zombie84

Awesome Frink, I hope you enjoy it!

Mrebo said:

How often do you update the book?

And maybe old news but in the news today, figured our Encyclopedist would certainly know.

I use the link to a page of the link because that's where I saw it, and there are some interesting comments, like one linking to a professor's pseudo-historical Norwegian version of Star Wars.

1) I don't update the book since it is now printed. We published it in November 2008, and did an small update in January 2009 to correct some typos that slipped through. A full-on second edition of the book, with updated info and some minor tweaking has been in the works for years now and is unofficially coming out in 2013.

2) That Vogue link is very, very interesting. I'm still not sure if it is coincidence or not but it certainly gives one pause. Thanks for sharing it! I'll be posting it on Facebook to see what people think.

CP3S said:

Just got done watching The Hobbit HFR/3D/Imax.

Wow! So, as can be seen in the first pages of this thread, I was all for the 48fps thing and thought it would be really neat. Then reviews started pouring in with severely negative reactions to it. Seemed a lot of us in this thread that saw it in 48fps really didn't like the experience much.

I thought it was amazing. It took me Peter Jackson's estimated 10 minutes or so to get used to the effect, and from there it was just spectacular. I don't even like 3D as a whole, I think it is typically a really gimmicky thing, but this was just gorgeous.

48fps was very different, it really did feel soap opera-esque for the first little bit, but once I got into the movie and stopped focusing and thinking about the frame rate, it made for a very visually appealing enjoyable experience. During the riddles in the dark scene, I felt like I could imagine myself being in the scene with the characters, which is remarkable considering one of the character is a computer drawn animation. In the Two Towers and The Return of the King, Gollum never really looked that real. I mean, he looked great, I felt they did a good job on him, but he still felt like a CG character. During that scene in The Hobbit, it was almost kind of freaky how organic he looked, I know the original Gollum was a product of decade old technology, so of course he would look better now, but I really think the more fluid motion of 48fps contributed to this.

I agree with all of this.

I also agree with Sean. After The Hobbit, for the first few days, all movies looked blurry to me. I thought, "have they always looked like this?" You never know what you are missing until you, well, know. It's like how we all thought VHS was fine until we saw DVD. And then with HD it was "bah, I can hardly tell the difference." Say that now!

Personally, I truely believe that 3D and high frame rate are going to be the future of movies, but it won't be overnight adoption like sound was. It will be more like colour. We experimented with colour at the turn of the 20th century, with things like hand-tinting, but it never took off beyond a gimmick. But then in the 1930s we invented Technicolor, but it was confined to only certain, blockbuster productions. Avatar is kind of like Wizard of Oz in terms of being the technical, mainstream breakthrough. You don't hear people bitching about how Dorothy transitioning from Black and White to Colour is an annoying gimmick to show us new technology and takes away from the immersion. It did for some back then--just like sound ruined the artistry of "motion pictures" for some in1929. But even in 1939 colour still languished in second place for a decade. The 1950s made colour more affordable through Eastman, but the quality wasn't there so it was a slow start that took a decade and a half co-existing with black and white. Once high-ISO film with richer colour began taking off in the 1970s no one looked back. They still make black and white films, but it's a novelty. I think the same will be with "flat" films or "blurry" films. Because if you could make a 3D film and have someone view without any additional effort--which will happen in the future--why would you want to shoot flat? 3D "stands out" for us, but only in the same way that colour "stood out" in 1939 and talkies stood out in 1929. They were new and therefore by definition novel.

Tobar said:

Star Trek Generations (1994)

Sheesh, this came out in '94? Man how time flies. Well, my chronological journey through Star Trek has brought me here. It's been and continues to be an interesting ride. I still don't get the harsh criticisms against this film. Yeah the Nexus is a stupid mcguffin along with the excuses for why Soran has to resort to what he's doing but darn it the film isn't all bad. It had strong ties to the show which had just wrapped up and then rolled into the production of this film. We get to see the end of Lursa and B'Etor as well as see the return of Guinan after a long absence. We also see a Picard acting like himself and not the action hero of the later films. Overall I felt it stayed pretty true to the soul of the show and that's why I like it.

Outside of this film, I'm sad we never got to see any resolution with Tasha's daughter Sela. She would have made an interesting movie villain. The Generation films in general I think would have been stronger if they had all been focused on tying up loose threads from the show. Oh well.

I think the problem is that coming off the fan-fucking-tastic Undiscovered Country...this really just seems like an average TNG episode with better special effects. It's not a bad film, it's just kind of...meh. For the start of a "new dynasty in Star Trek history", keeping in mind that the TOS films had their own great legacy and were still relatively current, this was a rocky start. But then ST:TMP was like that too, and First Contact proved to be the equivalent to Wrath of Kahn so all went well. Until Insurrection. And then Nemesis. Which I actually thought was a return to form--you know, even numbered episodes and all--but I'm definitely in the minority on that one. I've also never re-watched it since the theater so maybe my 15-year-old brain was easily impressed.

Sphere

A really good book, and a really mixed film that is nonetheless a personal favourite of mine. The first half of the film is simply outstanding, one of the best hour's of cinema sci-fi that I have ever had the pleasure of watching. The mystery, the wonder, the terrifying possibilities, all with top notch visuals and acting. The second half doesn't do justice to the set up, despite being faithful to the book--I guess some things just worked better in text. A flat third act, but the first half of the film is so damn good. An underrated gem with some incredible flaws.

Ernest Saves Christmas

What can I say? It's an Ernest movie. This is one of the better ones. It's silly and dumb, but also honestly funny in places, in that Jim Carrey-Three Stooges sort of way. I probably wouldn't bother with this if I didn't grow up watching these films, but it's nice to revisit once every decade or so.

I hear you, I have so much stuff it is actually a legitimate problem. I would put it in storage, but I really can't afford to do that. I will probably end up selling some of it, unfortunately. I have a complete collection of boxed McFarlane Movie Maniac series1-4 figures sitting in a closet completely covered in dust that honestly takes up more space than they are worth.

Does it play properly? I've had problems with running old Windows 95 games, where the speed was x2. This was a problem with Resident Evil because the reaction time and pacing was thrown way off. That's why I switched to using Steam releases when possible. But it's awesome to have the huge box art.

Not sure what crazed American is arguing, except ridiculous scenario of fantasy where he is right, which doesn't exist in real life. reminds me of why most people think american paranoia is real. who is actually threatened by canada?

Tobar, as a gaming fan those sound interesting, especially Indie Game. I want to see that film. On my tentative to-watch list.

CP3S said:

With the mass number of guns in this country, I don't think they will ever be very hard to find. At least not for a very, very, very long time.

I agree, I don't want to drag this out, so I'm going to focus on this very specific point, specifically the last part.

You are probably right, because guns are such an ingrained part of US culture, even if they were illegal most people would know where to get them if they were intent on it. Marijuana is illegal in Canada but so many people use it--hell, my 60 year old dad uses it--that if you ask your friends, you will be able to buy it in not a very long time, even if your friends are near-seniors like my dear ol' dad. So, banning guns or being tough on guns wouldn't have a serious effect overnight. But, over time, it would diminish. If it was illegal, there would increasingly be a stigma, because it would be less common. The crime rate would probably go down, because there would be less non-gang-related deaths, but for criminals intent on using guns, and ordinary citizens who just really, really want to have one, it wouldn't affect them much at first. But if gun ownership was harder to get around, I feel that 50% of the current gun-owning population wouldn't be bothered to go through with it. Lots of people would buy illegal, but most wouldn't. And, over time, that would diminish the obsession with guns. People just wouldn't see a need for it. It's not like prohibition or other substance laws, because people often "use" (drink) on a daily or regular basis, but most people use their guns fairly rarely (most, remember), and some almost never. So, they would discover that their lives aren't impacted. It's a baby step towards slowly dissolving the national obsession with guns, and even though crime may spike at first due to proliferation of arms dealers, actual violent, gun-related fatalities would slowly diminish over time. It would gradually normalize the United States to the same usage stats as the rest of the world and the same fatality stats that follow. But slowly, over years and years, because there is a lot of work to do.

I think that is the point I am trying to make. Not only would it save immediate lives from non-criminal fatalities, from everything from accidental discharges which cause hundreds of deaths a year to the jealous husband with a revolver in the bedroom closet, it would slowly create a mentality that doesn't value or see the need for guns, the way most the rest of the western world is, which also drives the crime rate down like it does in most other countries. There will always be guns and crime in every society in our lifetime, but since the United States isn't a nation overrun with criminals it is the widespread ownership and fetishization of weaponry that plays a major, if not central, role in the massive, massive disproportiate gun crime there. Other countries have similar population, but no one has anything close to the same numbers of gun owners and gun victims per capita. When you remove the ease of access to guns from the equation, you will still have both, but over time they will diminish. It's easy to say "you don't know that would happen," but it's not like the US is just a little more of a widespread gun ownership society per capita than everyone else--it's more like a marathon sprinter racing against a guy in crutches, they are that far apart from everyone else in the western world (and many in the non-west). It's no surprise that in almost every single country in the west, almost no one owns guns and almost no one ends up on the receiving end of one. I guess that's my point. Maybe I am wrong, it just seems like too big of a fact to ignore.

CP3S said:

zombie84 said:

It isn't ignorance when it's based on the existance of institutions, national policy, and daily encounters with individuals from said countries espousing those views. Again, I'm not saying every American is, for example, obsessed with guns. But as a nation...well, your country is obsessed with guns. That's based on the general cultural views you have as well as the existence--and widespread public support (it is a democracy after all)--of the national and state gun laws, as well institutions like the NRA, and also some really scary statistics. You have the highest gun ownership rate on the whole planet and one of the highest gun crime rate in most if not all of the western world. As a Canadian, the majority of my media is American--newspapers, television, and movies. I travel to the United States on a regular basis and have American family members.

It is still ethnocentrism. There are many cultural reasons for why Americans are the way they are, it isn't cut and dry, plain and simple, there is a lot of complexity to it. It is ignorance because you don't attempted to understand American thinking or the cultural and historical differences, rather you simply judge the hell out of it based on how unlike you we are.

I understand the historical reasons why things developed the way they did, that doesn't mean it has to make sense or justify them though. Especially since most of those reason no longer exist in the contemporary world.

 

But you hear of public shootings in the US all the time, and you don't hear of that anwhere else--I think you guys have actually become desensitized to it to not realize how bad it is.

There was a pretty big shooting in Switzerland a few years back, you'll hear of others from time to time. China has this crazy thing where lunatics run into schools with knifes and start slashing at children. America doesn't have a monopoly on senseless public mass target violence done by crazies. But yeah, it is obviously a problem here. However, saying we are desensitized to it is yet more ignorance on your part. You don't know how we feel about it. All you know is what our shitty over the top news media throws at you about it. Every time one of these shootings happen the next several days are usually pretty gut wrenching for us. You can't escape it, people sorrowfully talk about it where ever you go.

Yes, and in China it's knife attacks. Imagine had that person been in the US, and much guns they would have had? It would have been Aurora but worse. Everyone has crazies and killings. This year, Canada had a psycho that was into mailing body parts to the government. Norway had it's massacre. There are always these things, and Aurora is exceptional even by American standards. But my point is that something like 25 Americans die from gun violence each day. You don't need to have Aurora to see that something is terribly wrong with that. In most western countries the figure is more like 3 or 4, not 25. That's what I meant about desensitization. Mass murders always blow up in the media and people are affected by them--Canadians are very affected by them too. But it's the taken-for-granted everyday gun violence that people don't seem to think about, because it never changes and for most people isn't something on people minds the way Aurora is. There is something terribly, terribly wrong with united states gun crime, and while it's a political issue, unless there is some mass murder thing like Aurora no one is rushing to have conferences and make laws to deal with it. It just kind of goes back and forth and goes no where.

 

 

Why do you think there aren't "anti-Canadian" mentalities widespread across Europe?

Because Canada is a ridiculously low impact country. You guys don't really do anything or get involved in anything or export anything spectacular or noticeable. The important or notable things you do take part in go mostly unnoticed. As far as important players on the figurative Risk board of the world goes, Canada simply doesn't rank very high. During my years living in Europe you never really heard Canada's name mentioned. Once during my travels I mentioned a trip I took to Canada to an acquaintance and they asked me if it was a city or a state.

United State policies effect the world, in good and bad ways. The world gets billions from us in aid annually. Americans branch out all over the world providing benevolence and or stirring up trouble and anything in-between. Our movies, our television, our clothing, our restaurant chains, and our brand names are rammed down the world's throat, and a decent sized percentage of them are thrilled about this. America is extremely high impact. 

I don't have near as many people who hate and can't stand me as Justin Bieber has. I also don't have near as many people who absolutely adore me. I don't have masses of idiots ragging on my every move regardless of what I do, "Damn you Bieber for dating American pop star Salena Gomez!", "Damn you Bieber for dumping American pop star Salena Gomez!". Poor Bieber is doomed to piss people off no matter what he does, regardless of his actions, someone out there who likes him isn't going to like it. I get to dump, be dumped, make horrible or wise decisions with only an extremely small handful of people really caring about it or being impacted by it in any way.

It's not because Bieber is just high impact and the United States is. People are annoyed with Justin Bieber because his music isn't very good and people can tell he's just another manufactured pop star. Plus, he comes across as obnoxious. People have always disliked pop stars and it's basis is because of the music they make, not the fame they have. No one goes around hating on Red Hot Chilli Peppers because for the most part they are respected music makers; not that they don't have critics, but there is no "anti-Chilli Peppers" sentiment anywhere. They aren't quite as in-your-face as Beiber, but they are pretty world famous. The "anti-American" sentiment (again, I use that in quotations) is mainly born out of the policies and mentalities that come from there like gun culture and religious extremism. It's not just irrational, and it's not always unjustified either. You can't say someone is ethno-centric just because they don't like parts of a society, there may be very legitimate reasons to take issue with those parts. Ethno-centricsm would also imply that I am saying this from some official Canadian stand point. I don't like a lot of things about Canada and have some pretty harsh criticisms for it. I don't even believe in nationalism. It's just useful as a contrast. I could easily pick a country in Europe that has some of the same stats and values (most of them, Russia and a few places excepted).

Dude, cannabis is illegal in the vast majority of the US. I have no freaking idea where to get it if I wanted some. Would I just walk up to some sketchy guy on the street and ask him if he has or knows anyone with pot for sale? I have no idea! But I do know that the state I live in has really high pot usage. I smell it while out for walks sometimes, I hear co-workers casually talk about it. It is out there, but I personally have no idea how to obtain it. Mostly because I am disinterested in obtaining it. However, if I wanted some, I am pretty sure I'd be able to find some.

Why would it be any different with guns? If I am the type that would commit armed crimes, I likely know others who are the same types, who are likely to know others, and there has to be a hook up in there someplace not too many degrees away.

Because guns are not cannabis. If I am in a gang, yes, I would know where to get a gun. But a lot of gun violence is not committed by gang members or people who set out to create gun violence, but because they have guns in the first place that violence occurs. If the shooter in Aurora had to go to an arms dealer, would he have? Would he even know where to go? And would he go that out of his way? Or would he have just picked up a knife instead and do what they do in China and cause far less amount of deaths? Cannabis is also tolerated by law enforcement to a certain degree, in fact it will probably be legalized north of the border within the next ten years. You can't compare a college kid smoking a joint to a guy going to an illegal arms dealer, it's two completely different things.

Even though most/many gun violence is caused by gangs and people who set out to cause violence, a lot of gun fatalities are not caused by people in gangs or people who would purchase a weapon on the street (if they even knew how to go about it). If 1 in 4 people own a gun like in the States, you will assuredly get situations where a person is murdered where there wouldn't be a murder had a deadly weapon not been present or accessible. It's just a numbers game.

Of course there is. Just like a country without cars is going to have a crazy low amount of automobile related deaths

I can see you are meaning this sarcastically, but I'm not getting it. That is my point. You don't think gangs in Japan can't get black market guns? They can and they do. But 99% of the population isn't armed, and the gun homicide rate is less than a dozen people in a whole year in some years. In 2007, or some time around then, something like 30 people were murdered by guns in Japan and it became a bit of a national crisis; in the United States there were thousands, I think up to 10,000 that same year. That is what I meant about de-sensitization. That is a crazy, crazy, frightening figure that should be met with a proportional response, but instead it's more or less business as usual. It's not something everything thinks of as a national crisis of apocalyptic proportions, if they think there is a gun problem at all. Even though the United States has a cultural history involving guns (revolution war, etc.) that many countries don't, do you think Japan would have such low gun murder rates if they had the same exact laws in the US, where guns are everywhere and easily accessible? Of course they wouldn't. And that is the point I was making. In Japan it is almost impossible to get a gun, and no one has them, so there is almost no gun crime at all. Gun laws wouldn't solve the problem in the US, but it certainly would save many lives.

This also reminds me why I stay out of politics. The internet is full of Americans and it's perfectly understandable that a lot of them would disagree with me, given the cultural and socio-political norms there. Just trying to provide an outside perspective that a lot of Americans either ignore or don't hear. I don't mean to come off rude, it's just very frustrating to see the health and well-being of people put at risk for reasons that aren't very necessary.

I know it wouldn't work well with gangs, because they often use black market hardware anyway. But...do you guys actually know where to get guns on the street? Like, if there wasn't a store to buy a gun, I don't know where to get it. I wouldn't even know where to start. Do you just go up to some guy in a sketchy part of town and ask him if he knows someone who sells illegal weaponry? That seems implausible to me, but then I don't live in the US.

All I know is that--despite pointing out some exceptions--there is more or less a correlation in most countries between the amount of people owning guns and the amount of gun violence. In most countries, few people owns weapons so it's easy to point out exceptions. But when you have the most amount of armed civilians on the planet and ALSO have some of the highest gun homicide rates on the planet...don't you think that there is a link there? You don't have to be a genius to see that one follows the other.

I'm not sure anyone would buy that that wasn't an American themselves. Do you really think it's "just a coincidence" that the country with the highest gun ownership in the world also has one of the highest gun homicide rates? There are other factors, of course. But to say having fewer people with guns would not affect the gun homicide rate is ridiculous.

In any case, it probably would have prevented the Aurora massacre. I think part of the problem is that the US takes money out of health care and puts money into gun availability. So, you have unstable people that can arm themselves to the teeth. Part of the reasons they go on massacres is because the guns are there, everyone has them and owning a gun is something discussed or thought. Canada has psychos, but many of them don't have guns, so it's hard for them to go on shooting rampages. It happens sometimes, but rarely. If you have guns, everywhere, they will be used. The problems in the US are a mix of laws, health care, and the general culture of having guns. Taking guns out of peoples hands won't end the problem. But if guns aren't in many people's hands...it, well, certainly helps the problem of people shooting each other. One only needs to look to other countries. This study said they did that, but then wrote it off as "there are exceptions and other factors so this isn't the answer." Again, that seems to be justifying having the ability to easily buy guns everywhere you go. There is no one-part answer, but it's either stupidity or willful ignorance to say the massive availability of all forms of firepower in the United States is not a large contributing factor to the massively disproportionate amount of gun violence in that country.

If the conspiracy made any sense to it I could see how that would be narrowminded, to call it idiotic or crazy. But it is. It's insultingly stupid. That's what set me off too, which was obviously more judgemental than merited but it's hard not to have that level of frustration for an outsider that watches this closely. There is this great tragedy and this is your reaction?? What the hell?? But it's not like there is even anything to it. There is a building with Aurora on it in DK. So...what does that mean exactly? That Chris Nolan set up the shooting in Aurora on purpose, planning it five years ago, but then also put a reference to it in his film? Wait, what? How does the building named Aurora get you all that? You are actually insinuating that Chris Nolan is a mass murderer? This horrible tragedy and Chris Nolan did it. That's your reaction to kids being gunned down en masse. The guy must wear a tinfoil hat. How someone can read that and not think he was absolutely bonkers is really, really surprising, and in a bad way. I think that stuff like that is not openly ridiculed is not unrelated to these cultural issues I've been talking about, because owning mass amount of guns and believeing Chris Nolan (or the government) set up the shooting both come in large part from places of paranoia. Maybe that is the larger root of all this.

I realize the way you feel Warbler, and I'm not saying you share some the views I am arguing against. You don't have to feel slighted because of a greater national culture issue that doesn't apply to you. But I think it's wrong to write off the greater gun culture of the United States as a generalization. I mean, it is a generalization, I'm not pretending everyone is like that, but as the whole the country has a gun culture problem. It's like saying Canadians love hockey. There are many Canadians who dislike hockey or are indifferent. But as a whole, it's true. We like hockey. At least, way disproportionately to the majority of other countries.

I think you are missing the point though. I know that there are many Americans who don't love guns. But the point is that there are enough people who do to make a generalization. New Jersey had over 250 gun homicides in 2011. That's more than the number of gun homicides in the entire country of Canada on almost any single year (whose annual record is usually like 200). All in one state. And you're right--New Jersey is one of the least pro-gun states.

That's a really bad fact. And that's exactly my point. 270 gun homicides in a single state  in a given year is seen as "pretty good", when in many countries that would be the worst homicide tragedy in national history when you consider the relative geographic and population size of that one region. But instead, it gets justified. It's pretty good, don't generalize. I'm not generalizing, but clearly there are more gun lovers in one of the best states than in an entire country bordering. That's a problem that is going entirely unaddressed. It's bigger than just the NRA.

It isn't ignorance when it's based on the existance of institutions, national policy, and daily encounters with individuals from said countries espousing those views. Again, I'm not saying every American is, for example, obsessed with guns. But as a nation...well, your country is obsessed with guns. That's based on the general cultural views you have as well as the existence--and widespread public support (it is a democracy after all)--of the national and state gun laws, as well institutions like the NRA, and also some really scary statistics. You have the highest gun ownership rate on the whole planet and one of the highest gun crime rate in most if not all of the western world. As a Canadian, the majority of my media is American--newspapers, television, and movies. I travel to the United States on a regular basis and have American family members.

That isn't ignorance. You can write off some of these things as generalizations--and by the way, I am not advocating Canada as some wonderful paradise without it's share of problems; it certainly isn't, although some may claim it is. But stuff like gun laws. Yeah. You guys do have a national obsession with guns. That's why when stuff like this shooting...I mean, it is exceptional. But you hear of public shootings in the US all the time, and you don't hear of that anwhere else--I think you guys have actually become desensitized to it to not realize how bad it is. But it's the result of the bigger picture, which is the incredible, alarming amount of civilians with easy access to, and fondness for, firearms, and the resulting total, unsurprising mess that comes from that. That is expressed in news reports, media, individuals, high profile institutions, state law and federal law.

To take this as an example, I think it's something the United States as a country has been ignoring having a serious, frank discussion about for some time now, because the country chooses to live in a bubble. Because whenever someone points out how stupid and crazy it all seems, it's seen as bigoted. It's not bigoted. It's critical, sure, but don't confuse one with the other. And I think that's another issue the United States sometimes seems to justify or brush off, this "anti-American" sentiment. I put that in quotations because it's really not anti-American, in the sense of hating individual American citizens; when I meet American travellers in real life half the time I end up showing them around and having a drink with them. But why do you think there is "anti-American" sentiment widespread outside the United States(heck, within the United States too)? Is it because most countries, which have healthier and sometimes happier lifestyles anyway, just irrationally dislike an entire half of a continent? Or is it because they don't like the policies and mentalities that are expressed by that half continent? I'm very pro American, in the sense that I like many Americans citizens (and love a few of them), and places and institutions within the United States, and believe it has the power to be better than it is. But it is the widespread expression of certain cultural traits and political ideologies that is offensive.

Why do you think there aren't "anti-Canadian" mentalities widespread across Europe? I mean, overall, such a thing doesn't really exist (although you may find someone that a met a Canadian they didn't like). Yes, everyone hates their neighbours, so the English make fun of the French and the French make fun of the Poles, and they make fun of the Russians. You will never find a country without criticism--but it's usually just their neighbour (or in the case of France, the United States as well...actually maybe France gets picked on by a lot of countries). It's not because people are jealous of the US--especially today, no one really is. It's the cultural and political expressions of huge, huge sums of American citizens--that everyone else has to hear about--that is distasteful, and things like the attitude towards guns is an easy example of why "crazy Americans" memes exist in the world. Obviously, most Americans aren't crazy. That's not a literal statement. It's just that a lot of you express things that sometimes come across as crazy, relatively speaking. And because the country lives in a self-created bubble, that just seems normal, the way it should be, when to most people not in the US (and many within) it actually comes across as backwards. There is a lot of justification that goes on, for example with respect to gun culture.

Because--again, I hate to do this in national terms because I don't believe in nationalism, but it's useful as an example--in Canada, we, as a whole, don't really value guns, and in fact most of us dislike guns. If you live in Canada and you have a gun and aren't in the prarie provinces, you seem weird and scary for having this killing device. We routinely vote for laws against gun ownership. So, how does the United States look to us then? Does that make most of us American bigots? Not really, but the idea of a nation obsessed with guns is offensive and stupid to us. And yet, there is this county--right next to us in fact--that as a whole is culturall obssessed with guns. So, are you saying most of Canada is ethno-centric bigots? You see how the problem is. It's not my fault the United States does the things it does and happens to be right beside me to give me full knowledge of all this stuff. I wish it didn't.

FanFiltration said:

"Apocalypto"  

Seemed appropriate to view this film tonight. Beautiful cinematography, tragic story. Mel Gibson should have gotten a lot more credit and praise for this one, but his personal problems at the time of it's release overshadowed this wonderful film.

Two eaten balls out of two.

You know, this is one of the best films I never finished watching. I saw the first hour and a bit and was floored--if quite disturbed. His directorials efforts tend to dwell on brutalism more than is sometimes necessary. But it was a great film from what I saw. I borrowed this last year to finally watch it again but just never got around to it. The performances and photography were way more than I expected going in.

I just started re-reading the Thrawn trilogy. A close friend of mine bought me nice hardcover first printing editions of them, which are beautiful. But my god...Zahn wrote these so well. They really are terrific reads. I'm about halfway through Heir to the Empire and loving it. I never liked EU, but when it comes to Zahn...he's not perfect, but I think he gets it. Even when I liked other EU novels--even when Alan Dean Foster was writing them, and he's one of my favourite sci-fi writers--no one wrote Star Wars quite like Zahn. Is there any reason why he couldn't script Episode VII? He would hit it out of the park.

Has anyone been playing Farcry 3 as much as I have?

I admit I haven't played the previous two. And I'm not huge on modern FPS games. But man...this game is done well. I'm having a lot of fun with it.

I thought the actors looked the best in HFR. Moving shots sometimes looked like they were moving "too fast." But when it was just a close up of an actor, still, but with all the subtle movements and stray hairs blowing in the wind...that, with the 3D, made the movie come alive for me in a way that no motion picture had before.

I think both come from a place of paranoia, but at least with good intentions. Unless you are someone like Alex Jones, who clearly is just in it for the money.

darth_ender said:

I don't have time to deal with this at the moment. Zombie84, I sure appreciate your suddenly softened wording. However, you clearly made several statements that actually branded the entirety of Americans and our culture as idiotic. And even if you speak only of our government, as a republic, it is representative of the people. You are free to disagree with how we do things. But you have made bigoted statements, regardless of how noble you feel because you stand against other forms of bigotry. I don't mean to say you are a bigot, or at least any more guilty than the rest of us. Sadly, if we were all to reflect, we'd all find ourselves bigoted in some thoughts. But you have been rather insulting today as well as foolish in your statements. I don't appreciate it, and I pointed out your fallacies.

This is the thing.

I'm not saying that all Americans are idiots. Or crazy. Clearly that is not the case. Why? Most people you meet on the english speaking internet are American. Many of my friends are American. I go to United States on a semi-regular basis. It's a place I know very well.

My point is that, up here, a lot of the views and actions that we hear about...don't click. They perplex us...and offend us. And this happens all the time. We're neighbours, so we all know that not every American is a ranting lunatic. But increasingly it feels that way, and not without good reason. You guys should listen to this even if you don't agree, because this is the way the rest of the world sees the United States and I think Americans don't quite get that. A guy in Italy might not know the first-hand things that I know from visiting, he just will hear about stuff like creationism and gun fetishizing that frankly makes your culture look like a scary, backwards, ignorant country. Which it is in many ways. But they don't know the good side as well.

I'm not saying every American is like that. Obviously that is not true. Because in the first place: I am outnumbered here. So that clearly proves me wrong. But when you consider just the discussions happening at a government level, that is in theory supported by--if not a majority than at least a large percentage--of Americans, and the views espoused by individuals all over the place...it just comes across as crazy. Because of this terrible news story you become aware of stuff like this. And everyone who isn't in the United States thinks what I am thinking, they just might not say it...which is "what in the world is wrong with these people?"

As I said...by American standards I must seem like some demented psychopath. Our government is ruled by a far right party that believes in gun control, universal health care and gay marriage. That is right wing by Canadian standards. I'm not a right-wing Canadian. I voted for the socialist party, in second place positiion which is now the official opposition (parliament, remember) and has a chance at winning the 2014 election. When I hear about all the crap that goes on in the south of me...perplexion is a polite word to use. But even the conservatives wonder what in the world is in the drinking water down there. And so do people in the rest of the western world. I don't think Americans are aware of this because they live in their own bubble. It seems "ignorant" and "shocking" for me to come out and say this, but it's true, by the standards of an entire country bordering the United States, United States politics seems like a crazy, ignorant, backwards thing. That's why it is hilarious when sociopaths like Donald Trump threaten to move here should the best president in living memory be re-elected...come on up here buddy, and prepare to meet the personalized hell for you. If those are your criteria.

Like I said: perplexion is a polite word. We're usually too polite to say anything other than shaking our head and sighing. Which is why I usually stay out of American politics all together. It's too depressing.

I'm just responding to what you guys are saying. I'm not a bigot, any more than I am against my fellow Canadians, who can be quite stupid. It's unfair to say because I target Americans I am bigotted when Americans say a disproportionate amount of stupid things. This is precisely the problem in the first place. Instead of addressing the issue you instead accuse people of prejudice. It's backwards, and that's the whole problem in the first place. Again: the reason I stay out of American politics. You have Creationism idiots but then criticism of them is seen as prejudice, when instead they should be seen as the problem with society. instead it's an "opinion". okay. if you are a religious wacko then fine.

darth_ender said:

It appears to me that you have a very un-scientific hypothesis: that Americans are nearly all "retards" who believe in unscientific things (and I gave you a qualifier that you yourself did not use) while Canadians are nearly all intelligent, rationally-minded individuals who don't preoccupy themselves with such nonsense. A simple examination shows that you are generalizing, that your hypothesis is false in its strictest interpretation, and not even true on a more general level. You have not thought scientifically. You have thought like a bigot. But at least gay marriage is not an issue for you, so you can sleep soundly at night knowing you're not a bigot.

I don't believe this to be true, it just doesn't play a role in our governance. I am a product of the Catholic school system. A government funded religious public school system. Should be illegal but its not. How messed up is that? But it exists.I went through Canadian funded Catholic school from age 4 to age 19. I'm not sure what you are saying.

No, I wasn't aiming that statement at anyone specific.