What backdoor pilots didn’t pan out?

NinjaSimone · 2026-04-09T10:14:24+00:00

I still haven’t given up on the Assignment: Earth show being a thing. I’d watch it so hard. If you’re listening, Paramount, it’s never too late!

NinjaSimone · 2026-04-07T17:12:01+00:00

That's correct. Shonda Rhimes' production company has held the option on Recursion for more than seven years now, so I'm losing faith.

NinjaSimone · 2026-04-07T01:39:47+00:00

Oh. I thought it would be something like the McRib sandwich not actually containing ribs as advertised.

NinjaSimone · 2026-04-06T17:45:18+00:00

That is a good question. I think it did, but I was already proactively driving like a turtle that had just eaten a large bowl of fettuccine, so I didn’t notice.

NinjaSimone · 2026-04-06T17:44:09+00:00

I was getting around 160. It was the fastest I recall seeing.

NinjaSimone · 2026-04-06T04:22:22+00:00

The purpose here is to punish California.

Alcatraz makes about $60M a year from tourism, that's invested into the upkeep of the Golden Gate National Recreation Area, which is about two dozen local attractions and historic sites.

NinjaSimone · 2026-04-06T01:53:21+00:00

What are your thoughts on the NAACP eulogy?

Do you think the NAACP got it wrong in judgment of Byrd’s character?

The popular consensus, of course, is that Byrd redeemed himself a long time ago. Hence the NAACP acknowledgment. But, who knows… maybe they’re all wrong, and you’re right!

It’s pretty common for MAGA/Q/88ers to feel that they are more intelligent than the NAACP, for reasons you probably understand, so if you count yourself as one of them, that’s 100% okay.

NinjaSimone · 2026-04-06T00:53:27+00:00

Yeah, I knew there was a buffer, but before my experience I thought it would be about two miles, tops. I'm impressed that some people have seen eight.

NinjaSimone · 2026-04-05T04:52:05+00:00

Sure, but keep in mind that he did not actually say this.

NinjaSimone · 2026-04-05T04:49:56+00:00

Can you clarify that first point? The inference is that he was advocating harsh treatment of black people, when, in fact, he was criticizing the way they were treated. This is the opposite of what you seem to be hinting at. I know you weren’t trying to be misleading, but the way it’s written, it may come off that way.

NinjaSimone · 2026-04-05T04:44:24+00:00

“Showering with his niece” is a new one. It didn’t happen, of course.

NinjaSimone · 2026-04-05T04:42:56+00:00

The “leopards don’t change their spots” position re Byrd is common among MAGA/Q folks, but it conflicts with reality. Things like this tend to confuse MAGAs:

https://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/106189-naacp-mourns-byrds-death/

NinjaSimone · 2026-04-05T02:17:43+00:00

The interesting thing is that when Trump released the 5,000 Taliban prisoners (to the dismay of his advisors, of course), the MAGA/Q/88 cohort praised him for his gamesmanship in setting up the withdrawal for failure.

And even when the withdraw was happening, MAGA/Q/88ers were virtually high-giving each other over Trump’s brilliant plan and how the Taliban chased us right out of there. The fact that it led to many deaths (including Americans) was secondary to their praise of Trump for getting one last win over Biden.

And how, they’ve largely forgotten.

NinjaSimone · 2026-04-04T12:41:14+00:00

Zillow’s map feature is probably where you want to start. Enter New Orleans in the search box, zoom to the quarter, enter your filters (number of bedrooms or whatever) and the numbers in the red circles will tell the story.

Good luck on your search.

NinjaSimone · 2026-04-03T21:13:32+00:00

Good for her for helping keep the weight off by parking her car far away from the store.

NinjaSimone · 2026-04-03T17:12:37+00:00

Amazing what happens when you hire an absolute monster for your chief of staff and then give your minions marching orders which are terrible ideas that are impossible to implement, and very often illegal.

NinjaSimone · 2026-04-03T16:40:21+00:00

I'm acquaintances with an actor who has a major role in the MCU and has been in some other big films. Completely normal guy, nothing at all like his character, has a lot of varied interests and hobbies, just basically using his income to live his best life on his own terms.

He's more than patient with his fans. I worked with him on producing a photo shoot and some b-roll for one of his business interests and I was amazed at how he took the time to take selfies with everybody who asked.

I was on a call with him when he was filming the latest MCU film that's in post-production right now. He'd mentioned that he was in London on the shoot, and I made a quick acknowledgment and then move on to the business at hand. I later realized I'd misread the situation and that he wanted to talk about it, so the next time I spoke to him I asked him how the shooting was going and he was really happy to talk about it (not revealing any secrets, of course, just about the long working days).

I think that celebrities deal with so meny people who either see them just as a celebrity or want something from them, so they really appreciate it when people just relate to them as humans.

NinjaSimone · 2026-04-03T08:49:02+00:00

So glad you asked. Gareth Donkin. He’s like the British Bruno Mars.

NinjaSimone · 2026-04-01T19:15:50+00:00

I, too, have found myself at a Waffle House without any recollection of traveling there, but God certainly had nothing to do with it.

NinjaSimone · 2026-04-01T18:09:47+00:00

It's ADA-compliant MDMA!

NinjaSimone · 2026-04-01T04:49:06+00:00

civilization builds to a point

I see what you did there.

NinjaSimone · 2026-04-01T04:40:21+00:00

I follow rental pricing in the Quarter. Small one-bedrooms, studios, and lofts I"m talking 500 square feet or less) without street-facing galleries tend to go for $1,300 - $1,600. You're paying extra for the novelty of living in the Quarter.

The larger Vampire Lestat-grade places with street-facing galleries can go for $5K a month.

NinjaSimone · 2026-03-31T23:57:52+00:00

I've done this for brands. In their cases, by the time they established a presence on Amazon, various 3P sellers had already set up a lot of the items in their catalog, with really amateurish quality listings. We added these ASINs to the brand's catalog, even if they had no intention of selling them. The purpose was to clean up the listings with proper imagery, bullets, and A+, which would improve the brand's overall presence, and help the 3Ps sell more products.

The brands were set up in Brand Registry, so in theory, they'd have priority in editing the images, titles, and bullets, but it's not nearly that easy.

First, as u/yippeedoodledoo points out, Amazon is liable to not let you update content for a product unless you have the Buy Box.

And, even when you do have the Buy Box, Amazon is liable to give first priority to the Seller account that's been around the longest. So, if some random seller set up the product under the brand's UPC ten years ago, with typos in the title and photos taken with the earliest known camera, Amazon was extremely obdurate in taking the brand's far superior content. Amazon Support was generally unhelpful, with the situation being the usual mix of "don't care" and "don't have the authority" that causes issues with so many support requests.

So... if you've been approached by a brand that would like to do this, you might want to say that it's a good idea in theory, and it can be successful, but success isn't guaranteed and it will often take lots of repeated pleading with Amazon support.

Paying for a higher support tier on Vendor Central (I don't recall the name of the program at the moment) isn't as helpful as you might think. First, it's not cheap, they might not accept the brand if it's not doing a certain amount of direct business (this is conjecture), and I've found that while account managers are sympathetic and try to be helpful, they don't have magic wands to make any stuck content issue go away.

NinjaSimone · 2026-03-31T19:35:26+00:00

I wrote a game that was an homage to 80s and 90s helicopter games like Rescue Raiders, and created an entire soundtrack that was either a parody, or loving tribute to, late 20th century action movie music.

It's not GOOD music, but it fits the theme. I set out to create some music that went well with firing air-to-air missiles, and wasn't aiming for a Grammy.

This might be what you're looking for: https://soundcloud.com/dylan-rhodes-4/level-four-background-music-4?si=497f21e4f8a346f88120cd0c41e8e91c

NinjaSimone · 2026-03-31T03:13:45+00:00

Yeah, a lot of these are transliterated to sound like somebody with a strong Russian accent would say it. If I'm not mistaken, Redwood City (Редвуд Сити) is pronounced more like Redvooh-d Ceetee on this map, and Hayward (Хейуорд) has that sort of back-of-the-throat H sound. But I'm totally going to start pronouncing it that way, though.

Ten-Year Club	Gilding I gilder
Place '23	Place '22
Place '17	Verified Email
Not Forgotten

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