board77

I can testify that the remastered stereo mix of "The Beatles" is noticeably better than the 80s version. Better definition overall, but I really heard a difference in things like vocal harmonies, bass lines, brass sections, and drums. That's from a casual first listen-through. I bought it ...

Relatively painless.

And lolcats.

But for those stories trying to make it feel like supernatural weirdness happens all around you, but you just don't know about it- they have to have a contemporary feel to them. Right. Which is how I suspect the medieval romances played in their time: everything was familiar, except for suddenly, s...

It doesn't surprise me that a single brain area is primarily responsible for creating both factual and contrafactual mental maps, if you will. It helps explain why fiction works, for one thing.

You know, they really shouldn't be allowed to play hockey after the last lake below the 50th parallel melts.

It should be noted that the roots of Epic Fantasy are in Medieval Romance: back then, the whole knights and magic and faerie kingdom stuff was pretty much mainstream literature. What the current practitioners are doing is simply returning fantasy to its roots.

tinwë wrote:

Some of my best friends are humans.

On the other hand, none of my enemies are trees.

That's almost Twain-worthy.

I once had a fox come to within five feet of me while I was deer hunting. I waited till it was that close to shift slightly, at which point it noticed me and skedaddled.

It's hard not to feel personally rejected when one is professionally rejected. I've had my share of interviews that went nowhere, and we won't even talk about trying to get published. The trick is, I think, to be able to separate what one does from who one is. If one is working in a field one feels ...

Those aren't diapers, those are adult personal security enhancers.

I guess someone took some time off from raiding, huh?

Those really only look good on one person: Barbara Eden.

I posted one over in the Watchmen thread in Movies. IT burns, my precious, the goggles they do nothing!

No matter what your feelings on Snyder's adaptation, look at this:


And take what comfort you may from it NOT being what happened.

Quote:

That can't be projected to "religiosity causes violence" but to "fear [snip] causes dependence on religion".

Fixed.

Dave-- I agree with you in the sense that anytime things like divine favor or punishment are used as coercive tools for maintaining social and political control, there's leverage there not available to simple tribalism. But it's a difference of degree, not kind, in my mind: a refinement of the triba...

It's a small minority globally, but in some parts of the US, it's a local majority. Enough to control school boards, county governments, state legislatures even.

I don't blame religions for evil. I blame humans for evil, religious or not.

[quote]I know that I personally have never heard a single sermon telling me to hate.[quote] I have. Very specifically, I was instructed in my church, as a child, that Catholics were idol-worshiping pagans, Episcopalians and Lutherans Catholic-lite, Presbyterians and Methodists suspect and Jews good ...

Honestly Dave, I think if you take away gods, people will invent other excuses. And have. It's just that religious-based mistakes have a longer track record.

elfshadow wrote:

The vagina dentata!!

Wasn't that a song from Lion King?