Mangela Lansbury

They don't discourage you from sharing that you're going to meetings and you're fully identified in the meeting, but you're supposed to have a collective anonymity. You can fully disclose whatever you want about yourself with regards to AA, but you're supposed to recognize the anonymity of others. It's supposed to be a place of trust, so you're encouraged to share whatever you feel comfortable sharing with others but not take other people's stories and lives and fuck with them because of what you know from an AA meeting. There are limits to that -- they discourage you from sharing illegal shit you've done because if a person in your meeting is a cop, they might be compelled to arrest you, for instance -- but generally speaking, the anonymity is forfeit in the meeting but maintained outside of it.

I decided to try White Castle tonight. Krystal is better, but neither is good.

I was trying to figure out how to properly pronounce this after posting it (with a short o like bot or a long o like remo?) and realized it didn't matter because all I want now is to make Chris Dreamboat a thing

I organized my steam library once then something happened and it all went away so now I do a lot of scrolling

Do you enjoy seeing how long you can hold your hand over a candle before you're suddenly engulfed in flames, thinking that maybe death would be better but still hoping to get through to the other side okay, that things will be better there, but why did this happen when you were just expecting a blister on your palm at most? If yes, then probably, sure, go for it

They've obviously started replacing men with robots. The gaming feminist illuminati knows how vigilant the thumbs are about invading robots, so they're boldly testing the waters with Chris Rembot. If all goes well, I'm sure the revolution will begin soon.

Pretty sure America's the only country that still has grand juries. Maybe not, but pretty sure.

So basically "no one will ever eat Paula Deen recipes regularly, why say they shouldn't go to her for nutritional advice!" while the west (maybe world?) is basically in a heart health crisis and maybe supporting a media empire built on a landfill full of butter and lard is a bad idea??? But on a way smaller scale

It's called a grand jury because it meets for a year and hears many cases, as opposed to a petit jury that only meets for one case (and is usually just called a jury). Grand juries aren't always necessary for a case to go to trial, and aren't used at all in some states. A lot of states do just skip the whole thing and go straight to trial.

If it makes you feel better, I had a post-Thanksgiving family Skype get together conversation with my four year old cousin about how cool the poop noises were in this game. Conclusion: They are a little loud, but very cool.

I recently had some similar problems on chrome/chrome for android, but they went away after a few days so I didn't bring it up -- I'd get the mobile view on my computer, and the full view on my phone. It was weird, but it just went away and I don't know why/how? So there's my super unhelpful input.

I had this problem for a very, very long time, so I know this won't matter much, but I'll still say it: Stop caring. You're a fine person who's just doing their best when they can and doing better where they can't. That you're doing what you can is amazing and beautiful, and people that can't appreciate that are just dealing with things that you can't even imagine. Everyone is worthy of your love just because they're still alive in such a fucked up world, but don't feel bad when you don't get it in return because we're all alive in suuuuuuch a fucked up world. And, because I don't know where else to put this, I'll deposit it here

It still reads as basically gross to me because of orientalism, though. He does look like a light-skinned Nepalese person (since from everything I've heard it takes place in basically a kind of Nepal surrogate), but he dresses like someone from a Hong Kong movie. From the mannerisms I saw in some gameplay demo from somewhere early, he acted very flamboyantly -- something that could be telegraphing an interpretation of the Korean male as inspired in the West by the popularity of PSY but could also just be typical LGBT-associated-traits-as-villainous/undesirable grossness. There was some weird India-ish spiritualism involved, along with some Sherpa stand-in thing, and a military force like you'd find on Kashmiri borders. Basically, from what little I've seen of the game -- both from the main villain himself and the setting in general -- it's like they just took different things from around Asia and threw in what seemed cool to them, ignoring where it came from to service some aesthetic they wanted to put into a made-up place that's "over there somewhere." That's basically the definition of orientalism, and orientalism is a problem. I haven't played Far Cry 4 and I probably won't, but the whole vibe it gives off just feels incredibly gross. I don't know much about it though so I could very well be interpreting a small amount of information in the worst way possible, but after playing Far Cry 3 and seeing how just fucking terrible every single representation in that was, I really don't feel like they deserve the benefit of the doubt. They essentialized cultures in the game that came before this, so I'm just assuming that they're doing the same thing here. Also, since it just popped into my head and I don't feel like working into what's already up there: Fighting elephants and other "exotic wildlife" has been basically essentialized and used to Other back to god damn Alexander the Great.

I'm a little confused by it too. It's taken a mishmash of Asian influences from different cultures, thrown them together, and presented it as a vaguely exotic but difficult to place aesthetic. It's basically the definition of orientalism, but it's forgiven because... the land mass it takes place on doesn't exist in the physical world, geographically or politically? I don't get it. But also I haven't played the game so who knows!

On the other end, when I was at my healthiest -- running every day, swimming at least once a week, actually eating a decent diet, had abs you could see when I wasn't trying -- I was a few points into underweight according to my BMI. Pretty much all of the health researchers I follow on Twitter say it's a terrible system that should be ignored.

My mom tried to talk to me about Ferguson tonight. It did not go well. Super happy to not be going home for Thanksgiving. My condolences to anyone who's going to be having an awkward meal with a piece of garbage racist this week.

The prosecutor typically has an interest in saying, "We think this is why this person is guilty. Here's a little evidence and here's our line of thinking." The grand jury typically just nods and says, "Yeah, that makes sense, okay, it can go to trial." The defense attorney and all other dissenting voices are absent because it's not the place for conflicting evidence -- it's not a trial to determine guilt or innocence, just a hearing to determine whether or not the prosecuting body's narrative of the crime makes enough sense for it to go in front of a judge and jury. You don't have Brady or evidentiary hearings about what did or didn't go to the grand jury because it ultimately doesn't matter what they hear or don't hear. They aren't judging a person guilty or not guilty. Their purpose is just to judge whether what the prosecutor thinks happened arguably could have reasonably happened. It's really hard to not get an indictment if you want one. Like, REALLY hard. You're only required to give one side of the case, and when the prosecutor gets as far as the grand jury, he typically has a vested interest in the case going to trial so it's just understood that he'll do his best to get it there. Unfortunately, this isn't always the case.

Another thing that would have come up if it went to trial is how racism is okay in murders perpetrated by the police. There's a really fucked up reasonableness standard that can be applied in use of force reasoning that basically says that if you're just really scared of black people, you're going to be reasonably scared when dealing with them so maybe killing them is a little okay since you were reacting in a way that seemed objectively reasonable to you which makes it okay that you did that. No police force wants that bit of legal arcana being given a spotlight. Use of force reasonings are super wrong-minded and make it really, really hard for cops to ever be found in the wrong.

It's a reference to Law and Order:SVU. He was in like 200 episodes! I'd forgotten about Awake, but I'm sure I can work that into it too.

This completely fucks up my personal canon where Jurassic Park exists in the Law and Order universe and that one geneticist is so fucked up over his experience at the park that he switches to psychology, gets his PhD, and starts consulting with the NYPD to try to help other trauma victims.

I just realized what they mean when they say "muh soggy knees" and I don't know if I'm dumber for not getting it or if they're dumber for coming up with and using it.

The Addams Family opens with Christmas carolers, so it counts as a Christmas movie.

I never played Binding of Isaac much, but because it was free on PS+ it's turned into the game I play before bed on my Vita. I only got through my first Boss Rush last night (I had no idea what the fuck was going on), so I felt like I could finally join this thread... but looking through it, I don't think that's the case. There's a lot more to this game than I thought there was!

Fun fact about German large numbers, as far as I can remember from high school (11 years ago?): Billion is German for one trillion, while a billion is some weird French sounding thing like ein Milliarde(?). This might not be true. I might be making it up from misremembered bullshit.

This has gotten a little too acerbic for me (on my behalf even, which I apologize for), so I'm just gonna bow out. Hate on Taylor if you want. I mean, haters gonna hate, hate, hate, hate, hate. (I couldn't not)