I don’t even know what to say about this except strange:
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Open thread 8/3/21 — 40 Comments
At least the squirrel doesn’t insist on being called “Doctor” Jill.
Just got back from LA and SF. We are two countries. I don’t know how we will ever be reconciled.
In SF and LA, they just love their mask mandate. SF County has 70% vax rate for adults, but people are wearing masks. Sadly, my brother was double masked at the SF Giants game we went to.
At the Loyola Marymont University graduation (my son graduated from law school), I was one of maybe 100 men out of probably 20k who wore a coat and tie. I also refused to wear a mask inside SoFi stadium. Forty bucks to park; I walked the 2.5 miles.
Living in a big city is so difficult and expensive.
Saw the Hollywood Walk of Fame and it is a filthy mess.
Traveling is so, so painful. Twenty years after 9-11 and few improvements by the government. It is a giant jobs program. I saw a black woman felt up at the airport after the TSA went through her braids. We have to take off our belts and shoes.
American Airlines cancelled all sorts of flights out of DFW. It took me an extra day to get home. It was a giant deal to get a hotel voucher. People in Dallas didn’t. People were stuck for days.
Our airline transportation system is totally broken and the Secr. of Transportation does nothing but tout EV’s. Now we know why he took private jets during his failed campaign.
America is divided between the big liberal cities and the rest of the country. The problem is that the Dems can steal elections in those big cities and did so in 2020.
It is not just two movies on one screen. It is two Americas. It is two systems of law. I don’t begin to understand how liberals think and act these days. And I used to be a Dem!
I was in the TSA line at SFO. I had on my mask. I’m vaxed. Woman ahead of me has on her mask. She told me to move back. I told her I was vaxed. I kept creeping up on her.
We are being held hostage by germ nuts.
One school district in Omaha is requiring masks for K-6 kids. The other school districts in Omaha don’t. This is all insane.
I think finally… finally Cuomo is pretty much done. I don’t see how he gets out of this one. I mean, even CNN, his beloved brother’s employer, is actually reporting on this story. Though it’s clear that a powerful Dem governor can get away with mass geriatricide, I guess there still are some limits in our derranged system.
“We are being held hostage by germ nuts. ”
As I noted over a year ago, this Covid thing has generated the most amazing case of mass hysteria. And the mass mental illness was/is helped along by the Ds and the media. As Neo noted, it’s been a boon to them (and the Chinese). Now with the Delta bringing the nuttiness back just as we starting to turn around a bit, I don’t see this ever ending as long as the Ds control the government. How does one shake 150 million people out of their paranoia and psychopathy??
American Airlines cancelled all sorts of flights out of DFW. It took me an extra day to get home. It was a giant deal to get a hotel voucher. People in Dallas didn’t. People were stuck for days.
I gather American Airlines was using the weather as an excuse. One of their detractors pointed out that the number of flights cancelled by Southwest was < 1/10 th the number cancelled by American Airlines and that Delta cancelled no flights. He also said American Airlines employees were closing down service desks and hiding from the public. I'm wagering one of their competitors could use their plant, equipment, and workforce more efficiently than they could, so the next time they file for Chapter 11, liquidate.
None of this dysfunction has much to do with TSA, btw. TSA just makes the boarding process unnecessarily slow.
We are being held hostage by germ nuts.
Disagree. It’s an occasion for socially-sanctioned aggression, which pleases some people. Some time back, I heard a tale of a man who had accompanied some of his shirt-tails to an amusement park in Britain. One of the attractions there was a water-slide, and he’s there taking candid shots of his nephews careening down the water-slide when up comes a security guard who tells him he’ll have to leave. Three different women had come up to the security guard to complain about the man taking pictures of his nephews.
“We are being held hostage by germ nuts. ”
And panicky ones to boot. Over the weekend, a post appeared at a neighborhood website claiming that over 500 people were hospitalized with Covid in our midwestern city, and it was all the fault of “our idiot governor,’ presumably for not instituting mask or vaccination mandates. The number seemed awfully large to me, and i did a quick search. I found a local tv station reported that same day that the number of people in area hospital with Covid was actually 67, about an eighth of what my neighbor had claimed. (I would also note that being hospitalized with Covid is not necessarily the same things as being hospitalized for Covid).
Cornhead ~ I was one of the few in a suite with a nice crisp white shirt and tie for my granddaughter’s graduation from Highland Park High School in Dallas in May, I wondered what the heck is going on and I realize that it was about 50 years ago when I graduated from college and in those days we still dressed up. Damn hippies mess everything up.
Meanwhile in New York State, Old Andy C is in trouble and it appears as if his own party is ready to go full ‘Off With His Head’.
Old Texan:
I put up a post about that just a few seconds ago.
If you think the squirrel video is weird, please explain this. I think she’s AOC’s campaign manager, but could also be an aide to Jen Psaki.
NOT AT ALL MAKING HEADLINES is the largest COVID-19 outbreak in China since the pandemic began, this time because if the highly infectious Indian variant (so-called Delta force).
Gordon Chang tell us that it has reached half of China’s 31 provinces, and optimistically believes that it could bring down the CCP.
If you want to know what happens when you don’t learn after age two that the world doesn’t completely revolve around you, look no further than “neopronouns.” These are “personal” pronouns an individual chooses to express his “identity.” But don’t think this simply means an opposite-sex identity. That’s antiquated thinking — right out of 2019.
Rather, the New York Times provides a guide on the matter and asks, “Are you a person, place or thing?” before presenting neopronoun examples such as “bun/bunself,” “kitten/kittenself,” and “prin/cess/princesself.” Mine, at least right now, is besidemyself.
In case you think my current neopronoun is actually BabylonBeeself, know that this is a real story.
Duke’s article includes “a comprehensive list of neopronoun possibilities,” including “cat themed pronouns,” “robot themed pronouns,” “weather themed pronouns,” “spooky/horror themed pronouns,” “monster themed pronouns,” and “music themed pronouns.” I know that the headings in the list should be hyphenated, but the compiler of the list needs medical intervention rather than a copy editor. In any case, I have no intention of identifying as PA+Catself.
It appears to me that Mr. Squirrel has achieved the goal of our Marxist activists – a womb with a view. What could be better than a cushy life all paid for by a benevolent human? He may be a squirrel but he knows a good deal when he sees it.
J.J.–
The benevolent human will not be pleased that you misgendered her squirrel. “Mr.” Squirrel is a female that her human named “Jill.”
oops, my bad. 🙁
As to the American Airlines flight cancellations. I understand they are short of pilots. They misread the recovery. The airlines have to re-train any pilot that hasn’t flown for 3 months. They needed to put pilots in the training pipeline sooner than they did. They didn’t expect demand to ratchet up
so quickly. They are working madly to catch up.
PA+Cat:
Can you be sure how the squirrel identifies at this instant? Who is nuts after all when it comes to gender and squirrels? Let’s ask the Norsk Pony Gal? 🙂 😉 😉
@TJ:
Gordon Chang has been preaching the imminent downfall of the CCP since forever.
It’s how he earns his sordid little think tank crust.
Of course their rule will inevitably be overthrown one day… but wouldn’t be holding my breath. And I wouldn’t bet too much money on any successor being America-friendly or deciding to adopt the rainbow flag and go full-on pozzed Davos GloboHomo. Might be better off with the Devil We Know.
That said, the Delta outbreak in China is interesting because the flurry of activity happening now suggests that they did have Covid pretty much eliminated until Delta arrived. I’d never been quite sure I could trust the very low numbers reported there during the past 12 months.
I disagree with the memer (is that a word?), though. They’re setting up for the next round, which will be screeches of ‘You think BIPOCs can’t cook, you rayycissss’.
@sonnywayz:
You link to what is in effect iteration 6,789,432 of ‘Democrats are the Real Racists’.
We both disagree with the Memer, perhaps for slightly different reasons. But even Memers have to begin somewhere. Who knows… perhaps in a few months he’ll be plastering his memes with Kek and Soy Face NPCs! From a tiny mustard seed…
Government cracks down on moral cesspit dopamine pusher Big Tech.
“I wonder how our medal totals would be if we had an exclusionary immigration system which we have had for the last few years. My heart swells for all of our medalists, including those whose families have come from far off lands to love our country.”
Hopefully there’ll be something named after him with a sufficiently high and wide lintel when the worm finally turns.
From “Objectifying men; objectifying women” I flashed back to the ABBA hit, “Knowing Me, Knowing You.” Then onto an ABBA trawl, wherein I found this bizarrely humorous and wonderful gem:
ABBA is played by puppets from the Muppets team. The real ABBA members make cameos. Rik Mayall plays the unpleasant record producer. Cher shows up for no reason at all.
Then there’s the multi-splendored ABBA music, which lifts me in a way no other pop/disco does.
I have no idea what BeeGees fans are on about, but perhaps it’s in the vicinity of what I find in ABBA.
Hmm. The name ABBA is based on the letters of members. I wonder if they got the idea from the BeeGees.
huxley:
Apparently YouTube thinks that because I like the Bee Gees I will like ABBA, too. They keep suggesting the latter to me. I don’t like ABBA (although a couple of songs are pretty good). But in YouTube’s eyes (or ears, or rather algorithms) there must be a lot of overlap.
neo:
ABBA and the BeeGees have both sold ungodly numbers of records. Then there’s the disco connection.
@neo:
YouTube algo probably isn’t optimised for musical taste much beyond genre and popularity bins/clusters as Huxley implies.
Spotify lives and dies by its music recommendation algo, so would be interesting to listen to a lot of Bee Gees on Spotify and see what else it pitches at you.
I watched Russian Ark for the first time last night. Don’t know why it took me 20 years go get around to doing so — it’s been on an actual written down to-do list for years.
(Refreshingly Not Diverse, excepting one decorative be-turbaned liveried Blackamoor and some Groveling Persians :P)
Quite an achievement (apart from the human logistics of the single take) given the tech of the time. The cinematographer had to lug Steadicam and hard drive setup through a long walk and was pushing the boundaries of battery life and storage capacity in reaching the 96 minute mark Last year Apple did a 5 hour single take on one battery charge film using an iPhone in the Hermitage. Haven’t watched that yet. Here’s the trailer for it:
@ JJ “As to the American Airlines flight cancellations. I understand they are short of pilots. They misread the recovery. The airlines have to re-train any pilot that hasn’t flown for 3 months. They needed to put pilots in the training pipeline sooner than they did. They didn’t expect demand to ratchet up so quickly. They are working madly to catch up.”
Ah – that explains our unscheduled stop in a Charlotte motel last week-end, on our way home from vacation. They kept promising (for 2+ hours) crew members who never showed up (no reason given for the missing ones who must have originally been assigned to us). A pilot was apparently hurrying over to our gate after arriving from his last run, but by then (we surmise) we had reached the point where taking us up would make him exceed his allowed time at work by the end of the flight.
Or whatever the rules are now.
We had already boarded in anticipation, so we could zip away as soon as he signed in, so then we deplaned, stood in a very long line (at least 150 people on a full plane), rebooked for a 6 pm flight the next day, and took a vouchered taxi to the vouchered motel, got to bed at midnight.
Since our return was so late, we slept in, bought breakfast at the nearby grocery store, checked out and taxied back to the airport, saw there were two earlier flights (not offered to us; we were at the end of the line), and decided to see if we could get on stand-by.
Miracles do happen – we were selected for the 1:45 flight in the last few minutes before boarding started, and even got to sit together!
We happily discarded our meal vouchers.
Back-of-the-envelope calculation, even allowing for discounted rates from motels, cabs, and food joints (pretty sure on the first, maybe the second, possibly the third), a bumped flight has got to cost the airline more than $15K. Expensive miscalculations – unless you just let people tough it out on the airport terminal floors.
AesopSpouse has promised to never again chide me for packing over-night supplies & clothes in my carry-on “just in case.”
@ PA Cat “the humanoid in the TikTok video is berating us-folk for failing to get up to speed on neopronouns:”
Remind me again why Gina Carano got cancelled.
@ Zaphod – I watched the trailers – not quite up to a 5+ hour tour right now – those are amazing!
AesopFan–
I’m just glad that our gracious hostess hasn’t decided to identify as NeoPronoun.
AesopFan:
I won’t be watching the 5 hour Apple Effort in one sitting for sure! Downloaded it and will digest in chunks and fast forward through the boring dance bits (Sorry Neo).
What they don’t say is that while it was filmed on an iPhone they likely trucked in really a lot of unseen lighting equipment to give them a leg up. Usually when cinematography is done indoors using only available light (Kubrick and Forman come to mind) much ado is made of it.
But still, a decade back this couldn’t have been done. I must go research whether or not anyone has attempted this with a drone.
Sadly seems nobody has been doing Drone Racing inside the Hermitage.
There is this, though:
Past Glories at the National Museum of the USAF (Filmed indoors with a commodity COTS drone the US is no-longer capable of conceiving or manufacturing — and indeed which is manufactured by its No. 1 Geostrategic Adversary — pardon the endless harping):
Happened on an article a few months ago which said that squirrels were a major household pet here in the U.S. around 1900.
Gotta love squirrels. Spent many of my formative years on the wrong side of the Wallace Line where there are none. I love seeing them beachside in Bali. That’s about as near as they’re going to get to Koala Land.
Another thought. Perhaps I don’t know the BeeGees catalog well enough to say, but from both groups I get the feeling of pure, professional joy under the songs.
Which is not to say the songs are always happy or impersonal, but it’s not like listening to Lou Reed or the Doors either.
huxley:
The Bee Gees convey tremendous joy in the music itself. They love music so much, and it shows. In particular, watching them perform causes people to often say that listening to them and watching them makes those people feel so happy. This is true even for the sad songs, of which there are many.
This is a very typical reaction from some listeners (I’ve cued it up for just 3 minutes that demonstrate what I’m talking about), hearing the Bee Gees for the first time:
With the Bee Gees, their interviews are so funny, too, and charming. Most of the time they look like they’re having a great time as they sing. Their smiles could light up a room.
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At least the squirrel doesn’t insist on being called “Doctor” Jill.
Just got back from LA and SF. We are two countries. I don’t know how we will ever be reconciled.
In SF and LA, they just love their mask mandate. SF County has 70% vax rate for adults, but people are wearing masks. Sadly, my brother was double masked at the SF Giants game we went to.
At the Loyola Marymont University graduation (my son graduated from law school), I was one of maybe 100 men out of probably 20k who wore a coat and tie. I also refused to wear a mask inside SoFi stadium. Forty bucks to park; I walked the 2.5 miles.
Living in a big city is so difficult and expensive.
Saw the Hollywood Walk of Fame and it is a filthy mess.
Traveling is so, so painful. Twenty years after 9-11 and few improvements by the government. It is a giant jobs program. I saw a black woman felt up at the airport after the TSA went through her braids. We have to take off our belts and shoes.
American Airlines cancelled all sorts of flights out of DFW. It took me an extra day to get home. It was a giant deal to get a hotel voucher. People in Dallas didn’t. People were stuck for days.
Our airline transportation system is totally broken and the Secr. of Transportation does nothing but tout EV’s. Now we know why he took private jets during his failed campaign.
America is divided between the big liberal cities and the rest of the country. The problem is that the Dems can steal elections in those big cities and did so in 2020.
It is not just two movies on one screen. It is two Americas. It is two systems of law. I don’t begin to understand how liberals think and act these days. And I used to be a Dem!
I was in the TSA line at SFO. I had on my mask. I’m vaxed. Woman ahead of me has on her mask. She told me to move back. I told her I was vaxed. I kept creeping up on her.
We are being held hostage by germ nuts.
One school district in Omaha is requiring masks for K-6 kids. The other school districts in Omaha don’t. This is all insane.
I think finally… finally Cuomo is pretty much done. I don’t see how he gets out of this one. I mean, even CNN, his beloved brother’s employer, is actually reporting on this story. Though it’s clear that a powerful Dem governor can get away with mass geriatricide, I guess there still are some limits in our derranged system.
“We are being held hostage by germ nuts. ”
As I noted over a year ago, this Covid thing has generated the most amazing case of mass hysteria. And the mass mental illness was/is helped along by the Ds and the media. As Neo noted, it’s been a boon to them (and the Chinese). Now with the Delta bringing the nuttiness back just as we starting to turn around a bit, I don’t see this ever ending as long as the Ds control the government. How does one shake 150 million people out of their paranoia and psychopathy??
American Airlines cancelled all sorts of flights out of DFW. It took me an extra day to get home. It was a giant deal to get a hotel voucher. People in Dallas didn’t. People were stuck for days.
I gather American Airlines was using the weather as an excuse. One of their detractors pointed out that the number of flights cancelled by Southwest was < 1/10 th the number cancelled by American Airlines and that Delta cancelled no flights. He also said American Airlines employees were closing down service desks and hiding from the public. I'm wagering one of their competitors could use their plant, equipment, and workforce more efficiently than they could, so the next time they file for Chapter 11, liquidate.
None of this dysfunction has much to do with TSA, btw. TSA just makes the boarding process unnecessarily slow.
We are being held hostage by germ nuts.
Disagree. It’s an occasion for socially-sanctioned aggression, which pleases some people. Some time back, I heard a tale of a man who had accompanied some of his shirt-tails to an amusement park in Britain. One of the attractions there was a water-slide, and he’s there taking candid shots of his nephews careening down the water-slide when up comes a security guard who tells him he’ll have to leave. Three different women had come up to the security guard to complain about the man taking pictures of his nephews.
“We are being held hostage by germ nuts. ”
And panicky ones to boot. Over the weekend, a post appeared at a neighborhood website claiming that over 500 people were hospitalized with Covid in our midwestern city, and it was all the fault of “our idiot governor,’ presumably for not instituting mask or vaccination mandates. The number seemed awfully large to me, and i did a quick search. I found a local tv station reported that same day that the number of people in area hospital with Covid was actually 67, about an eighth of what my neighbor had claimed. (I would also note that being hospitalized with Covid is not necessarily the same things as being hospitalized for Covid).
Cornhead ~ I was one of the few in a suite with a nice crisp white shirt and tie for my granddaughter’s graduation from Highland Park High School in Dallas in May, I wondered what the heck is going on and I realize that it was about 50 years ago when I graduated from college and in those days we still dressed up. Damn hippies mess everything up.
Meanwhile in New York State, Old Andy C is in trouble and it appears as if his own party is ready to go full ‘Off With His Head’.
Old Texan:
I put up a post about that just a few seconds ago.
If you think the squirrel video is weird, please explain this. I think she’s AOC’s campaign manager, but could also be an aide to Jen Psaki.
https://tinyurl.com/39kcrpp7
NOT AT ALL MAKING HEADLINES is the largest COVID-19 outbreak in China since the pandemic began, this time because if the highly infectious Indian variant (so-called Delta force).
Gordon Chang tell us that it has reached half of China’s 31 provinces, and optimistically believes that it could bring down the CCP.
Too bad President Trump us not commander in Chief. He and SoS Pompeo would be sure to help this outcome along.
https://www.19fortyfive.com/2021/08/the-delta-variant-could-end-the-chinese-communist-party/
Paul in Boston– Selwyn Duke at the New American provides the Ariadne’s thread through this new linguistic labyrinth: the humanoid in the TikTok video is berating us-folk for failing to get up to speed on neopronouns:
https://thenewamerican.com/kittenself-neopronouns-are-newest-thing-among-the-totally-self-centered/
If you want to know what happens when you don’t learn after age two that the world doesn’t completely revolve around you, look no further than “neopronouns.” These are “personal” pronouns an individual chooses to express his “identity.” But don’t think this simply means an opposite-sex identity. That’s antiquated thinking — right out of 2019.
Rather, the New York Times provides a guide on the matter and asks, “Are you a person, place or thing?” before presenting neopronoun examples such as “bun/bunself,” “kitten/kittenself,” and “prin/cess/princesself.” Mine, at least right now, is besidemyself.
In case you think my current neopronoun is actually BabylonBeeself, know that this is a real story.
Duke’s article includes “a comprehensive list of neopronoun possibilities,” including “cat themed pronouns,” “robot themed pronouns,” “weather themed pronouns,” “spooky/horror themed pronouns,” “monster themed pronouns,” and “music themed pronouns.” I know that the headings in the list should be hyphenated, but the compiler of the list needs medical intervention rather than a copy editor. In any case, I have no intention of identifying as PA+Catself.
It appears to me that Mr. Squirrel has achieved the goal of our Marxist activists – a womb with a view. What could be better than a cushy life all paid for by a benevolent human? He may be a squirrel but he knows a good deal when he sees it.
J.J.–
The benevolent human will not be pleased that you misgendered her squirrel. “Mr.” Squirrel is a female that her human named “Jill.”
oops, my bad. 🙁
As to the American Airlines flight cancellations. I understand they are short of pilots. They misread the recovery. The airlines have to re-train any pilot that hasn’t flown for 3 months. They needed to put pilots in the training pipeline sooner than they did. They didn’t expect demand to ratchet up
so quickly. They are working madly to catch up.
PA+Cat:
Can you be sure how the squirrel identifies at this instant? Who is nuts after all when it comes to gender and squirrels? Let’s ask the Norsk Pony Gal? 🙂 😉 😉
@TJ:
Gordon Chang has been preaching the imminent downfall of the CCP since forever.
It’s how he earns his sordid little think tank crust.
Of course their rule will inevitably be overthrown one day… but wouldn’t be holding my breath. And I wouldn’t bet too much money on any successor being America-friendly or deciding to adopt the rainbow flag and go full-on pozzed Davos GloboHomo. Might be better off with the Devil We Know.
That said, the Delta outbreak in China is interesting because the flurry of activity happening now suggests that they did have Covid pretty much eliminated until Delta arrived. I’d never been quite sure I could trust the very low numbers reported there during the past 12 months.
Here we go again:
https://www.news.com.au/world/coronavirus/global/panicbuyers-raid-wuhan-shelves-as-covid-cases-hit-pandemic-ground-zero/news-story/531717db25ba0d8153651d54ff0c5d32
A couple of months back, I posted that BIPOCs would be scrubbed from trademark iconography, leaving only ytes.
Apparently, I’m not the only one thinking this:
https://i1.wp.com/www.powerlineblog.com/ed-assets/2021/07/Screen-Shot-2021-07-26-at-5.48.54-AM.png?resize=456%2C600&ssl=1
I disagree with the memer (is that a word?), though. They’re setting up for the next round, which will be screeches of ‘You think BIPOCs can’t cook, you rayycissss’.
@sonnywayz:
You link to what is in effect iteration 6,789,432 of ‘Democrats are the Real Racists’.
We both disagree with the Memer, perhaps for slightly different reasons. But even Memers have to begin somewhere. Who knows… perhaps in a few months he’ll be plastering his memes with Kek and Soy Face NPCs! From a tiny mustard seed…
Government cracks down on moral cesspit dopamine pusher Big Tech.
Sorry, not your Government:
https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/beijing-denounces-video-games-spiritual-opium-tencent-imposes-limits-teenage-players
Deep Thoughts from Low Testosterone Treacherous Turdbucket Exemplar of Reversion to the Mean:
https://twitter.com/JebBush/status/1422727600221343744
“I wonder how our medal totals would be if we had an exclusionary immigration system which we have had for the last few years. My heart swells for all of our medalists, including those whose families have come from far off lands to love our country.”
Hopefully there’ll be something named after him with a sufficiently high and wide lintel when the worm finally turns.
From “Objectifying men; objectifying women” I flashed back to the ABBA hit, “Knowing Me, Knowing You.” Then onto an ABBA trawl, wherein I found this bizarrely humorous and wonderful gem:
–ABBA, “The Last Video”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8L6T6Yj5u4k
ABBA is played by puppets from the Muppets team. The real ABBA members make cameos. Rik Mayall plays the unpleasant record producer. Cher shows up for no reason at all.
Then there’s the multi-splendored ABBA music, which lifts me in a way no other pop/disco does.
I have no idea what BeeGees fans are on about, but perhaps it’s in the vicinity of what I find in ABBA.
Hmm. The name ABBA is based on the letters of members. I wonder if they got the idea from the BeeGees.
huxley:
Apparently YouTube thinks that because I like the Bee Gees I will like ABBA, too. They keep suggesting the latter to me. I don’t like ABBA (although a couple of songs are pretty good). But in YouTube’s eyes (or ears, or rather algorithms) there must be a lot of overlap.
neo:
ABBA and the BeeGees have both sold ungodly numbers of records. Then there’s the disco connection.
@neo:
YouTube algo probably isn’t optimised for musical taste much beyond genre and popularity bins/clusters as Huxley implies.
Spotify lives and dies by its music recommendation algo, so would be interesting to listen to a lot of Bee Gees on Spotify and see what else it pitches at you.
I watched Russian Ark for the first time last night. Don’t know why it took me 20 years go get around to doing so — it’s been on an actual written down to-do list for years.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_Ark
Trailer:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZV1kphEEXn8
(Refreshingly Not Diverse, excepting one decorative be-turbaned liveried Blackamoor and some Groveling Persians :P)
Quite an achievement (apart from the human logistics of the single take) given the tech of the time. The cinematographer had to lug Steadicam and hard drive setup through a long walk and was pushing the boundaries of battery life and storage capacity in reaching the 96 minute mark Last year Apple did a 5 hour single take on one battery charge film using an iPhone in the Hermitage. Haven’t watched that yet. Here’s the trailer for it:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aLLsmJfvixM
The Whole Damn Thing:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=49YeFsx1rIw
@ JJ “As to the American Airlines flight cancellations. I understand they are short of pilots. They misread the recovery. The airlines have to re-train any pilot that hasn’t flown for 3 months. They needed to put pilots in the training pipeline sooner than they did. They didn’t expect demand to ratchet up so quickly. They are working madly to catch up.”
Ah – that explains our unscheduled stop in a Charlotte motel last week-end, on our way home from vacation. They kept promising (for 2+ hours) crew members who never showed up (no reason given for the missing ones who must have originally been assigned to us). A pilot was apparently hurrying over to our gate after arriving from his last run, but by then (we surmise) we had reached the point where taking us up would make him exceed his allowed time at work by the end of the flight.
Or whatever the rules are now.
We had already boarded in anticipation, so we could zip away as soon as he signed in, so then we deplaned, stood in a very long line (at least 150 people on a full plane), rebooked for a 6 pm flight the next day, and took a vouchered taxi to the vouchered motel, got to bed at midnight.
Since our return was so late, we slept in, bought breakfast at the nearby grocery store, checked out and taxied back to the airport, saw there were two earlier flights (not offered to us; we were at the end of the line), and decided to see if we could get on stand-by.
Miracles do happen – we were selected for the 1:45 flight in the last few minutes before boarding started, and even got to sit together!
We happily discarded our meal vouchers.
Back-of-the-envelope calculation, even allowing for discounted rates from motels, cabs, and food joints (pretty sure on the first, maybe the second, possibly the third), a bumped flight has got to cost the airline more than $15K. Expensive miscalculations – unless you just let people tough it out on the airport terminal floors.
AesopSpouse has promised to never again chide me for packing over-night supplies & clothes in my carry-on “just in case.”
@ PA Cat “the humanoid in the TikTok video is berating us-folk for failing to get up to speed on neopronouns:”
Remind me again why Gina Carano got cancelled.
@ Zaphod – I watched the trailers – not quite up to a 5+ hour tour right now – those are amazing!
AesopFan–
I’m just glad that our gracious hostess hasn’t decided to identify as NeoPronoun.
AesopFan:
I won’t be watching the 5 hour Apple Effort in one sitting for sure! Downloaded it and will digest in chunks and fast forward through the boring dance bits (Sorry Neo).
What they don’t say is that while it was filmed on an iPhone they likely trucked in really a lot of unseen lighting equipment to give them a leg up. Usually when cinematography is done indoors using only available light (Kubrick and Forman come to mind) much ado is made of it.
But still, a decade back this couldn’t have been done. I must go research whether or not anyone has attempted this with a drone.
Sadly seems nobody has been doing Drone Racing inside the Hermitage.
There is this, though:
Past Glories at the National Museum of the USAF (Filmed indoors with a commodity COTS drone the US is no-longer capable of conceiving or manufacturing — and indeed which is manufactured by its No. 1 Geostrategic Adversary — pardon the endless harping):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m4wLr8_Kaw4
“We are two countries.”
Prager on California (from Dec. 2020)
https://townhall.com/columnists/dennisprager/2020/12/22/the-sovietization-of-california-n2581951
Happened on an article a few months ago which said that squirrels were a major household pet here in the U.S. around 1900.
Gotta love squirrels. Spent many of my formative years on the wrong side of the Wallace Line where there are none. I love seeing them beachside in Bali. That’s about as near as they’re going to get to Koala Land.
http://faculty.jsd.claremont.edu/dmcfarlane/bio176mcfarlane/pdf%20papers/Wallaces%20Line%20_1944.pdf
Re: ABBA, BeeGees….
neo:
Another thought. Perhaps I don’t know the BeeGees catalog well enough to say, but from both groups I get the feeling of pure, professional joy under the songs.
Which is not to say the songs are always happy or impersonal, but it’s not like listening to Lou Reed or the Doors either.
huxley:
The Bee Gees convey tremendous joy in the music itself. They love music so much, and it shows. In particular, watching them perform causes people to often say that listening to them and watching them makes those people feel so happy. This is true even for the sad songs, of which there are many.
This is a very typical reaction from some listeners (I’ve cued it up for just 3 minutes that demonstrate what I’m talking about), hearing the Bee Gees for the first time:
With the Bee Gees, their interviews are so funny, too, and charming. Most of the time they look like they’re having a great time as they sing. Their smiles could light up a room.