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UpperWestside

Certifiably Surly
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Everything posted by UpperWestside

  1. This sounds interesting to me. I will go and watch it no matter what the reviews are because that’s just an opinion of the person writing it. I cannot say I watch movies because of who is directing it, but this project seems really important to Coppola so I will go check it out.
  2. Fork’em Devils! 3-0 on the shock the state of Arizona tour. If I’m going to be handing over thousands of dollars to this university for a masters I am going to enjoy the rare moments of gridiron success. Good on my guys for actually going to San Marcos for this game.
  3. It’s the color in this case. It is entirely because of the skin color and language difference. If this was the far smaller community of white Haitians (Met several of them on Long Island a few years ago.) they would not be the people being dehumanized right now.
  4. Fascism, if you look at it in the 1930’s, you can see it in three major combatants. Japan was a military dictatorship with a fascist bent. Some of that was due to elements of the samurai culture that lived on even as Japan modernized. That would not be the brand of fascism we would see from numb nuts though as the military would not go along with him. I would call his brand being far closer to Mussolini, but more dumbed down for the masses of his loyalists that have an IQ of around 30.
  5. I am sitting on the beach this morning and reflecting on life and how I’ve wound up where I am at. I think about the travels around the country I have had over the last 10 plus years and how I have changed and how much more I have yet to learn in the years ahead where I will leave the US behind for pastures that are not greener, yet are places I know I belong at. There have been moments that I felt lower than low and thought it could not possibly be any worse. I put my own happiness in the hands of others instead of finding contentment with myself and that it was okay if a relationship did not work out. It was okay if I failed at that part of the life experience. I read what y’all post about the traumatic events from your own lives and part of me wants to think how could this happen to a person that doesn’t deserve to feel this broken? Another part of me feels that y’all are being given a similar opportunity to the one I had when I felt nothing but despair and hopelessness. You have the opportunity to get up for another day and make yourself into a better version of yourself. It’s a gift we get each day. You don’t have to be religious to think of it like that. We have this infinitesimally small time to be here. I went to see Neil deGrasse Tyson back in February at the AMNH when he brought in five of the world’s leading astrophysicists. One of them currently works for UT. They talked about their disagreement over the age of the universe being either 13.6 or 13.7 billion years old. These absolutely brilliant people quibbled over a 100 million years or so. It was beautiful to watch. The point in mentioning that is that we are here for such a brief time and then we are gone. Do something good for someone today. Make it a habit and be that person that people want around because of how kind you are. Do what you can, while you can before you can’t. I keep that thought with me all through the day. Find joy in the small moments. Find happiness in watching a child’s eyes light up when they see something that is new and exciting to them. Stop and talk to someone that looks like they need a friend. Doing those things will invariably help you get through the day. We all have so much stress upon us for varying reasons and sometimes we just need to take stock of the good things life has for us even in those dark moments some of you are currently experiencing.
  6. There’s a fairly large Haitian community in Stamford, CT as well as one here in NYC. We have a whole bunch of meatheads from Staten Island and Long Island who will believe this pet eating garbage and want to do something about it. We have so many stupid people in this country.
  7. First they came for the geese and MY GOD I WANTED TO HELP THEM GET RID OF THOSE MEAN SOB’S!
  8. Yes we have got to do this. He would have already been on this with multiple calls to each office.
  9. That is absolutely beyond frustrating right there. My gosh that is just horrific.
  10. It was quick and they didn’t make a big deal out of it. Had I not glanced at the American Flag pin and the hair I would’ve missed it since it was just background for a scene.
  11. It was not an overtly political statement. It was a pretty quick scene. Keaton has made his thoughts about the former president pretty clear so putting two and two together the scene made sense as to why it got included in the movie.
  12. These stories are all unique and deserving of being told to wider audiences. Your father’s war experience was harrowing yet he survived to share it with others. We have lost almost all of the veterans from this war and the only way their service record and stories will stay alive is to be retold by children and grandchildren as well as hopefully having been written down. Your father’s experience of potentially having sunk one U-boat may have come from the women in a book I just finished today called Code Girls. Their ability to break the U-boat’s special Enigma code machine was incredible. In doing so they may have and likely did contribute to your father’s safety while out on patrol in the Atlantic waters. Everything we have as a country right is a direct result of this war. All the postwar innovations across the spectrum of America were paid for in the blood of fallen soldiers across thousands of miles of ocean, Europe, Africa and Asia. As a country we just cannot forget what was fought for during that war. We absolutely have to remind others that we are here now because of those people that served on foreign soil. I had a teacher one time who was a friend of Mike Judge so I absolutely am familiar with Hank.
  13. It’ll probably turn some people off I think, but it was a quick scene. I am sure it’ll be discussed though in certain circles. Didn’t really add much to the movie.
  14. It’s not the subjective part. It’s the complain for no reason and label a movie as terrible because they didn’t enjoy it. If I see a movie I do not connect with I will not consider it to be bad. I take the stance that even though I did not connect fully to it that it doesn’t mean the movie is not good. Others folks may love it and I think that’s cool. No movie is made for every single person that sees it. There is a difference in looking at movies like that versus bringing unwarranted negativity towards a movie. This forum has a couple of posters that regularly do this and I just cannot fathom the wasting of energy in writing some of the things I have seen. I did not really connect as a child to the original Beetlejuice. I was young and I just remember thinking it was kinda gross because of the bugs. Now I laugh about that. I think, and this is just my opinion, but I think this is a movie that will probably bring back some good memories for folks who liked the first one. How they portrayed old man Deetz was great I thought, especially since there was a snowball’s chance in hell he would actually be in this movie because of, well, the actual actor being a felon.
  15. One of my friends in Dallas went to this game. It was his first, and likely last, visit to the Tacklebox. He said seeing this cult up close was, well, he could not find the right words to describe it.
  16. Those corpsman were some of the unsung heroes of so many of the Pacific War battles. The Japanese were trained to target them and would regularly leave wounded American soldiers in the open just to draw in and kill the corpsman and fellow soldiers that would rush to their aid. Just horrific stuff. Glad your grandfather made it home and that you are here to be able to share stories about him.
  17. The dedication to duty of that generation is unmatched in our history. Story after story after story of young men doing all that they could, often to their last full measure, to help their brothers-in-arms. Your grandfather must have been quite the man.
  18. I probably am on the lower end of expected casualties with my quoted estimate. Yes I do think that it could have hit seven digits in American casualties alone. While the civilians in Hiroshima and Nagasaki obviously suffered mightily from those two bombs being dropped, it did bring the war to a far shorter end. The casualties in both civilian and military lives for Japan would’ve been in the millions had Hirohito not made that tape.
  19. I saw an early screening last night. It did what it was supposed to do and be a fun movie. I enjoyed seeing this cast together. Winona Ryder is an actress that is just good at almost whatever she does. The movie was quick and to the point. As a child the original Beetlejuice was not a movie I watched more than once, but this one, for me at least, is something I would watch again. I am sure we will have a few people here gripe and moan about something in this movie, because, dumb reasons. Some of y’all are hard-wired to complain about things. I would also add that there is a scene where some of your maga aunts and uncles are not going to be real happy. It was quick and there was no acknowledgment or dialogue, but when you saw him you knew the message that was being sent. I mentioned it to a friend last night on my way home and he laughed for a good bit and said “Yeah Keaton probably wanted that scene put in there.”
  20. A grueling exercise regimen.
  21. I think there was an inevitable sense that those serving in the Pacific War knew that they would not be going home before an invasion took place of the home islands. The amount of casualties that would have resulted from an attack on the Tokyo Plain alone would have been staggering. Those bombs saved tens of thousands of American lives. Japan was ready to sacrifice their entire country and its people rather than surrender. My own grandfather was called into service with the navy (Was late in the war and he never got deployed) and I have often thought that had the war continued he would’ve been sent to be part of that invasion force. That could’ve been it for him before he even left his teenage years.
  22. Last week I began a masters program through Arizona State University. It will give me a masters degree in World War II history. I am thankful that I can do this remotely and that the degree is the only one of its kind offered by a university in the US. It is done in conjunction with the National World War II museum in New Orleans and there are lectures on there from people that run that museum, which is pretty awesome. The faculty that run this program at Arizona State is from across the World War II spectrum and the knowledge I will gain with this degree will serve me well in my travels in the South Pacific countries I will be living in at various points in the future. I am going to transfer my current job to Honolulu starting in January. I am doing this because I want access to the South Pacific nations and also because I want to work at a museum in Hawaii to help further the knowledge I can learn on this journey. I wish there were more schools with a curriculum based on this war, but this fits the bill for my interests and what I will spend the rest of my life doing. Just gotta remember how to do that Fork’em Devils hand sign!
  23. Three years and counting since my last visit to Texas. My nephew can feel free to come meet me when he’s old enough to leave the state on his own since his dad won’t bring him on a plane to come visit. I feel bad about not having seen my five year old niece except on FaceTime in the last three years, but I’m good with staying completely away from the entire state. What a banana republic/3rd world dumpster fire y’all have going on down there.
  24. How much of the overall increase is from games where the Fever are the opponent? Like a solid number showing the percentage of fan increase due to games played at home against them.
  25. Garbage teams gonna do garbage things. Stilll you would think the league office might want to start handing out some hefty fines and suspensions for this stuff since the excessive fouls are targeting the face of the league. Or they can just let this keep happening and continue to turn people off to the sport.
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