Van Buren Supernova

If it makes you feel better (I know it's not), cigarette filters are actually useless. They don't filter, they create the illusion that smoking is 'less' harmful, they make profit margin thicker, in some way, they actually make smoking more dangerous because smokers would use more effort to inhale, making whatever that are harmful go more deeply into the lung. The filters also contribute significantly to the negative impact for the environment. They are gimmick, scam. Couldn't agree more. I don't really care for people who knowingly pick up harmful habit to destroy themselves. But I care when they harm others. Secondary smokers, I can't tell you how many times I see a parent smoke at home or when they are with their children, even in frigging public. Smoking cigarette is burning money too, again, there are those who prefer to fund their cigarette addiction instead of buying something essential for their home. Vape, don't get me started. Same thing, scam. And it's disgusting, this cloud of smoke is your breath, get the f away from me. No, raspberry smell doesn't help.

Good God! What do they need to do to you to make you quit them? But I guess you mentioned you are stuck. I wonder where do they get the confidence to do such thing in the world where there are many other options now.

Yes! And to be fair, I'm being a bit judgemental as well. For example, a colleague in my old workplace mentioned that they watched the series in their dorm (some kind of housing provided by company). Well, they are young guys, and I have heard some other weird things about the place, so yah! I assume they watched it for this purpose. 😅 Yes, the one without Spartacus. It's Gannicus I think. For some reason, I watched it in this order. Yes, it's the weakest, but even so, it provides a good angle of gladiator world. And to the actor, agree, if I remember correctly, he is such a good sport and had full mental support from the rest. I don't know his other works, but he is so good in this series. I still remember the one in the mid season, I think you know, so I don't need to mention it as it's spoiler. When I watched it, I was like, ehhh, so this is not just a mindless fun gladiator series. It actually...makes me feel?? Yes, didn't expect that it was explored very well. The house of Bastiatus is the most intriguing.

Yes, it's driving me half nuts to be honest. Is it disturbing to you if you read something written in different English? Like British and American, sometimes z is s, sometimes neighbour has u, sort of things. I imagine for some, it's okay when it's consistent. But for me, I wouldn't know which is which unless I'm very familiar with all words and differences. Beside the one I mentioned above, which at least have some method in its madness, apparently there are words spelled differently as well, like l and double ll, traveler and traveller, check and cheque, manoeuvre and maneuver. So I could write a sentence using both English and American version without knowing, and some poor nazi grammarists out there are shaking in their boots with rage of this disrespectful and ignorant non speaker. It's terrifying!

Ah yes, I meant number only or number+title. Title only would be too confusing of course.

So, this pandemic, makes me feel really grateful that I am an introvert. I have been living alone with my dog, apart from my loved ones. We visit each other often, before the pandemic. Now it's been two years plus, and all I have near me is my dog, which I tell him everyday that I am thankful. Even at my work, I hardly meet human. My parents managed to visit me last year and stayed a couple of months, that's all. But I don't feel the deprivation at all, in fact, having this solid excuse to avoid human contact works well for me. With loved ones, we can contact each other as and when we want to. Of course I love to travel freely again and meet them, we have been missing each other badly, but I am really okay and thankful that we are still alright and healthy. So, every time I go out I would pass by this distant neighbour. He is older, perhaps in his sixties or seventies, and he uses crutches to help him walk. Every time I would see him sitting beside the neighbourhood road with solemn expression, shoulder hunched, and lonely eyes. He sometimes lets his mask hang around everywhere else except the way it should be worn. There is this mom and pop laundry shop nearby and I often see him walking to or from that direction, many times I see him sits at the shop but it's very obvious to me, that his visit is not cherished by the shop owner. They are kind enough to provide him with a chair, but they don't seem to click well in their communication. Mostly I see them sitting far apart and not talking, or the owners are busy. It's a small shop, having a person parks himself in the small area during pandemic is not really a happy idea. From being a very easily irritable introverts, originally me and mom liked to comment 'oh no, here he comes again. It must be dreadful for the laundry owner to see him', 'oh dear, this guys really invites himself', 'he doesn't even make it easy by at least wearing mask properly'. But it wasn't long before we think that it must be very sad to be in that kind of existence. Lonely and craving for human connections. I think we are very lucky to have technology in our hands, that connection and entertainment, knowledge and everything are reachable. I can't imagine being him, how he passes his day, every day, wondering what he is going to do today and how many times that it's acceptable to invite himself around. I still see him every day, for some reason I don't remember seeing him much before the pandemic except some beautiful afternoon when he sat outside his house. But now I see him everyday, sitting in front of neighbour's house by himself, or in that laundry. It's getting sadder to see him. So yah. I think being introvert and having gadgets and internet probably play a lot in keeping people sane on top of this madness.

Question about preference: When you read a book, do you prefer that the chapters have titles, or just numbers?

Hey, don't worry about that 😁 I am very validated now, even some of my busybody relatives told me I made the right decisions. Also, people and kids around me in public places validate me every day. 😁 My rant, I like cakes. I don't have sweet tooth, I don't eat a lot of cakes, but sometimes I crave it. And it's not easy to find good cakes that is not ridiculously priced around here. So, I decide to make my own lately. Been quite happy with the results, anyway, I always explore baking when I have time to do so, and feedback have always been positive (free will no threat I swear), but it's quite annoying strolling through forever to find the recipe after the author decides to tell you their whole life story before the recipe, or worse, it is hidden after another click/the need to navigate among those. Anyone feel the same? Do you actually read the blablabla? I know, I know, appreciate the creator. Nope, I just want my cake.

I don't have any, because I don't think I watched any other than Octopussy (wait is it really the title? Checked, oh my god, IT IS! ) Not sure why, but for some reason I watched it more than one time when I was a child in my relative's house. They watched all sort of things in front of everyone, including horrors and mature movies. That's why I disliked going there. I also remember one of the villains, someone with silver/metal teeth?? It terrified me a lot as a child and my brother used it to extort me to do chores for him. So yah, I can't say I like James Bond movies, but it's not a fair assessment as I don't really watch them. Just watched Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile. I have to say, Zac Effron really earns my respect over time, he is growing as an actor and his performance here is so good. But that is maybe the only thing I like about this movie. Okay, other than that, the styles and settings are good. What doesn't work for me, maybe it's very intentional by the creator, is I don't really know how evil this guy is from the movie. I read about serial killers and crimes, I know his name, but I never actually know what he did as I hadn't read more about him. And this is from someone who enjoy the genre. While I fully understand that highlighting his crime is not the intention of the movie maker, there should be a good balance between that and portraying his so-called good look and charms. So by the time I finished watching the movie, I thought okay, he is 'quite' a regular serial killer, with a bit of craziness/kink. Of course I have to factor in that I could be distracted during some details when they tried to emphasize on that, but it's treated almost as unimportant brush-offs and it's probably just a couple of seconds scenes. SO, after the movie, as usual, I decided to do some reading and good god! This man is horrible, his crimes are so sick and terrifying. With all those, I think it's almost WRONG that it's not portrayed clearly in the movie. It can be done without them being exploitative but audience should know that this is not a villain to root for, frigging at all. Don't spend 90% of the movie showing that he is.

Hey oh, I agree with everything you said. I watched this couple of years ago, I still remember lots of it. It's a shame that it's not easy to recommend this to others without feeling the embarrassment that it has a lot of explicit scenes, and the gore! Bahaha... I'm not squeamish (for tv and movies), it doesn't really bother me as I know it's TV, but you are right, it's a bit over the top even though some scenes work really well with it. Regarding the lead, couldn't agree more, the original is great, so sad that he couldn't make it, but the replacement works. Did you watch the prequel, or whatever they call it. It also works well too and I'm glad he appears again. Some story lines are great and memorable, I really like the Kill Them All and the finale, and they build it up really well. So mostly I'd just look away from unnecessary scenes and violence to enjoy the rest. Yes, if only they cut away those, it would be a very good and powerful series.

Brief observation on New forum look: - I am amused that in some thread I feel like I am watching movie. There are timeline like '3 weeks later...'😁 - Anyone find the red text very difficult to read or is it just my eyes? - I am not very sure, are we losing the customizable rank?

I have to be honest that your explanations gave me more headache 😁 With this, and the style I see in social media (I know very little in direct and see compilation of social media posts instead), do you guys think, one day, these proper grammar stuffs will disappear? Not only in English language, in every language. The usage of improper/informal words are sometimes more recognizable than proper ones. When I moved around, even a couple of years is enough to make me look very dumb when I don't understand many popular terms for everyday thing. And even as non speaker and grammatically challenged, I actually see so many grammatical and vocabulary errors in (I know, internet). Some mistakes are so very ridiculous but the posters don't care and although some readers complain about it, others are okay. I am sure proper ones in professional settings are still required, but I wouldn't be surprised if it's moving to much more casual and away from classic grammar. What do you think? For me, of course it drives me nutter. How if I learn from the wrong?? The right version is nutty enough!

But... but that is the end of an era! How could you?? (Read: congrats FL 😁) Sounds nice, I always want to stay in a place where I could just grab my dog and head to the back yard and walk to wilderness. But when I need it, it should be easy to connect to urban area to get stuffs I need, or easy to find because I do most of my shopping online. Also, the place should be murderers and creeps resistant. And idiots. I dropped by the forum sometimes ago but then didn't want to log in because I saw news about Una. I know nothing about her in real life, but from very little thing that I read about her, she was a lovely and wonderful person and I love Mrs. Hudson. I won't go as far as saying that I feel sad but I'll miss her works.

It actually sounds really awesome, and sounds like holiday for me. But you don't have problem with internet, so it seems. So it sounds perfect! Except when there is murderer out there, blackout, and late at night when you stay alone and your dog is howling at nothingness or worse, a pair of sparkling eyes that may or may not have some kind of axe or chainsaw on its hand, or swarm of blood thirsty rats that have nothing else to bother in 75 meter radius except you.... yah, I would like that place please. Ah.. firefly, I love firefly, and actually travelled to purposely see firefly. The setting is always so surreal for me. Traditional boat, quiet, everyone shut up, dark, and all we could see are them. Not sure about now, the last experience I had was flip phone time, and phones were mostly kept aside in holiday because no service anyway. Now those bright screens and the desire to share every single experience to internet ruin everything.

Yah, I went from merely okay to curious stage because I was watching a mafia game, and they did that (announce the pronouns in person) and NOTHING ELSE. It's like, I am Floccinaucinihilipilification, and my pronoun is It/Its. Common thing like profession, even location or others were never mentioned. Only names and pronouns. On topic: I want to ask about able. Can it be considered a verb, or adverb? Because it's a bit confusing to me. But when I try to search for the usages, I didn't really find it. Abled is not used as the past tense that I know, so the example is physically abled, less abled. It's not used like, ermmm, how to say it, classic verb. Not like I abled to understand you (huh??) but more like I was able to understand you. Please correct me if I'm wrong at any point. And in past participle, the usage is I have been able to, not I have been abled to! And it's not he unabled to kick you out, but he wasn't able to kick you out. So I haven't seen the classic usage of what I put in quote box to put it simply, so I thought it is not a real verb? Or did I get everything wrong? Another one, in this sentence: It gave the example of children being able to have better lives... Is it grammatically correct? It sounds correct for me but as non English speaker, I could read a mumble jumble of all tenses in one sentence and it still feels natural for me as I don't have the radar and just look at the big picture. Or is there a need for was/were? Thanks in advance for anyone who understands this shenanigan and bothers to answer my question.

Actually I found myselft almost drooling dumbfoundly (?) this morning trying to think about how a hurricane shifted a river. Shifting it manually,,, yeah it's possible with a lot of retaining wall maybe and all crazy efforts I don't think it's worth while. With correct and updated GPS. Gasp.. maybe it's not the GPS fault that it was known to send people into river. Maybe the river shifted! Geez, I will make less fun of it.

That is Choluteca bridge in Honduras. The interesting thing is, it's not a mistake, but some kind of expensive joke from mother nature. The bridge is so well built it withstood hurricane Mitch, but the hurricane was so powerful it reroute the river. Stranger things have happened, Sherlock! Such as this!

I wouldn't mind it for crappy movies, or as I understand, most of horror movies. But when the characters make smart decision for others, and do one or two extremely glaring stupidity, it's way too distracting. Especially when it is against the value that is portrayed as something super important to them and emphasized throughout the movie, in this case "protecting family", without much explanation why the stupidity happens or makes it believable. Not to mention that they had actually survived for a while. Yah! And of course it's completely understandable to hammer a nail upward and leave it there. Again, if it's not obvious, I actually like the movies.

But to be frank, we'd be dead and remain buried if we are not necrobumped

So it's quite common now. I'm just imagining that it would be hellish for example, an office meeting in my previous work place, where there were normally some representatives from various countries, but the language used was English. If someone started to add pronoun to their introduction, the rest in different cultures/language would be ??? It adds so much to the stress of my nightmare (roundtable introduction). I'll have a lot of upcoming language question, but for today I'm taking it easy.

Okay, all these stories don't help with my imagination that you guys are staying at some fairy lands or something, when someone could crawl out below your house and say, my precious...... So I suppose your areas are considered as rural? Or something between urban and rural? I guess I have never stayed in rural areas before, despite moving around various states, cities and countries. No wonder it's so refreshing and everytime I go holiday I would seek out nature. Although can't say I'm envious of the inconvenience. And @Arcadia, I guess you must be very patient (but understand the need to in that case) but if those happened to me, it would drive me full nut and I'd end up with colourful appliances because it would be gaaaaaahhh, wouldn't have the patience to keep on waiting.

Damn bath time!

Yah, I remember those as 'thing in the past', because it didn't work or it messed up more that it fixed, and if I remember correctly, someone actually got a Nobel prize for it? So when you mentioned that a friend got the treatment, I assumed it was quite recent. Yah, but have you watched Hannibal?

I thought Bilbo's feet are hairy! I remember reading the casts commenting that they stink. Ewww Regarding egg's taste, I think it's logical that the diet of the chicken itself could affect the taste, colours too. And... maybe the way it lived and killed?? I remember my cousin spat out chicken when I told her that it was killed by a car. (If I remember it correctly, one of my relative who stayed with us at the time accidentally hit someone's chicken with car, the reimbursed them for it. As nice gesture, I suppose, they gave us some of the cooked one. It was a neighbour's that we knew after all. Anyway, I hadn't eaten the chicken yet, not sure if I did, but my cousin who visited us that day had lunch. I think my brother or someone commented that she (cousin) didn't know where the chicken came from, to which she replied, it doesn't matter, she is fine, nothing would deter her or something like that. Then I chipped in, "Don't worry. It is fine! It was hit by a car, that's all." And she spat it out in shock. My memory is blurry, but I think she finished her chicken, and didn't say anything much to justify her initial shock, and insisted that it's okay. So, I still don't know, whether it's okay. I don't see anything wrong with it? I mean, if we want to debate where food comes from, it's long story with multiple angles. How they are killed, what kind of hormones kick in etc etc. Again, I don't remember eating the chicken so I don't remember the taste. But for sure, I don't want to eat anything that I've seen alive, if that makes sense. I remember buying live chicken to be slaughtered at home was a thing for my grandparent's generation, and I remember we had fish that we kept for quite sometimes that ended up on table. Nope. To be back in topic: This is not exactly what is meant by precision engineering, but...... There is never a point in my life that I find clown comforting.