Nec Hoc Nec Ilud

* Given some polls coming out, I should probably remind people that it's nearly impossible to accurately scientifically poll Alaska, for a bunch of reasons that should be obvious if one stops to think. I'd not want to put money on anyone really knowing what's going on until votes are counted.

* "Uber Really, Really Doesn’t Pay Very Well, According to a Lawsuit Filed in North Carolina:" http://www.indyweek.com/news/archives/2016/09/02/uber-really-really-doesnt-pay-very-well-according-to-a-lawsuit-filed-in-north-carolina

* It makes me happy this exists even though I'll never eat there. "This Restaurant Serves Food From All Over The World, Courtesy Of Grandmas:" http://www.refinery29.com/2016/10/126082/enoteca-maria-staten-island-grandma-restaurant?utm_source=tumblr.com&utm_medium=post&utm_campaign=h3&utm_campaign=end&utm_campaign=watch_end&utm_campaign=watch_embed

* "White Privilege is Hard:" http://gwydionmisha.tumblr.com/post/151876384377/hustleinatrap-ghettablasta-swagintherain

* I had a fascinating time watching BBC News this evening on a meta level. One of the amusing moments included an interviewer trying desperately to lead a Nobel Prize winning physicist into giving her the sound bites she wanted about Brexit, which he stubbornly refused to make bold political statements outside his wheelhouse and was clearly frustrated she wouldn't let him properly talk about his actual work. It reminded me of that time... I'm thinking it was CNN's Wolf Blitzer, but don't quote me on that, tried to force the nice Atheist lady to thank god she survived the tornado and she wasn't having it, or the time James Lipton was confronted by Mr. Radcliffe refusing to play along on his Christian conceit. Another one was a reporter trying to talk to people about Trump at a High School "Football Derby." O.o He pretty clearly had no idea what was going on, but his bemused expressions and clueless side comments were pretty hilarious. (I'm sure an American reporter at a cricket match would be just as funny). The lady trying to explain our electoral college system was professional and sounded knowledgeable. I really don't want to sound like I'm attacking the BBC; it's just that I sort of collect these sorts of things as they are very human and both unconscious bias and culture without context interest me, and BBC contributors are human just like our own reporters and historians.

* Apparently the closed captioning thinks "Mike Pence" is "My Pants."

* They are using Lou Reed's "Walk on the Wild Side" to sell crap. This makes me terribly sad.

* One of the problems I'm noticed with modern horror movie remakes is, they decide to take sympathetic characters from the original and "Improve" them by making them bicker constantly and have no real redeeming characteristics. An example of this is the Fright Night remake. They sucked out the snarky humor and replaced it with pointless bickering.

I think it's even worse in a lot of new 21st century horror films, where the main characters are so unpleasant one is already rooting for them to quickly die horrible deaths so that they can be replaced by a new, more pleasant cast of characters at least some of whom one can root for to survive. Instead they like to waste the first fifteen minutes or more on "character development" that is all pointless bickering and them being all around shitty human beings. These are not people I'd spend time around in real life and as movie characters, I just want them to hurry up and die. I'm not saying that one needs to like all the characters. The Dawn of the Dead remake did pretty well with one designated asshole, but mostly the other characters being people one can reasonably care about. The problem is with things like the Ruins or the Cabin Fever prequel I am sort of watching as I type this. (I never saw Cabin Fever, but I am easily lured by outbreak movies on late night TV.) I hate these people except the one Latina Doctor who has been a minor character to this point. Everyone else is shitty and the villains motivation and behavior make no sense. I'd be happier if they'd just nuked the island with everyone on it at the outset. Instead it goes on and on and on.... I've seen so many post apocalyptic and survival horror things like this in the last decade and a half that they blur together: The assholes in a global pandemic road trip with that guy who was on SVU in a small role, Dairy of the Dead, a bunch of B and Z zombie films, the one where they kidnap horror fans and slowly kill them in genre savvy ways, a bunch of plague ones, the really racist one with Romani villains I only managed fifteen minutes of because racism.... Seriously, it's looking like a trend to me. Deaths in these thing have no emotional impact because it’s impossible to care about the characters and survival means as little or less I'm watching this trash for free while I work on stuff, and I don't finish a lot of them. I can't imagine spending actual money and trying to sit through them in a theater with nothing better to do.

Not even shirtless David Tennent in leather pants could fix the Fright Night remake, which also had another major problem that I also noticed in the whole endless Neegan intro scene in Walking Dead (besides the insulting cliff hanger which better minds than mine have discussed ad nauseum): They do not know when to end a scene. There is a scene in the Fright night remake where Colin Farrell's villain comes over to borrow beer and is clearly hoping the kid will invite them in. Both actors actually do a great job in the scene. Farrell is truly unnerving and menacing while not quite crossing the line and the late Anton Yelchin acted the shit out of his end. The first portion of the scene makes one's skin crawl, but the vampire/serial killer lingers and lingers and lingers and menaces and menaces and it gets... boring. The scene goes flat. if they ruthlessly cut 2/3 of the screen time it would have had 10x the impact. It's the same thing with the endless Neegan menacing scene in the walking dead cliff hanger. I love me some Jeffery Dean Morgan and the first few minutes were excellent, but it when on and on and on and my attention wandered and it was still going on and on and on and then cheated the ending. They'd have been better served with 1/4 the menacing and the reveal just before credits. Maximum impact instead of numbing me and then asking me to care about the scene end I had to wait all summer for.

* Oh God, Kyle Kinane's cheese steak rant from his new special? I think everyone from Philly makes that rant. I know I do every time cheese steaks or trips to Philly come up. We all have a Pizza rant too.

*****

* Hurricane Matthew has been catastrophic for the people of Haiti. 800 or more are dead and 60,000 or more displaced. Want to help? https://www.redcross.org/donate/disaster-relief?donationProdId=prod12750029&scode=RSG00000E017&gclid=COnZ5tmJys8CFRBEfgodzWoPXQ

* "How to help Flint, Michigan:" http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/how-help-flint-michigan

* Help pay for cat food, litter, meds, medical copays: Paypal [email protected]

* Donate to help refugees "UN Refugee Agency:" http://donate.unhcr.org/international/general

* Organizations helping with the refugee crisis: http://captainofalltheships.tumblr.com/post/128790538169/an-updated-list-of-organizations-to-donate-to-help

* A list of LGBTQA Charities: http://awkward0w1.tumblr.com/post/126399233673

* Want Game of Thrones without the creepy? We desperately need new players. We are very inclusive. "Game of Bones MUSH:" gobmush.wikidot.com