I’m being entirely silly! Why won’t this shit stop?!

Sorry. Just wanted to get that off of my chest. This is incredibly stupid. My DVR is accumulating things because I haven’t been watching them. I can function at work, but I don’t understand why I can just relax and take my mind off of things, especially since, and I cannot stress this enough, I’ve been through all of this many times before. I’ve my usual sensory overload: playing some video games while listening to aduiobooks and DVD commentaries (side note: Christopher Frayling’s stuff on Sergio Leome discs is gold), but it doesn’t seem to have stopped the endless static my brain seems to be offering up. It’s maddening. I just want to be relaxed again, so I can worry about my actual problems and go to work and work and not have to fight this at the same time.

According to what I’ve been reading, “stuck thoughts” are an actual concept in psychology. This sounds like what I’m reading about. I try to shift my thoughts towards countless other things, but my head feels so scrambled and keeps retuning me to stupid stuff. It’s driving me nuts.

Apologies to everybody for the babbling, just wanted to get that off my chest.

Post
#903212
Topic
If you need to B*tch about something... this is the place
Time

DuracellEnergizer said:

I learned to avoid most on-line religious debates a long time ago. Sometimes you get respectful dialogues between the different parties, but most of the time it’s just a bunch of uncouth jackasses tossing insults and strawman arguments back-and-forth.

I learned this a long, long, long time ago. I stuck to it for many years (though it was largely pre YouTube, which has made even more chaos). For some fucking reason, I broke my own rule and now I’m in this mess. I wish I knew why this shit was lingering and bothering me so much. I hear these kinds of things (frequently more well-written) on House, True Detective, and Bones, among countless others, literally hundreds of times. I wish I could figure it why this was happening to my brain. The SSRIs worked for 15+ years. I keep thinking that I’ve chosen an impossible question related to the meaning of life and impossible questions precisely because my demented OCD brain knows that’s a perfect way to trap itself.

Post
#903034
Topic
If you need to B*tch about something... this is the place
Time

Made the fatal mistake of clicking on off topic forum over at DVD Talk, wandered into a blazing theological discussion. Didn’t participate personally, but it was ugly. And some of the stuff in it really kicked a comorbidity between my OCD, Aspergers, anxiety, and depression, causing me to have 72 hour+ panic attack off and on, repeating things I read over and over and over in my head in some kind of nightmarish OCD loop. Can’t get my head to stop buzzing, it’s driving me nuts, like some sort of OCD loop. So yeah, apparently with the depression’s return, the anxiety has made a rather unwelcome return with it. I’ve heard everything everyone has said there at least a dozen times, there and elsewhere, so I cannot for the life of me figure out what set me off. Fuck this shit. I have to work in 5 minutes. It’s hard to function with it. Why did I keep going back to it when I knew it would upset me, and why did it upset my when I’ve heard everything everyone has said 1,000 times before? I don’t need this shit, I have to work 8 hours. I want my fucking buzzing head to stop.

Post
#899822
Topic
Discussions search engine ???
Time

The search function on this site was rarely much use, but it seems to have disappeared altogether. Even after several updates, the whole setup is really wonky. The search function is virtually nonexistent, the ability to comb through your own and others’ posts like you can on most other forums is sketch, and there’s no way to delete posts. I’ve come to the conclusion that the forum software was older, and it’s not doable to keep the old stuff and overhaul it to modernize the forum. It’s annoying, but hey, first world problems.

Post
#891755
Topic
Worst Blu-ray transfers thread
Time

Supermartyoh said:

Danfun128 said:

I’m curious why they don’t just make HD scans of the shorts.

I believe the studio digital masters are 1080p, but they decided to port them over as SD on the BD set, most likely to save on disc space for the other features on the BD bonus disc (being only 25gbs IIRC, with some HD features thrown in but not very many).

WB does this a lot for bonus features not essential to the main feature on BDs. An example of this is the 1939 Hunchback Of Notre Dame, in which the main film is 1080p but the some of the vintage shorts (despite being sourced from a recent master or HD scan) are only 480i/p.

Is that also what’s on the separate BD of the Fleischer shorts?

Post
#891753
Topic
Hot Women That Just Don't Do It For You (This thread is worthless without pics)
Time

vote_for_palpatine said:

I guess you like Anime?

I once worked with a girl who was, almost literally, a living anime girl. Really thin with huge eyes, huge breasts, and a huge ass. She didn’t look real, but holy crap was she hot.

Suuuuuuure you did 😉.

You might think it’s impossible for a really thin girl to have huge breasts and a huge ass. You’d be thinking wrong.

Science defying 😄.

Post
#886224
Topic
Chromecast workaround?
Time

Possessed said:

But seriously, how bout instead of using your phone you get a Roku? The original first Roku sells at Wal-Mart for around 40 bucks. It only goes as high as 720p but it still looks quite good and is pretty easy on the WiFi. If you must have 1080p there’s the Roku 2 or 3 but they cost a bit more.

Well, I have my BD player for the main streaming apps: Vudu, Amazon, Netflix, and Hulu. I basically got the stick to use the others like the premium channel streaming apps. As I found out, there was a reason that they were so cheap. Either way, Cinemax don’t have a Roku app, and creating one is obviously not something which HBO has much interest in. FUNimation apparently do have a Roku channel though. Either way, I’m trying my best not to spend money, especially since I’m currently looking into getting something off of my DVR, a quest I have been on for many years now and will cost money one way or another. On that subject, is there any way around iTunes DRM infestation to put some of their content onto a DVD to watch?

Danfun128 said:

NVidia Shield. Don’t forget to root it and install real android.

What does this mean??

Post
#885645
Topic
Chromecast workaround?
Time

TV’s Frink said:

Mike O said:

Possessed said:

Better yet, get pizza.

My Pizza Hut closed and won’t deliver to me. Motherfuckers.

Said the guy who complained we weren’t taking his thread about Chromecast seriously.

I hope that none of my comments were taken too seriously. While I would definitely like an answer on the issue, this is about as first world a problem as you get, so any criticisms of people making jokes were meant to be lighthearted.