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Post by Kimby on Dec 9, 2019 11:48:15 GMT
Maybe K2 walked into a lamppost while capturing photos for another fabulous Any Port thread?
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Post by whatagain on Dec 9, 2019 14:26:43 GMT
Actually the last post I walked into is indeed 10 meters from here. Suffering at the gym right now. Yet no drink yesterday.
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Post by onlyMark on Dec 11, 2019 16:25:32 GMT
I am a little perplexed as to what has happened to Aung San Suu Kyi. She won all sorts of awards including the Nobel Peace Prize, was always in the news in a good way - and then she was released from house arrest, joined the Myanmar government and you hardly heard a peep from her regarding her old beliefs of democracy and human rights. She popped up in the news because of the Rohingya persecution a couple of years ago as she refused to say or do much about it, and now she's defending the military government over the accusation of genocide. I only have bad thoughts as to why she is. For reasons I can guess at but have no proof in a way, she's like a mirror image of herself.
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Post by kerouac2 on Dec 11, 2019 16:27:50 GMT
She is not the only person who turned out that way.
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Post by mossie on Dec 11, 2019 19:24:13 GMT
There is an old saying starting "Power corrupts"
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Post by onlyMark on Dec 11, 2019 19:30:37 GMT
You are both correct.
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Post by questa on Dec 12, 2019 0:57:13 GMT
I think the bastards have finally worn her down. ("Nil illegitemii carborundum") After a lifetime of dealing with the generals, 20 years of house arrest, losing her children and not being allowed to see her dying husband she suddenly found herself freed and working with the enemy.
At first when news of the atrocities came through, she may have been persuaded to justify them on riots and disturbances by illegal migrants, but the continued horrors are so out of her pacifist nature, I suspect she has been "brain-washed" to some extent by the military junta.
I pity her. Now in her mid 70s she still holds power. I shudder to think what may occur if she wasn't there.
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Post by bjd on Dec 12, 2019 7:14:29 GMT
It would be interesting to know whether her expressed views in this situation reflect those of the Burmese population who have supported her all these years. After all, there have been on and off wars against the various minorities in the country for years.
Perhaps also people from the outside have projected all kinds of things on Suu Kyi as a reflection of opposition to a particularly distasteful military junta. Given that her father led Burmese nationalist opposition to the British in their fight for independence, it would not be surprising that she herself is also a Burmese nationalist and doesn't like the various minorities.
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Post by Kimby on Dec 17, 2019 14:31:39 GMT
Has anyone else noticed that almost every movie nowadays contains a scene with someone vomiting? Puking is almost as ubiquitous as smoking cigarettes in films. And far more ubiquitous than in real life. I mean, once you’ve outgrown childhood tummy upsets and college overdrinking, how often does anyone throw up? Even including morning sickness for moms-to-be and Montezuma’s Revenge for travelers, and chemotherapy for cancer patients, vomiting is still pretty uncommon. But not in films. Why is that? I’m not the only one who noticed this. In this weekend’s Wall Street Journal: “And the winner for the best upchuck is... By Joe Queenan Dec. 12, 2019 12:45 pm ET In the new film “Knives Out,” Ana de Armas plays a nurse’s aide who gets sick to her stomach whenever she tells a lie. I’m guessing that by using this device again and again, the director is poking fun at the preposterous ubiquity of vomiting in movies today. He cannot possibly think that such on-screen unpleasantness is an original idea. (If he is, I throw up my hands.) The obligatory puking scene has been a staple of motion pictures for about 15 years now; I rarely watch two consecutive films without seeing someone get violently ill. And though cinematic retching was once a male-dominated activity, in a victory for women’s equality, it is female stars whose regurgitation has recently risen. The normally dignified Anne Hathaway gags with grit and gusto in “Oceans 8,” Natalie Portman gets an upset tummy in “Annihilation” and Saoirse Ronan pukes with pep and purpose in “Brooklyn.” The inability to hold one’s food down is a memorable feature in “Bridesmaids” and “Pitch Perfect.” And in “Spy,” Melissa McCarthy barfs from a balcony, adding an aerodynamic component to the statutory gross-out scene. Like the cop stripped of his gun and badge for violating department protocol, or like the obligatory query “Are you all right?” after someone has been shot, bludgeoned or stabbed, the upchuck scene is now a compulsory element in today’s motion pictures. Puking is as common as the sequence where a man punches a woman in the face, and only slightly less revolting. Still, the repeated retching—or threat to retch—in “Knives Out” is a relatively new development. Most of the time, directors get the rote heaving scene out of the way early in the film and then move on to serious issues. Not here. Of course, in “Knives Out,” Rian Johnson may have been influenced by last year’s Oscar-nominated barf-fest “The Favorite.” In that film, Oscar winner Olivia Colman and Oscar nominees Rachel Weisz and Emma Stone conspire to pull off the never-before-attempted turbulent tummy trifecta. When Ms. Colman parts company with the contents of her innards roughly 30 minutes in, the question is not why she does it—but why has it taken so long? Most of these scenes occur in mass-market comedies, shoot-em-ups or horror films. But let it be noted that even the stately Daniel Day-Lewis got violently ill thanks to poisoned mushrooms in the 2017 art-house film “Phantom Thread.” By persuading the Western world’s greatest actor to gag on cue, the powers-that-be in the industry seemed to be saying to aspiring thespians: If you’re not willing to puke on screen, then you’d better find another line of work. On-screen vomiting has become not just a rite of passage but a job requirement. No puke? No pay. Yet it’s still true that no one—not Rooney Mara (“Carol”), not Brie Larson (“Room”), not Zooey Deschanel (“Rock the Kasbah”)—can hold a candle to Linda Blair, who delivered the most memorable vomiting scene of all time in “The Exorcist.” This is the uber-upchuck interlude against which all others must be judged—the Heisman of Heaving, the Pulitzer of Puke. Nearly a half-century after the film debuted, no one has come close to taking the crown. True, Ms. Blair got help from Satan on that one, but her performance remains the unchallenged gold standard for gagging, the Babe Ruth of barfers. Still, don’t count out our golden age of big-screen vomiting. As the Bambino himself would say, records were made to be broken.
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Post by kerouac2 on Dec 17, 2019 17:00:38 GMT
Considering the number of movies that I see, I have started to categorize the quality of the puking that I see, since 95% of it is fake. On the rare occasions where it appears that the puking is real, I want to shout 'bravo' because this is a one-take event. I doubt that anybody can puke several times in a row if they need more takes.
At least 75% of the puking scenes are pathetic -- just the one mouthful that they spit out when the director yells 'action!' That is not a puke in my book.
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Post by kerouac2 on Dec 19, 2019 1:53:02 GMT
(Slightly related to puking...)
I wonder what makes drunks want to sing in the middle of the night.
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Post by questa on Dec 19, 2019 6:05:49 GMT
Easy...if they are singing they are not puking, if they are not puking, they are happy, therefore they sing. (Descartes eat your heart out!)
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Post by htmb on Mar 8, 2020 16:01:11 GMT
Springing ahead an hour, as we did here last night, can really throw off your day. How I wish we’d just permanently stay here and quit this time saving business!
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Post by kerouac2 on Mar 8, 2020 16:52:46 GMT
This is supposed to be the last time that Europe does it, but I don't even know which date. I'll look it up…. 29 March.
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Post by bjd on Mar 8, 2020 16:55:04 GMT
We don't change until the end of the month. Allegedly the EU is going to stop switching starting in 2021. We'll see if it happens. If it does, I prefer to be on winter time.
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Post by onlyMark on Mar 11, 2020 15:46:48 GMT
I have to remember I'm living in Germany. Twice now this has happened. I'm introduced to a woman and her mother. I say I thought you were sisters. Both look blank at me and re-state no, mother and daughter.
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Post by kerouac2 on Mar 11, 2020 16:11:31 GMT
You should really remember that Germans are very matter-of-fact no-nonsense people. And you are British, an additional handicap.
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Post by onlyMark on Mar 11, 2020 17:23:51 GMT
The only times I've thought of being British a handicap is in certain colonial countries.
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Post by questa on Mar 11, 2020 23:31:55 GMT
Don't waste your British charm on them. Remember the saying about casting pearls.....
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Post by questa on Mar 11, 2020 23:36:26 GMT
Mark, in colonial countries, being British is not a handicap, being a dick is.
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Post by onlyMark on Mar 12, 2020 6:31:52 GMT
That must have been me then.
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Post by kerouac2 on Mar 14, 2020 19:44:28 GMT
I'm quite happy to have an excessive quantity of DVDs to watch since we are now in lockdown in France. And when I get tired of that, there are countless things to watch in replay on television. But I do not do "streaming" yet and am not a customer of Netflix, etc. But if all of this lasts for 6 months, who knows?
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Post by kerouac2 on Mar 21, 2020 12:18:15 GMT
All of those zombie films of recent years were an excellent tutorial for knowing what to do in the next phase. Those of you who avoided seeing the zombie films will be the first to be eliminated of course.
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Post by whatagain on Mar 21, 2020 22:04:53 GMT
Have cranberries ? Then the zombies will sing.
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Post by questa on Mar 21, 2020 23:40:06 GMT
I am going to need a variety of cushions for my study and lounge chairs. I'm getting bed sores already (almost).
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Post by kerouac2 on Apr 12, 2020 19:25:56 GMT
Why oh why do i always think that a remote control is broken before imagining that changing the batteries might help? Today, I was even thinking that a new DVD might be defective due to not responding to my commands.
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Post by onlyMark on Apr 12, 2020 21:13:46 GMT
First, always take the battery cover off, put your thumb on the batteries and move your thumb back and forth a few times to spin the batteries. This will clean the end of the battery and the contacts and may well get it working again.
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Post by kerouac2 on Apr 16, 2020 6:29:16 GMT
I have always tended to shower before I go out but I should actually be showering when I come home instead. It is hard to change old habits.
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Post by kerouac2 on May 4, 2020 18:59:34 GMT
I had seen on the news that doctors' waiting rooms had become completely empty during the pandemic. I went to the doctor today for my obligatory quarterly visit, and I can confirm that it is true. The first time I went to my new doctor (since my doctor of the last 15 years or so had retired), I sat in the waiting room for more than two hours. Today there was not a soul, and I waited for 2 minutes.
I hope that I am wrong, but it makes me suspect that the majority of people go to the doctor for "NOTHING" in normal times. I do know that it was the case for my grandmother when she was in a retirement home. She (and her friends) went to the doctor just because they were feeling lonely and wanted to talk to somebody.
That is actually kind of reassuring medically, but it must get tiresome for a lot of the doctors.
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Post by onlyMark on May 4, 2020 21:15:34 GMT
Same for me. I have been a couple of times to do a load of health checks as I'm now in Germany and to get a full picture again rather than bits and bobs here and there in different countries. Both times I've arrived about ten minutes early and I've waited less than five minutes to be seen. It's as though the doctor had bugger all else to do and no other patients. (The results of all the tests, urine, stool, blood, EKG, lungs, ultrasound and loads more were all good by the way. I appear to be quite healthy.)
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