Thyroid

Ah, it was just a throwaway line. Anyway, I didn't finish the movie. I was so tired I had to shut it off. I ended up sleeping through most of that afternoon.

That's awesome, Speedy. That cheered me up considerably. A first is a first is a first! Everyone else, thanks for the advice. I'm actually documenting everything he's doing and am now trying to figure out how to make sure my girlfriend is surrounded by friends at all times when we're at university just because that's when she's most vulnerable. Yay life, though.

Great, no. He's passing by her house in the car now screaming "Bitch". What's the right thing here? Beat him up? Let police know about this, screw the dating thing and the trouble it'll cause me and her? I mean this is psycho-level behavior, right?

Speedy, that's great. But what's a first? Ugh, so life has been pretty stressful lately. School, friends, general immaturity and cultural, ah, difficulties (I had a fight on Thursday because I refused to say that Anti-Semitism was not wrong), two people now quite seriously want me dead. One for a really stupid story I don't feel like getting into (summary: I saw him yelling at his girlfriend and yanking her arm around as she screamed at him to let her go, so I went over and told him to buzz off; he later tried to stab me ) and now my girlfriend's psychotic ex has gone stalker-ish and made her cry last night, emailing me, calling her "bitch", making threats to me and telling me to just "die" so he can "get [his] life back". The problem is we can't tell police because of cultural stupidity (what are we doing dating in the first place?, etc). That helped me feel a little bit better. Sorry for the random cart rattle, speedy.

Watching The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes thanks to Remo's pimpin' of Billy Wilder and I swear that Holmes just said he's looking for six anarchist circus midgets. I am going to enjoy this movie.

I hope you did, subbes. Congratulations! Mabrook! Twig, good luck. Pass it from the first time, feel happy. I'll dance for you, too. Here's me getting ready to dance:

Alright. Thanks everyone for the answers to the screenwriter question. I just saw Johnny English Reborn. Man, someone needs to give Rowan Atkinson a good script and maybe a competent director, because this was poor. It's a very lazy, cliched and uninspired film. The characters in particular are unfocused and with no clear personality. Avoid this.

I disagree. Broad appeal makes for an uninteresting character. Out with the Mary Sues, in with the Hamlets. Ignatius J. Reilly made A Confederacy of Dunces what it is.

I like Accelerated C++ quite a bit, though it assumes you have some basic knowledge of programming. If you just need to learn OOP, and you're stuck between C++ and Java, learn Java. Yes, it can be a chore to write code in it (everything has to be in classes), but at least you avoid some of the messier stuff C++ will set on your table; for example, there is no memory leaking in Java, and garbage collection is automatic. Want to learn Java? Read the tutorials on Oracle's website. //C++ #include <iostream> using std::cout; using std::endl; int main() { cout << "Good luck, though!" << endl; return 0; } //look at me I'm Java public class dibs { public static void main(String[] godibs) { System.out.println("Coding can be loads of fun, so enjoy it!"); } }

So I was wondering if someone could help me remember any great, great screenwriters? Coen Brothers, Charlie Kaufman, Martin McDonagh. I'm sure there's more. Edgar Wright collaborating with Simon Pegg usually results in great screenplays, though Simon Pegg working alone hasn't been as memorable. I'm sure this list could be improved.

Just pre-ordered it. Aw yeah.

I've long maintained that the best art we can make is the stuff that is so human that it becomes incomprehensible to other intelligent species. Or, to quote William Faulkner: "The human heart in conflict with itself...alone can make good writing." I've read books with "meat" on them (Jonathan Franzen, Herman Melville, William Shakespeare, Michael Chabon, William Faulkner, Naguib Mahfouz, Anton Chekhov, and more) that I've loved, reflected on, and been moved by, and I've also read "genre" fiction that has had a similar effect on me (A Song of Ice and Fire, a little bit of Arthur C. Clarke, Stephen King). What I can say that, though these writers are all of different skill and background, the stuff that they wrote that has actually stuck with me is the stuff that ignores the set dressing (the kitchen sinks, families in dispute, wizards in pointy hats or the spaceships) and is, in reality, about something profoundly human. I love the literary, "highbrow" stuff as much as Chris Remo does - really - but I won't maintain that Jonathan Franzen is by default a more important writer than JRR Tolkien because he wrote something about family while the other wrote something about a ring. I guess what I'm saying is that I wouldn't enjoy a "genre" novel that didn't have something worth thinking over.

I'm still a bit disappointed that they haven't cast . I understand cutting out , but cutting out the first one would be a huge, huge mistake, as it would let them lose a large dimension of the relationship that later develops. Anyway, I was thinking that they would do this thing where they would show you what all or most of the characters were up to at that point, and I was thinking this was a mistake; a show like The Wire shows you some characters, pushes their stories forward, and then spends episode 2 starting-up other storylines while continuing the stuff started in episode 1. It works really well, and I was wondering if David Benioff and DB Weiss decided to take that route or not. So, uh, do they?

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I finally saw Halloween this weekend. Damn suspenseful, even if there are some parts that made me cock an eyebrow.

How well does this game hold up, does anyone? I know Thunderpeel likes it, but in general: how does Idle Thumbs feel about this game, as objectively as you can be?

That is a good tune. The games look interesting, I guess. It's too bad they're DS-only, since I won't be owning a DS any time soon.

I can't get over how good the demo is. I'm sooo buying the game - twice.

I thought the ending was great. The Narrator not telling you why things (like ) added a certain ambiguity that made me hesitate about . Great great game.

If you've read A Clash of Kings and at least half of A Storm of Swords (since they're bringing-in from that book), this season two trailer is hot. Still no sign of , but some of the confirmed characters haven't shown-up in trailers either. I really hope they bring-in the first one, though. The book and a certain future relationship would not be as horrifying without him.

My girlfriend and I broke-up six months ago. I've moved on. And who dares wins, and I'm nothing if not a risk-taker.

I told the girl I like how I felt and she said she likes me too. The word "love" may have been mentioned once or twice or maybe 20 times. :tup: I'm a happy skipper!

Good enough for me.

Look, if they're anywhere as involving as A Song of Ice and Fire - if they induce serious withdrawal symptoms in you - then I'll read them. Are they anywhere close to that level? Because I just saw the new Game of Thrones trailer (for season 2) and am very excited for it. They're moving in stuff from book three (to give ), but I'm still very excited. I feel like reading historical fiction. I wish I lived in the States or someplace similar. I'd go to the store and snap up a Bernard Cromwell paperback like that.

Part of the reason I love Bastion so much is that it does things exclusive to video games; like, you couldn't tell that story in the same way if you wrote it in prose or filmed it. The narrator was a smart move. The fact he actually comments on very specific things is the icing on the cake. I imagine that must have been quite difficult to code.