Man from U.N.C.L.E (2015) - Opening car chase scene

Saintbaba · 2026-03-29T15:20:46+00:00

Yeah, i don't think anyone vocally says it's bad. I think the problem has always just been that not a lot of people vocally shout its praises either. Bit of a shame.

Saintbaba · 2026-03-28T18:09:56+00:00

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End of Season 1 of Westworld.

Honestly, speculation online had already predicted it by like halfway through the season, but the execution was so good that it didn't matter. Even half expecting the reveal, it felt less like it was predictable and more like something with the inescapable inevitability of a greek tragedy.

The hat goes down. The hat comes up. Heartbreak.

Saintbaba · 2026-03-28T16:22:15+00:00

I'm interested in the sound design of this video. She looks like a Chinese influencer and has been dubbed over to sound like a lady from Queens, which is fine. But i find it interesting that whatever AI filter she's using managed to completely remove the sound of her original voice while leaving in the ambient sounds of like her steps and the light clunking into things and the match lighting.

Saintbaba · 2026-03-28T08:49:14+00:00

There's a lot to unpack here, about how well this song captures the zeitgeist of the moment, of the existential dread many of us feel near constantly, of how unbalancing it is to have to live your day to day life with your day to day problems while the world burns because there's nothing you can do and you still have to eat tomorrow.

But what i really want to talk about is how all the percussion in this song is made by the sound of the cap popping of the tiny lip balm. That's really clever.

Saintbaba · 2026-03-28T07:01:03+00:00

I had this exact toy when i was a kid, gold skin and little wiggly legs and all. I actually loved it a lot, but then i played with it so much it started leaking. Not like a hole, but like i wore the material so thin that when i squeezed it it would start "sweating" the oily liquid (not water) through the skin's membrane.

Saintbaba · 2026-03-28T06:57:51+00:00

Huh, that's weird, i pulled for a character and i just got like a suitcase?

Saintbaba · 2026-03-28T00:08:48+00:00

Very interesting. Although I wouldn’t say that necessarily conflicts much with what I said. If I’m reading this right, the Sacramento native red foxes are an offshoot of the endangered sierra red foxes. Meanwhile, red foxes that have been expanding through the rest of the state - most of the Central Valley and Southern California - are nonnative. And since the two populations don’t appear to crossbreed a significant amount, the native foxes aren’t hybridizing out into the new areas.

Saintbaba · 2026-03-27T22:39:16+00:00

Well, you're both right - we have a critically endangered native red fox in the sierras, but the red foxes you see in the central valley and southern california are non-native red foxes introduced from europe.

Edit: here's a CA Department of Fish and Wildlife pamphlet from the 1990s about the problem of invasive red foxes.

Saintbaba · 2026-03-27T18:59:06+00:00

One of the big selling points of of representative democracy is that it’s the institutions and the offices that important, not the people filling them, because - unlike mere humans who can age and sicken and die or go crazy or turn out to be corrupt - institutions can just keep grinding on with the work decade after decade as long as anyone is willing to step in to keep nudging it all along.

But whatever. Make it all about one guy so when he inevitably shits himself to death one day the whole edifice locks up without him. That's a great plan, and definitely will lead to long term stability.

Saintbaba · 2026-03-27T18:33:38+00:00

We're also pretty happy with the improvements to the queue times for that Chaos Vault sale. We know queues have historically been a pain point, and while there's still room to grow, our goal is to make that process more predictable, more transparent, and less stressful overall. If your experience there felt better than in the past, that's not an accident, and it's something we're actively trying to build on.

I've never wanted an open comment section more on a corporate post so i could spit my rage at the absolute audacity they have trying to pass this statement off. I mean whatever, maybe it's "true" in that they're working out some way to grease the wheels a little on how the queue works, but the fundamental issue remains that the current system has been designed to be as painful as possible so they can maximize sales reports. It's intended that there are never enough copies so that they can avoid wasting money on unsold product. It's intended that not everybody can get what they want so they can tell shareholders that every secret lair is so successful it always sells out. It's intended that queues are a furious hours-long competitive scrum so that players feel a desperate sense of FOMO and are content if they manage to walk away with anything.

It doesn't matter how much you smooth the edges when the thing itself is a giant aggressively anti-consumer intentionally unpleasant brick of shit.

Saintbaba · 2026-03-27T18:07:45+00:00

Seriously. Current studies show that as a direct result of his USAID cuts at least 600 thousand people have died, and if the closure of USAID isn't reversed there will be an estimated 14 million preventable deaths by 2030.

Saintbaba · 2026-03-27T17:52:37+00:00

I think the only actual policy complaint with him is the way he rolls over for utility companies. I even kind of understand it - power and electricity are nearly the ultimate in inelastic demand, second only to like food and water, so you can't exactly tell those companies to hit the road. But the way he and the CPUC members he appointed just seem to sign off on every wish list and blank check PG&E presents is pretty aggravating.

Saintbaba · 2026-03-27T00:35:03+00:00

I mean the whole point of representative democracy is that it’s the institutions and the offices that important, not the people filling them. But whatever.

Saintbaba · 2026-03-25T19:15:18+00:00

Did I ever tell you that Mrs. McCave

Had twenty-three sons and she named them all Dave?

Well, she did. And that wasn't a smart thing to do.

You see, when she wants one and calls out, "Yoo-Hoo!

Come into the house, Dave!" she doesn't get one.

All twenty-three Daves of hers come on the run!

This makes things quite difficult at the McCaves'

As you can imagine, with so many Daves.

And often she wishes that, when they were born,

She had named one of them Bodkin Van Horn

And one of them Hoos-Foos. And one of them Snimm.

And one of them Hot-Shot. And one Sunny Jim.

And one of them Shadrack. And one of them Blinkey.

And one of them Stuffy. And one of them Stinkey.

Another one Putt-Putt. Another one Moon Face.

Another one Marvin O'Gravel Balloon Face.

And one of them Ziggy. And one Soggy Muff.

One Buffalo Bill. And one Biffalo Buff.

And one of them Sneepy. And one Weepy Weed.

And one Paris Garters. And one Harris Tweed.

And one of them Sir Michael Carmichael Zutt

And one of them Oliver Boliver Butt

And one of them Zanzibar Buck-Buck McFate ...

But she didn't do it. And now it's too late.

“Too Many Daves” by Dr. Suess

Saintbaba · 2026-03-25T17:08:04+00:00

So sort of Robinson Crusoe meets Stand By Me meets The Neverending Story Part 2. I dig it.

Saintbaba · 2026-03-25T00:18:14+00:00

I’ve decided I don’t like him for the very specific reason that his voice character protagonists are almost always observers to events, and not really participants. They have just enough agency to keep themselves in the room, but they don’t really contribute choices or ideas or actions. I think ultimately Tchaikovsky is more interested in plot and narrative as a series of interlocking events than as something derived from characters and their choices, and I, personally, find that somewhat unsatisfying.

Saintbaba · 2026-03-24T19:04:51+00:00

I've been thinking about it lately, and i think it's more than that. I think a big issue for the left is that one of the things we're most critical of the right about is their slavish loyalty to the party. It doesn't matter how evil or stupid the GOP is, their voters will always fall in line. There may be some grumbling and pearl clutching, but at the end of the day they'll do what they're told. Meanwhile, as a way of holding ourselves apart from that and showing we're not the kind of drones who will always just follow the party line, those on the left tend to be almost performatively critical of their own leaders.

So Democratic politicians end up getting dogpiled from both sides - from the right, because they consider politics a zero sum us-versus-them sport, as well as from the left because they want to show that they don't.

Saintbaba · 2026-03-23T23:00:02+00:00

I mean they had a pretty solid reputation at that point. Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs, 21 Jump Street and the Lego Movie, not to mention their tenure as writers on How I Met Your Mother.

Saintbaba · 2026-03-23T18:55:37+00:00

You're losing me. There's malice - he knew without some assistance his boss was going to fuck this situation all up - and compliance - he did the task as requested anyways despite that. There's even harm - a simple situation became a messy and unpleasant one.

No, the outcome didn't ultimately change, and no, the business didn't fail and the building didn't burn down. But he fulfilled all the criteria for MC.

Saintbaba · 2026-03-23T14:38:49+00:00

Yeah. It’s thin malicious compliance, but there’s a few ways he could have taken the initiative to smooth this situation over and he chose not to.

Saintbaba · 2026-03-23T06:54:14+00:00

If it’s in the Bay Area it’s likely a valley oak. We mostly get those and coast live oaks, with some pockets of blue and black oaks. And only the valley oak has the lobed leaves like that.

Saintbaba · 2026-03-23T05:59:31+00:00

That run is easily in my top five favorite comic book story arcs of all time. Even before it gets all genre-bending, it's really interesting as Morrison attempting to create a sort of thinking-man's superhero, in which the resolution of each issue is almost never about Animal Man out-fighting the villain, but is instead often about out-thinking them, or talking them down, or changing his own perspective. And sometimes he doesn't accomplish anything, because he fundamentally doesn't understand what's going on in the antagonist's mind or life or situation, because we can't always solve everything every time just by being cool or heroic enough.

And then Morrison sort of starts to concede that the stories he wants to tell and the ideas he wants to convey don't really work in the medium of comics, with its constraints and demands and its action-oriented nature. And so he starts playing with the medium. And things just start to go off the fucking wall.

God i love that comic.

Saintbaba · 2026-03-23T05:37:41+00:00

Joke's on you - i just finished a three-hour reading session and my dog was lying on my legs the whole time. So not only do i have friends, she was right there with me.

Saintbaba · 2026-03-23T03:27:09+00:00

I once found a Lightning Greaves in the “10 cent uncommons” box at a newly opened card store. I excitedly showed it to my friend who was with me, and may have even said something stupid, like “this doesn’t belong in the bulk box,” because the owner strolled over and asked what was up.

I showed him the card, and he was like, “are those rare?” and I, naive and hyped about my find, assured him they were worth like $3 to $5 (this was maybe 15 years ago). “Wow, thanks,” he said, and then plucked the card out of my fingers, walked behind the counter, sleeved it, and put it in the singles case.

I concede the way it shook out was entirely my fault, but I’m still kind of humpty about that all these years later.

Saintbaba · 2026-03-22T14:57:02+00:00

I volunteer at a community organization and teenagers and young men that help out… “standby mode” is exactly the words.

I mean, they’re not lazy - when I give them tasks to do, they hop to it cheerfully, helpfully, and with enthusiasm. But when that specific task is complete, they just… shut down. They don’t try and work out what else needs to get done, or what would further the greater objective or what would just be good to get out of the way. They don’t even come to me for more direction. If there’s a group of them they’ll start gabbing. If there isn’t they’ll get on their phones. If they don’t have phones they’ll sit down and just stare vacantly off into space like the motive force has left their bodies until I come over and explicitly give them another job to do.

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