Timewaster's Guide Archive
Departments => Movies and TV => Topic started by: EUOL on May 24, 2003, 12:25:10 AM
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I don't know how many of you know this, but Skar--our movie guy--has been off fighting (or preparing to) in the middle east since last July. I got an email from him saying he should be back by the end of the month.
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I was wondering why I hadn't seen any posts from him on the board for so long.
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Yay Skar! I wonder how long he'll be here before galloping off to another assignment.
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Probably a while, if his wife has anything to say about it.
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Hey. I'm back, as in, in the U.S.A., again. I just got my computer back on line (the phone line had been plugged into the ethernet socket) and thought I'd check out good old TWG.
I've randomly checked the site as I could over the last 10 months and been shocked and awed by the quality of KidKilowatt's movie reviews. I probably won't be able to contribute on anything like a regular basis for the next month or two but when I do finally get back in the groove I hope I'm up to the standard he's been setting.
On a minor note, I just read KidKilowatt's review of The Matrix Reloaded and I have to agree almost one hundred percent with him. I think if the brothers Wachowski had focused more on enriching the characters and plot, less on their attempt to make psycho-babble and high-school philosophy sound as mindstretching as the original question/answer did in the first movie, it would have been better. But they didn't and they won't, so turn your brain off and enjoy, right?
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Skar's back! Hooray! We'll have to throw a party in your honor sometime.
Since you mentioned Kilowatt's lauded reviews, let me give everyone an update on him (now that I've had a chance to talk to him). He left for two reasons, and they're not exactly the reason that we thought they were:
1) He's really busy with law school and doesn't have a lot of time to write.
2) Yes, he was bugged about my edits, but not as bugged as we thought. A much stronger problem is that he admits to having a very poor reaction when people disagree with him--he takes it too personally. He states, and I agree, that this is a dangerous quality in a reviewer, so he decided to save himself the headache and stop exposing himself to something he doesn't like. Now, some of you may think he's being over-sensitive, but I think it says a lot about a person when he can identify a weakness and take steps to deal with it. So we still love him, and he still loves us, but he won't be writing any more reviews for the time being. (Which is too bad because, as has often been remarked, his reviews are very good.)
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Actually, that's pretty much what I thought. And as I mentioned before, I have a lot of empathy for that.
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Well welcome back, Skar. You're just in time, too, as we seem to be down one movie reviewer.
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Indeed. Not to mention down a writing group member.
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I just had some dissapointing news. It appears that Skar's Betallion has been called up to serve for a year in Afganistan. Yup, that's right, he gets to leave for ANOTHER year. Apperantly, he got kind of a shaft, as his betallion commander knew that he and some others had just spent a year overseas, and didn't make any efforts to warn them of another tour or to find replacements for them.
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Isn't Skar a reservist? I thought they couldn't keep them on call that long.
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You can be called up forever if your a reservist.
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Holy Moses, that is the shaft.
I know Skar has been in the reserves for a long time, so this next comment doesn't apply to him. I was thinking the other day about the big enlistment increases post September 11, 2001, and about how those guys (and girls) feel about enlisting now. I'm sure they're still proud to be serving (no disrespect for the soldiers) but I just wonder how they feel about it now in a broader sense.
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Call me unpatriotic, but I was thinking about enlisting BEFORE 9/11, and after it was when I decided I was glad I hadn't.
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Skar told me that recruiting is down recently, since the war started. As for myself, I would never sign up during peacetime. All the things they do--the things Skar loves, like camping and shooting and digging and all that stuff--I absolutely hate. I don't even like camping with friends. I would have to seriously believe that the nation was in peril, and that my help was necessary, before I considered joining. What we have now seems less like a crisis and more like a simple need to increase soldier pay and benefits to entice more people into the military.
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Its more complicated than that. For instance I used to be attached to Coast Guard cutter Legare (270 foot ship). Our tour on a cutter is 4 years long. During each of those years I can expect to be deployed or on patrol about six months or more. My last year we were underway over eight months because our replacement Cutter the Bear threw the Maritime equivelent of a rod. Romoving a 100+ft main drive shaft is not an easy task. They were pier side more than a year (lucky them) and everyone took up their slack. With that much time underway inports weren't exactly fun either and 99% of our inport time was spent repairing or maintaining our cutter.
I was on Legare for 3 years before my speciality school ('A' school or MOS for you Army types) and underway 22 months. 22 months on a 270 foot boat with 100 + of your friends. I had a locker and the space under my bunk was just big enough for my clothes. Oh and my bunk was the bottom on in a set 3 high 6 feet long one and a half feet high and d on hinges so that when I wasn't in it I could put it agains the wall. Oh but I had a mini flurescent light so that made it all better.
I had a good time, even if it sounds like I didn't, but the married guys who got to see their kids for 4 months out of a year did not. Long deployments just murder morale, and cause more drinking and drug problems than youd imagine.
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yeah, you're not going to entice many more people in without a cuase, not just compensation. And not enough people feel strongly enough about the current cause to actually go and shoot people for it. But with Bush's objectives, I wouldn't be surprised if we see peacetime draft. Which would tick me off royally.
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It'd start w 18-25 year olds so youd be safe bud...
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I must again point out the election year. If it happened, it wouldn't come until 2005.
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Any speculations on the 2004 election, anyone?
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Tony Blair shall stand and become president of the US :|
(note - only american citizens who were american from birth (ie, not immigrants) can do that, so thats not gonna happen.)
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I have doubts and fears about all the candidates. I can rule out two candidates right now. Probably 2 or 3 others as well. The problem with me is I can't even decide who I *want* to win. i agree with one party (more or less) on foreign policy, and another (more or less) on domestic issues. So I have to decide what my priorities are, and how active the winner will be on the issues I don't agree with him on. Thankfully, I have a year to decide.
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Unless it's descovered that Bush totaly lied and made up everything, which he didn't, he's my man. None of the democrats currently running have said anything to intrest me as of yet. Especialy when every democrat has said that they'll raise taxes. Probaly so they can fund more studies into gay Native Americans. (http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,91973,00.html)
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You honestly believe that he wasn't aware of the information he says he wasn't aware of? I'm sorry, that ignorance is a little too convenient how it comes and goes. You can't tell me that no one in the CIA didn't try to say "uh, no, that's not what we said, Mr. President." Either he knew and was lying about the intelligence he had, or else his advisors knew and didn't tell him, which means he's not competant and is trusting the untrustworthy, and he needs to can them to show that we can remotely trust him.
Taxes go up in every administration. "No New Taxes" anyone? It's become an issue that I largely ignore when voting for a president.
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Uh Saint, bush just cut taxes.
And wth is up with your nutty congress, passign a bill to research gay indians. That democrat essentially said, "Its our jobs to randomly agree with whatever the experts tell us and to then throw money around and hope for the best".
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Yup, and they'll go back up. They always do. I don't hold myself accountable for every dumbass thing congress does either. Else I'd owe myself so many punches in the mouth that I'd be permanently bloody