So I finally got to see Interstellar this week. 
MY. GOD. SO EPIC. 
The ending is mind-blowing and all the feels - but the following sequence just blew me away and is the high point of the film for sheer edge of the seat thrills and "Oh my god he's not going to... SHIT HE IS!!!" 
Cooper: "Okay get ready to match our spin with the retro thrusters"TARS: "It's not possible!"Cooper: "No.. it's necessary"
And the MUSIC... Holy god the MUSIC... 
(Also - I know my space history, and right at that moment in the movie, it hit me that I knew WHY Nolan had named his hero "Cooper".
It has to be in honor of Gordo Cooper - the last man to go into space alone at the end of the Mercury program.
On the last 3 orbits of his flight EVERYTHING on his capsule failed electronically. No computers, no automatics, no fly by wire.He lined the capsule up and fired the retros MANUALLY and put it closer in the water to the Aircraft carrier than anyone else ever had.
Granted, Nolan's Cooper has help in the form of TARS and CASE. But GODDAMN... )

//player.vimeo.com/video/112284806Intersteller Docking from D Mcandrew on Vimeo.

Things I've learned from dating a trans-catgirl, by Tom Rutley:

1. There is a very good reason why the Senshi don't help you biomod your way out of Gender Identity Disorder without easing you into living as a girl first.

2. There is a difference between genderqueer and genderfluid, but if you ask your girlfriend's trans* support to explain precisely what it is the ensuing argument will take most of the rest of the evening and fail to reach a conclusion. (And don't even ask about agender.)

3. Yes, you will get hairballs, but the purring makes it all worthwhile. (No, I am not explaining in more detail.)

4. Your mum will take it better than you might expect.

5. A collar with a bell on as a gag gift is only funny once. (Even if I have to admit she looked really, really cute in it.)

6. Crude jokes about "eating pussy" aren't even funny the first time.

7. Buy shares in Dyno-Rod.

8. PMS and claws? Bad combination.

Things I've learned from dating Tom, by Barbara White:

1. The English really are that obsessed with tea.

2. Your cousin will fail to grasp the idea that being vaguely brown does not automatically make someone Mexican, and try to impress your boyfriend with authentic Mexican cuisine because she "thought you might like a taste of home". (It would have been a lot more awkward if Tom hadn't nearly peed himself laughing.)

3. Yes, he's half-Indian. As in the country India. Two borders away from the place we lost the huge-ass war in. (Have I mentioned I really, really hated growing up in rural Iowa?)

4. The NHS is fucking awesome. Seriously.

5. There are more English regions than London and the North, and people from those regions get cranky if repeatedly confronted by people who don't know this.

6. Just because you were in the RAF, it doesn't mean you can pull off a moustache.

7. The Elite fen really need a better faction name.

8. English people, and Europeans in general, are under the impression that "redneck" is a deadly insult. I don't know which country this says more about.

Or, at least, a 3D printout of the geophysical data.

Wired: http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2013-10/10/terrafab]Own a slice of Norwegian fjord thanks to Terrafab and 3D printing
--
Rob Kelk
"Governments have no right to question the loyalty of those who oppose
them. Adversaries remain citizens of the same state, common subjects of
the same sovereign, servants of the same law."

- Michael Ignatieff, addressing Stanford University in 2012

Okay maybe I don't NEED it. But boy do I WANT one! LOL!! ^_^
A Melting Toht Candle. 

•  Celebrate one of the greatest special-effects deaths in movie history
•  Wax replica of sadistic Gestapo agent Toht – spectacles, fedora n' all
•  Thankfully it melts a lot slower than his face does in the film
•  Doesn't emit a blood-curdling screech as it burns

I just saw an author comment that s/he/it was hoping that their fic would go down in Fanon as "the most Depressing fix fic".

So, I'll ask: Is there any other examples of Downer Fix Fic? Not anti-fix fic, a played straight fix fic that's just plain depressing.

Thanks
Luc "Stupid Questions" French

Mike Nichols, director, comedian, co-founder of the Second City, http://www.cnn.com/2014/11/20/showbiz/o ... topstories]has died suddenly.  In case you don't recognize the name, he's responsible for Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, The Graduate, Silkwood, and Charlie Wilson's War, just to name a few, and was one of the only people who have won the EGOT -- an Emmy, a Grammy, an Oscar and a Tony.
-- Bob
---------
Then the horns kicked in...
...and my shoes began to squeak.

... but now here's the first official trailer for the CGI Peanuts movie:
http://www.youtube.com/v/-XmV3zGifOE&ve ... tube_gdata
-- Bob
---------
Then the horns kicked in...
...and my shoes began to squeak.

The IRS is after the mayor of London (yes, the one in England) to pay US taxes. Maybe he should start a movement to declare independence from the American Empire in protest over taxation without representation.

Check out the following graphic. I want to know from anyone still playing STO - is this accurate?
Because Jesus Haploid Christ...
I'd been away for awhile (couple of months) and was holding off on playing until all the various bugs would be worked out and patches for stuff breaking would be done. It always happens that way and I didn't want to get frustrated. 
But now I think I'm just not going to be coming back, period. Goodbye STO. It was fun while it lasted.

It seems the obvious question. Is that how we're going to do characters? Are we going to do characters? Should the books be organized by era, theme, or both? (To the list of PDFs I would buy the hell out of, add a Weird War II supporting cast series on wartime supers.) The Deadly Dozen, the Harvey Banks "Appreciation" Society, the Supertemps All-Stars... the possibilities, as P.R. Honeycomb said, are fructifying.