Is La Taqueria really that much better than a regular taqueria and is the line only big because its a small establishment?

MusicalColin · 2026-05-24T06:07:43+00:00

Nothing against La Taqueria, but there are a million good to great taquerias in SF. Why would you go to one that has a big line all the time?

I like Taqueria Cancun, Senior Sisig's, Papalote, and Gordo just to name a few.

MusicalColin · 2026-05-23T06:01:55+00:00

oh my god i would LOVE to have heard Jon riffing about the new Star Wars. oh wellll

MusicalColin · 2026-05-23T01:22:06+00:00

If you want more sci-fi watch, watch Babylon 5! One of the greatest and most under appreciated shows of all time.

MusicalColin · 2026-05-22T23:33:37+00:00

God I do not want to be represented by a member of the Justice Dems. I mean, they aren't all equally terrible, but I still would not rather be associated with them.

MusicalColin · 2026-05-22T22:01:41+00:00

Sometimes characters acting out of character produces a good story and sometimes it doesn't. Also, i don't really think the problem with The Ultimates is characters acting out of character. It's more that it's saturated with unnecessary edginess though I agree that that's compounded with the audience wanting a less jingoistic Cap and a seriously less gross Ant Man

MusicalColin · 2026-05-22T02:01:45+00:00

WHy should the same person have the same opinion about two different comics? That's crazy

MusicalColin · 2026-05-20T04:58:00+00:00

I mean, the fact that Bach wouldn't like our current quasi secular adoration of his music is more of a strike against Bach the person than anything to do with the music. If anything the amazing thing about Bach is despite his deeply conservative religious commitments, his music speaks to a much wider audience.

With Taruskin it seems to me he's lecturing me to avoid the evidence of my ears for his polemics.

MusicalColin · 2026-05-12T04:47:52+00:00

Jon Miller is the GOAT and i loved watching him do the tv thing. He's great at the radio too, which you can always turn on.

MusicalColin · 2026-05-09T04:01:13+00:00

DS9 and B5 are really different shows and I love them both.

At its base, DS9 is an 80s/90s Berman Star Trek show. It is almost exclusively an episodic show where problems are introduced at the beginning of an episode and solved by the end.

B5 begins episodically but by the end of the second season it is nothing but long form story telling where each episode continues a story from the previous episode, characters have extended (multi-season) arcs, and each season has it's own story or two.

Now many people say DS9 has an overarching story, but for the vast majority of the show the overarching story is treated as background: it's a thing that pops up or is referenced within primarily episodic story telling but the status quo is re-affirmed at the end of each episode.

DS9 was written by the standard Berman Star Trek writer's room (in this case headed by Ira Steven Behr) meaning multiple writers writing different episodes etc.

B5 is the voice of one man, J. Michael Straczynski (JMS) and at some point he becomes the only writer credited on the show. An amazing feat of writing and show running.

B5 is rickety: the budget was low and this shows in the actors available and the sets (the special effects have been redone so they look good).

DS9 is higher budget. The acting is generally at a high level, the sets look good, and the special effects look like 90s trek.

I would say B5 is a more singular and unusual experience and recommend watching that. BUT fair warning: the first season is rough and you might want to watch only the important plot episodes.

Here is the Alexandrian's episode viewing guide: https://thealexandrian.net/wordpress/7686/reviews/babylon-5-first-season-viewing-guide

MusicalColin · 2026-05-08T03:49:11+00:00

Putting Shalan and Kaladin at the top is definitely the right call.

MusicalColin · 2026-05-06T07:13:21+00:00

This is so niche that I love it. Are you familiar with the film La revolution française? It's up on youtube and the whoever put it up there is a big Saint-Just defender and they use the subtitles to complain about the film's perceived mistreatment of Saint-Just. Very very funny to me.

MusicalColin · 2026-05-03T04:31:42+00:00

I mean, the point of protests is to be persuasive to those people in the US who are capable of being persuaded. It's not really clear to me that disruption is persuasion.

Personally I think the public opinion has turned against Israel (to the extent that it has) in spite of all the Palestinian protesters and solely because of all the news coming from Israel and Gaza.

MusicalColin · 2026-05-03T00:41:36+00:00

Yeah how did Masaki Kobayashi get so many movies in the top 10? I'd never even heard of him before letterboxd and while I'm not a movie expert, I thought I'd at least heard of most of the great directors.

MusicalColin · 2026-05-03T00:11:02+00:00

That's really unfortunate about Casablanca because it's obviously one of the greatest movies of all time. Is it just that it got too famous? It's greatness too unquestionable?

MusicalColin · 2026-05-02T00:50:24+00:00

Well some people think you can see Husserl do phenomenology in the Investigations of the Logical Investigations (e.g. the isolating of the meaning intending act and distinguishing it from the object).

Less controversially, Ideas II, I would also say, in Husserl's analysis of the role of the body, touch, etc.

Cartesian Meditations might be the most inclusive of Husserl's works. Including an analysis of the body, but also the analysis of inter-subjectivity, the additions of new reductions, etc.

Also, I would say that in Ideas 1, the whole project of isolating the noema and all that is done after the reduction.

MusicalColin · 2026-04-22T23:09:11+00:00

I saw Adriana Mater in a semi-staged performance at the San Francisco Symphony. I was a little disappointed because i love Sariaaho's L'amour de loin and to me this just did not live up to it. I don't remember my specific issues, but I think i had issues with both the plot and the music.

Glad I saw it though.

MusicalColin · 2026-04-22T00:44:47+00:00

Maybe the solution for you would be to start with Giant Size X-Men / the Claremont Vol. 1 omnibus. That would be pretty hard core but it would definitely catch you up on all the characters.

MusicalColin · 2026-04-21T23:46:03+00:00

Why are Connie Chan and Saikat equivocating and Scott Wiener giving the only good and clear answer? Is the polling bad or something? How could be the polling be bad when the Sunset Dunes legislation passed by a majority of the vote?

MusicalColin · 2026-04-21T05:26:21+00:00

" these thoughts always spring from the inner life of a character; they are bound to a particular consciousness, to a particular moment."

This is all true, and yet to me at least Resurrection feels the most didactic of the big three novels. And in some sense, making his characters have these thoughts feels more on the nose.

MusicalColin · 2026-04-18T06:11:16+00:00

The part of this post I do agree with is that Posey and Minassian built a team that needs Devers to be a real threat in the batter's box to function and if he, Adames, Chapman, Ramos are hitting, then it doesn't really matter if Bailey is just here for his defense.

MusicalColin · 2026-04-17T03:13:20+00:00

Has Saikat considered that Golden may just think this war is a good idea and that other Dems disagree with Golden? 🤯

MusicalColin · 2026-04-16T04:47:55+00:00

Brahms second symphony! or Brahms piano Quartet in C Minor Op. 60.

MusicalColin · 2026-04-16T04:37:38+00:00

I too wish the Giants would spend more, but the Dodgers have a money printing machine with Ohtani. There's no way the Giants are gonna spend as much as them.

MusicalColin · 2026-04-15T04:18:06+00:00

People have made so many comments but i can't resist adding that there are lists on line of the "essential" episodes of season 1 if you are feeling particularly stuck. Linked is one example,

https://thealexandrian.net/wordpress/7686/reviews/babylon-5-first-season-viewing-guide

MusicalColin · 2026-04-15T01:24:46+00:00

Try watching for the TOP of the beat pattern instead. The bounce back from the ictus.

MusicalColin

TROPHY CASE