trailer! http://movies.yahoo.com/feature/battleship.html

Put it on a double bill with Rock 'em Sock 'em Robots

Flatlander, I'm really not seeing what you're seeing.  I've been reading the Independent, and therefore Robert Fisk, for years and I've never seen him so much as pigeonhole a country, let alone outright hate one.  Your reaction in this thread is a prime example of why I don't feel comfortable discussing things like 9/11 on this forum.  I'm sorry to say it but too many Americans are still not ready to have a rational debate on that and similar subjects.  I remember Metallicorphan here getting a proper drubbing on either this board or OO for even daring to suggest that the US government's explanation of 9/11 may not be 100% accurate.

Also, as Hepcat said, it is the job of a journalist to seek truth in any matter.  It's what they do, and we should be thankful that there are still some left who don't just repeat government press releases and do all their investigations via Wikipedia.

That you've read Fisk in the Independent for years and haven't  picked up on his anti-american bias probably contributes to your inability to relate to Americans on 9-11 and similar subjects.      The job of a Journalist may well be ideally to seek the truth,   but Fisk's  opinion pieces show just how often they sink to the level of conspiracy mongering and America bashing.   I do feel bad for the man and wish him luck in finding another mass-murderer to build his career on.  Perhaps Kim-Jong-Il can pencil him in?

It's also rather fun to watch the ill-disguised bitterness of professional America haters like Robert Fisk  reacting to Bin Laden finally getting his just deserts.

I don't see that, I guess.  I think Fisk writes some fascinating stuff about the world outside your door that you may not get to see...and from the point of view of someone who isn't necessarily going to tell you what you want to hear.  He's opinionated but I don't find him grossly prejudicial against any one nationality.

Yeah,  his 9-11 truther stuff is especially fascinating.    Funny, too.

He has questions about what went down that day, as did the families of those who died during 9/11.  Wanting the truth about what happened that day doesn't automatically mean that there's a conspiracy theory involving our government.  He even stresses that he doesn't believe Bush and his administration are involved.

No, he doesn't come right out and claim the Bush Administration  faked 9-11,  but he parrots the same tired 9-11 Truther conspiracy theories trying to cast doubt as to who conducted the attacks, what actually caused the buildings to fall, or that the Pentagon was even struck by a plane at all.      His main complaint about his fellow Truthers is that they are making him uncomfortable with their ranting and raving.   He claims to want to know the "truth" of 9-11?   Bin Laden himself took credit for the attacks.

He [Zacarias Moussaoui] has no connection whatsoever with the events of September 11th, and I am certain of what I say, because I was responsible for entrusting the 19 brothers – Allah have mercy upon them – with those raids, and I did not assign brother Zacarias to be with them on that mission.

Of course Fisk seemed to have dropped the subject entirely after this one column, so it's likely that he realized he'd strayed a bit too far into kook territory than was good for his career.

It's also rather fun to watch the ill-disguised bitterness of professional America haters like Robert Fisk  reacting to Bin Laden finally getting his just deserts.

I don't see that, I guess.  I think Fisk writes some fascinating stuff about the world outside your door that you may not get to see...and from the point of view of someone who isn't necessarily going to tell you what you want to hear.  He's opinionated but I don't find him grossly prejudicial against any one nationality.

Yeah,  his 9-11 truther stuff is especially fascinating.    Funny, too.

Its a wierd thing, isn't it? This whole debacle. What struck me most was while reading the article Huw linked.

Justice," Barack Obama called his death. In the old days, of course, "justice" meant due process, a court, a hearing, a defence, a trial. Like the sons of Saddam, Bin Laden was gunned down.

Thats the hub, isn't it? While its nice that the man responsible for these atrocities is dead, there's the little nagging voice asking if it was justice, or revenge.

Then again, thats the question with courts in general - when is it justice, and when is revenge?

 

I have to admit that Bin Laden's death has put a smile on my face and a song in my heart that still hasn't quite faded.    Call it justice or call it revenge,  I don't really care.   He earned this death.      It's also rather fun to watch the ill-disguised bitterness of professional America haters like Robert Fisk  reacting to Bin Laden finally getting his just deserts.

When you're responsible for the deaths of thousands, if not tens of thousands, of innocents, you are no longer a human being, and deserve to be hunted down, and put down like an animal, IMO.

Ah, so then GWB who was at the helm, and his administration which had prior knowledge should too face similar consequences? What about non-combat responsibility, such as that of the gross mismanagement of the Hurricane Katrina disaster which contributed to 1800 deaths?

You might want to use a narrower brush.

What are you asserting he had prior knowledge of, exactly?

Guests of the Ayatollah  by Mark Bowden.     Bowden brings the same energy and thoroughness  to studying the Iran Hostage Crisis that he did to the Battle of Mogadishu in Black Hawk Down.     I'm  reading this in tandem with a rereading of Delta Force by Col. Charlie Beckwith  as both cover the hostage crisis with a different focus.

If they're serious about exploring the concept of Superman renouncing his U.S. Citizenship, there needs to be an actual downside to it,  but I'm kinda thinking it was just a publicity stunt by the writer and won't have any impact. 

he has to apply for a visa or green card?

Yeah,   something like that.  At least give him less cooperation from the U.S. Government or make him base outside the U.S.    The thing is,  comics are notorious for having characters make some spectacularly bad decisions and actions, (wipe out a city, declare war on humanity, round up all the other heroes and put them in prison, etc) only to have the consequences of those actions wiped away a few issues later when the storyline is over and the comic needs to get back to it's baseline continuity.   It's one of the big reasons the medium doesn't get taken seriously.

 
Yeah, I realize they're a Fox affiliate, not Fox News, but still 

It's just horrible timing on this.   Didn't they just drop an unfinished storyline where Superman walked across the U.S. to reconnect with the common American?  It's like he made it half way across the country and then decided "screw you people,  I'm out of here!"       Nobody likes getting a thumb in the eye, even an unintentional one.   


If they're serious about exploring the concept of Superman renouncing his U.S. Citizenship, there needs to be an actual downside to it,  but I'm kinda thinking it was just a publicity stunt by the writer and won't have any impact. 

I thought the third episode was really good, considering that how much exposition and stage setting it had in it.    It was nice to see the contrast in the Lannister and Stark parenting styles.   Ned Stark is well meaning, but totally out of touch with Sansa, and seems to relate much better to Arya,  although he showed a bit of regret when the reality of what he was training her to do sunk in.   Syrio Forel was pretty much how I pictured him from the book (except for the lack of a bald head).    Cersei Lannister on the other hand, seems to have a much closer, but  twisted and unhealthy, relationship with her son Joffrey.    She's clearly using him, and intends to be the one standing behind him actually ruling the Kingdom.   

The scenes at the Wall were great, and Peter Dinklage continues to steal the show.  It's a shame we haven't seen much of Ghost at all, but I guess there's only so much you can fit into an hour.

is he going to have a birth certificate to prove it's him?

I'll settle for his head on a spike.

Good.

Oh man, do I ever love Curious George.

Rachel Nichols, who played Scarlett, will not be returning for the sequel.  So my hopes for her doing a Maxim/FHM/GQ photoshoot coinciding with the film's opening are dashed.       Thus ends the only shred of interest I had in the film.

Ooh, but I see she's going to be in the new Conan movie!

I see your point.   Chainmail bikini > rubber catsuit.

Time to get the Pentagon working on that Kryptonite Bomb.

Rachel Nichols, who played Scarlett, will not be returning for the sequel.  So my hopes for her doing a Maxim/FHM/GQ photoshoot coinciding with the film's opening are dashed.       Thus ends the only shred of interest I had in the film.

I'm pretty sure the Samuel Jackson-played Nick Fury of the films (I don't mean the comic book Nick Fury) was not running around in 1942. Unless you're asking me to buy that the Nick Fury in Iron Man 1 & 2 is about 92 years old because he Eats His Wheaties.   So sure that's what the comic Wikis say (they'll also tell you Tony Stark escaped from a Vietnam War era camp, not Afghanistan -- the comics and films can be vastly different nowadays), but imho if the newly shot footage is from 1940s, it makes no sense with Samuel Jackson's take, unless they also want to lump HIM in a block of ice and suspended animation too...

Some more blah blah from Hero Complex blog:
http://herocomplex.latimes.com/2011/04/27/captain-america-chris-evans-says-cg-team-nailed-it-with-frail-steve-rogers-scenes/

The film will have some darker nuances to it – the character of Bucky is far more haunted than the vintage version from comic books, for instance, and Captain America chafes at the way his government handlers spin his public persona.

Some of this seems re-hashed from other interviews (maybe it was a group press interview) but that bit stood out to me.

I think you're completely glossing over who Nick Fury actually is...  even in Ultimate where he looks like Sam Jackson, he's really old.  He just doesn't age much at all.  For someone constantly posting so much information, you are sometimes humorously uninformed.  O_o

From what I remember of the old Marvel comics,  the original Nick Fury (the white one) originally appeared in "Sgt. Fury and His Howling Commandos",  a war comic set in the Second World War that debuted in 1963.    A few months later,  Marvel introduced an older version of that same character into the present day (1963).    The former WWII Commando was now a Secret Agent with the super spy agency S.H.I.E.L.D.    As the years wore on, the writers got around the fact that Fury was getting way too old to be an active Field Agent by saying he'd been taking the "Infinity Formula", which slowed his aging.    This was the original timeline that wound up retconning Captain America, Wolverine, and others into Fury's WWII missions.

In 2002,  Mark Millar  used Nick Fury in his Ultimates comic series.  The Ultimates is a different take on the Marvel Super Hero team "The Avengers", set in a completely different continuity from the regular Marvel comics.  In it, Fury is black and based on Samuel L. Jackson.  He is the Head of the spy agency S.H.I.E.L.D.,  but the WWII backstory was not originally used, and he is considered to be a normally aging man (in his 50's I believe).  Later, writers retconned in additional back story involving him serving in WWII and taking an anti-aging formula.      Comic writers are notoriously bad about monkeying around with continuity and what they've already established as history.  Plus nobody ever stays dead.      I suppose this is the same problem Soap Opera writers have.  When you're forced to write a huge number of stories about characters with 20+ years of back story meeting your deadline takes precedence over established continuity.

The movie makers seem to be using the Mark Millar created Samuel L Jackson Nick Fury without the additional baggage of the anti aging formula and serving in WWII.   Although the movie trailer shows Captain America and what looks like the Howling Commandos bursting through a door,  guns blazing,   Fury is noticeably absent.    Honestly having to explain Fury serving in WWII and still being young in the present due to an anti-aging formula would be too much extraneous plot for a two hour movie that's not even about him,  plus it would really take a lot away from the uniqueness of Captain America's Rip Van Winkle situation he finds himself in.

[now]

Fox News had a whole slew of "experts" on yesterday trying to point out that the certificate is a fake. I hope they keep going down that path because it makes them look even more insane than most people already think they are.

You should see that birthers.org site today. Apparently Obama has simply fallen into their "trap".

Did anyone seriously think they wouldn't immediately move the goal posts?  Engaging hard core conspiracy theorists and trying to deal with them like rational people only lends them unearned credibility.  What everyone else views as evidence of President Obama's birth actually occuring in a Honolulu Hospital is to the Birthers just more evidence of the vast evil conspiracy only they can see. (why did he release it now? I know in my Patriot's heart it is a fake.  I have information from an unnamed Patriot source that there is a printing press similar to the one used to create 1960's era Hawaiian Vital documents located somewhere in the depths of uncharted Canada!  The serial number is lower than one issued a day earlier so that means it a fake because stacks of forms never get shuffled. etc etc)

Talking to the Birthers is just like trying to reason with the folks who believe in Bigfoot, the Loch Ness Monster or the great Leprechaun Invasion of 1974.     

HBO has a very nice viewer's guide  with an interactive map of the Seven Kingdoms and guide to the Houses which includes family trees featuring biographical information on major and minor characters plus a lot of relevant historical background..     Parts of it are spoilery if you haven't read the books.

Ah, the song of idiots.

      Thanks a lot, Tea Party.   I used to be able to call myself a Patriotic American without people thinking I'm a fucking lunatic.   You've hijacked love of Country and turned it into a political conspiracy theory.

There's no official RP server in America for LOTRO, is there? With this transfer, if the European servers become available for US players, you'd suddenly have access to a real RP server.

How is the RP server different?

Ale

An awful lot of people just hanging around inside the Prancing Pony, totally destroying your frame rate while they have private discussions.

[Spoiler]

Well if someone had gotten a bigger closet like I asked I wouldn't have too.

And they're not just clowns, they're clown hookers.  Show them some respect!

Spoiler for CeeKay:

 

Does this mean there will be more Europeans on the mostly North American Servers?   I play on Arkenstone, and while having a mostly English speaking US/Canadian population,  there are several Spanish language Kins, as well as some French speakers out of Quebec and a couple of Australian Kins.


As far as RP Servers go,  I think Landroval is the unofficial RP Server.   I started a couple characters on it last year, but abandoned them because the server was just too crowded for me.  I'm not sure what the status is now.   I do see quite a few RP'ers on Arkenstone.  (Recognizable by their character name being in white instead of yellow)

[Spoiler]

Spoiler for Hiden:

   I was a little surprised at  Cersi's visit to Bran's sickroom.   She was talking about losing her first son.  A dark haired boy.  He caught a mysterious fever and quickly died.  Don't remember that from the book, but it's certainly nice foreshadowing.

Spoiler for Hiden:

No, it is not in the book.  However, it fits Cersei being a conniving bitch.  By claiming she had a dark-haired son in front of Caetlyn, it will raise doubt later in the story when it's pretty darn clear none of the royal children were sired by Robert Baratheon.  It's just another way of introducing how truly despicable Cersei is in an effort to condense the story line.  Of course, we don't know she was lying, yet.

Spoiler for Hiden:

  I got the impression that the dark-haired son she was telling Caetlyn about was actually her's and Robert's,  but that she poisoned the boy because she only wanted children fathered by Jaime.  After all, Jon Arryn died from a "mysterious fever"  just like the dark-haired boy.

[Spoiler]

Spoiler for Hiden:

   I was a little surprised at  Cersi's visit to Bran's sickroom.   She was talking about losing her first son.  A dark haired boy.  He caught a mysterious fever and quickly died.  Don't remember that from the book, but it's certainly nice foreshadowing.

So the Republicans finally gave up fighting against the Zadroga  9/11 Health bill, but Congressman Cliff Stearns decided to make these guys go through some kind of "demonstrate to my satisfaction that you're not a terrorist and I'll give you your health care" walk of shame.  Nice.     

Is there some secret contest among Congressional Republicans to see who can be the most evil son of a bitch possible?

Ah, Dire Wolves.  They grow up so fast.  One moment they're cute little balls of fluff, the next they're ripping out some guy's throat .

at least Sci Fi still has Sanctuary, Warhouse 13, Being Human, Haven and Eureka.

 

........and wrestling and that cooking show 

      Asylum Pictures, the company behind such Syfy channel fare as  MegaPirhanha, 2012: Ice Age, Titanic II, Megashark vs Giant Octopus, 2010:Moby Dick, and Megashark vs Crocosaurus, has completed Almighty Thor.   The film stars Cody Deal,  best known for his role as Roman Soldier at Caesar's Palace (uncredited) in 2009's the Hangover, as Thor,  the WWE's Kevin Nash as Odin, and  Richard Grieco of 21 Jump Street as Loki.


     Almighty Thor chronicles the story of Thor, who journeys to Earth from the Land of the Gods to battle Loki for the "hammer of invincibility" and hopefully save us from some spectacularly bad CGI.    For those of you with particularly strong constitutions, MTV is hosting the trailer for Almighty Thor.  Be forewarned,  it is pure, weapons grade awfulness.

      Not surprisingly,  Syfy channel will be debuting Almighty Thor  on Saturday, May 7, at 8pm CST,  right smack dab in the middle of the opening weekend for the US theatrical release of Marvel Comics and Paramount Picture's Thor.   This sort of thing has become something of a pattern at Syfy.     They try to time the premieres of their bargain basement doppelgangers with the openings of the theatrical features that inspired them.   Most recently this was done with their debut of Battle of Los Angeles,  an el cheapo CGIstravaganza not to be confused with Battle: Los Angeles.      

     After checking out their website, I've got to hand it to Asylum Pictures.  Usually you have to delve into pornography  to find such shameless knockoff titles.    They list such gems as Snakes on a Train,  Sunday School Musical, the Terminators,  the Da Vinci Treasure,  AVH:Alien vs Hunter, Transmorphers, and Sherlock Holmes.    Their "original" films have some downright intriguing tiltles such as #1 Cheerleader Camp, Carmilla, the Lesbian Vampire,  Barely Legal, MILF, 18 year old Virgin,   and the Princess and the Pony AKA 1st Furry Valentine.  (Sadly, though,  I don't think any of these actually are porn)

Will no one think of all the jobs in the buggy whip and horse drawn carriage industry we've lost to this new fangled internal combustion engine?   

Books are ordered.........

I don't have HBO or I would just watch the series but I like to read so now I have something new on the way.

You might also be interested in  Martin's Hedge Knight books.   They're set in the same realm as Game of Thrones, only about a hundred years earlier and are about a traveling, lordless, Knight and his Squire.  I enjoyed them quite a bit.   

The thing that bothered me is that it's apparently not cold enough outside the wall to see your breath.

Yeah, but it looked like it was plenty chilly in Pentos.   

I don't think it's a German Shepherd. It's a special dog bred to look wolf-like without actually being part wolf. There are strict regulations about working with wolves, so they have limited options. I suspect the direwolves will become CGI in later seasons, but for this one they're still very young.

After reading a bit more about the dogs,  it turns out that  Ghost is a German Shepherd/Akita mix, while the other five pups are Northern Inuit Dogs.  Just beautiful animals. 

 Really enjoyed that first episode.   They had a ton of exposition to put out, but it didn't seem to slow things down too much.

I'm actually kind of interested in this.     It's sort of a redo of Conquest of the Planet of the Apes, where the apes overthrow the "futuristic" human society of 1991.    With it's riots,  it was by far the most violent of the original Apes films.  Recently I saw the expanded Director's cut of the movie on BluRay,  which is a good deal bloodier than what WFAA used to show on Saturday Afternoons.

It's like Idiocracy,  the PC history Game! 

Aliens?   Chupacabras?   What is this, the History Channel?

Willy Wonka.......?

Really......a horror film?

Willy Wonka scared the hell out of me as a child.   Mainly because I watched it with an older cousin who told me the Oompa Loompas would break into homes at night and kidnap children.

I remember buying the first RE for the Playstation  and playing it late Halloween night.   The giant spiders  almost made me jump out of my skin.      I mostly remember thinking the game was really ground breaking, despite the atrocious voice acting.

Just saw a commercial for this.   It has the Werewolf from the Syfy version of Being Human in it.