The Syndicate

Mongoose wrote:
thellama73 wrote:I took an animal behavior course in college. (Natural science requirement, curse you!)
My first paper was on tool use in apes and ended with a dire warning that it had to be stopped unless we want a planet of the apes type scenario to play out.
Omygod why don't I have a copy of this?!

Berklee has music classes on there, by the way! We took a film class earlier in the year and it was brill. This winter has a Scandinavian Film class, which I am so excited about, since that's my favorite film industry.

I don't have a copy of it anymore, sadly. It died about five computers ago.

I took an animal behavior course in college. (Natural science requirement, curse you!)
My first paper was on tool use in apes and ended with a dire warning that it had to be stopped unless we want a planet of the apes type scenario to play out.

Mongoose wrote:There's a lot of heresy in this thread today.

No kidding. How does anyone not like Labyrinth? Jim Henson? David Bowie? What's not to love?

A Person wrote:I've also never watched the Simpons, but that is not a movie.

There is a Simpsons movie that is a movie, though.

"zuh" comes from a Simpsons episode and is my favorite expression of confusion.

A Person wrote:I am not an 80s kid and haven't seen either of those.

ZUH?!

A Person wrote:I've never had a smartphone either but mostly because I can't afford one.

Smartphones are very expensive in Finland.

Mongoose wrote: It's a Droid/iPhone game where you get two words and you and your partner try to both input the same third word.

SO far I have managed to resist societal pressure to get a smartphone. I only want to make calls on my phone. Nothing else. Sadly, I know a day will soon come when that will no longer be possible.

I have a prediction that in the future the word "phone" will lose all connotations with voice calls and that futuristic phones will actually lack that capability.

I did a mini M. Night Shyamalan marathon today. Watched The Sixth Sense and the Village. I don't care what anyone says, I like the Village.

Mongoose wrote:I have not heard of that, Matt.

Hey anyone: if you go to the 4th page of the members list, the whole page is gobbledy LOTR type names. What's up with that? I don't recognize any of the names.

Those were the anonymous accounts created for the Grimm's Fairy Tale Mafia. That was an awesome game.

A Person wrote:
Vompatti wrote:i already ate twice, what do i do now?
You shouldn't eat justg because you're bored k

Don't tell me what to do!

Vompatti wrote:i already ate twice, what do i do now?

Go out on the street and loudly guess the weight and age of passers by.

I'm not a big Zappa fan either, but you have to know who he is! He's a legend!

Mongoose wrote: You're too nice! Well it's sort of an obsession, so don't feel too badly! Have you seen Kansas City Confidential and Call Northside 777? The latter is on Netflix Instant. I assume you have seen The Naked City. It was so good I was probably crying at its goodness.

This one time I went to go pick up James from this place called Cafe Bohemia and he was like "Hey I think this guy might rival your film knowledge" and I was like "ORLY" and then this scallywag had never heard of New Wave. Loser.

Can't wait to see your rec, so I will report back when possible. James really wants to see it too, so we have to work it around his sched.

I agree that EGR is bees knees in Scarlet St.

There was something else I was gonna tell you but I forgot and will tell you tomorrow.

Naked City and Northside 777 are on my list of soon to watch. Haven't seen Kansas City Confidential.
Naked City is a pretty good avant garde jazz-type record by John Zorn though.

I'm trying to remember some of the classic movies the people I worked with hadn't seen. None of them had ever heard of Labyrinth or the Dark Crystal. We had a screening of Dr. Strangelove which no one had seen except me and one other guy, and everyone hated it. They thought it was boring.

None of them had ever heard of Frank Zappa.

Today's 20 year olds are idiots.

Mongoose wrote:
It is SO GOOD

Have you seen the foreign film it's based off of? I thought you mighta since you know so much about Russian culture. It's called Gentlemen of Fortune.

I didn't even know it was based on a foreign film.

STOP HUMILIATING ME WITH YOUR MOVIE KNOWLEDGE!
It's funny, because I've seen vastly more movies than 99% of people I meet, yet you still manage to make me feel ignorant. :P

Speaking of Noir, I watched Scarlet Street with Edward G. Robinson last night. A greater depth of emotional portrayal than I've seen from him, but a depressing film overall. Let me know what you think of They Drive By Night.

Mongoose wrote:
A Person wrote:I've never watched that.

I'm trying to decide what to do so as to avoid boredom tonight.
I am watching Face Off, the tv show.

Just turned out the living room light solely to please the cat.

I stand by my opinion that Face/Off the movie is incredibly good.

Mongoose wrote:Do any of y'all do food challenges? I do the spicy ones and we are friends with some dudes who do the quantity ones.

I'm usually up for a spicy food challenge, but I can't eat nearly as much as the people who do the quantity ones.

Mongoose wrote:How do you pronounce "Chuy's" anyway?

Everyone I know says it like "Chewy's"

Epignosis wrote:I downed a raw egg once with a beer. I didn't care for it.

The Clover Club is a nice cocktail involving raw egg whites.

Matt's is pretty good too:
http://mattselrancho.com/mattsmenu2.htm

Mongoose wrote: Llama - I think it may be - it's perhaps "fresher"? Lots of corn and veggies, even on the non-vegetarian dishes. Can you think of a chain that is representative of TexicanTexMex? Id like to see the menu.

It's been a long time since I was in Texas. I used to go to Chuy's a lot, but it seems they have grown a lot, now being a national chain with a more modern menu than I remember. I was shocked to see three whole vegetarian entrees!
http://www.chuys.com/

Mongoose wrote: I typically get something like colache or tofu enchiladas or tostada. Sometimes a salad.

Florida TexMex is extremely dissimilar to Texas TexMex, apparently.

How the heck do you manage to eat any TexMex at all if you are vegetarian? Do you just look the other way on all the grease/lard based frying?

Mongoose wrote:I want tacos. I wonder if I should pick up my husband from work and go get TexMex or MexMex.

TexMex > MexMex

A lot of people think that the Masters of the Universe figures were just a way to merchandise the cartoon, but really it's the other way around.

Mongoose wrote:
thellama73 wrote:
Mongoose wrote:I wish we could turn this thread into a podcast.
This would make an amazing podcast, you're right. I have been listening to old episodes of Ricky Gervais' radio show on youtube, and I keep thinking "I'm funny enough to do that!"
I'm reading the podcast book right now since you rated it so highly! It was actually making me laugh aloud, which is hard to do. I was actually tearing up from laughing so hard.

We need someone like Karl to roast to make our podcast complete.

Karl's mind is astounding. My favorite moment from him is when they asked him what one book he would take with him if he were to be stranded on a desert island for the rest of his life. He said "the dictionary" because he figured he would be talking to himself a lot and wanted to be eloquent about it.

Mongoose wrote:I wish we could turn this thread into a podcast.

This would make an amazing podcast, you're right. I have been listening to old epsiodes of Ricky Gervais' radio show on youtube, and I keep thinking "I'm funny enough to do that!"

Epignosis wrote:Are you on chess.com Logan?

No, I play on Gameknot.com.

Epignosis wrote:Good game sir.

Addendum: No, Mongoose. I was dead set on controlling a certain square that I placed my king in a position such that it compromised my queen. The resulting position pretty much did me in by that point.

I was cleaning up, up four pawns and a bishop. Then I made a stupid blunder and let him take my queen and it was all over.

Mongoose wrote: Help me think of 5 HILARIOUS coffee shop names

Movie titles that could also be coffee shops:
Grindhouse
Sleepless in Seattle
Meet Joe Black
Mr. Bean
Rush Hour

Mongoose wrote:
thellama73 wrote:
Epignosis wrote:Honey, please get a new job at a place with less weirdness, like at a haunted house.

It won't make any difference. I've known her for ten years and this sort of stuff follows her around.
I wish it didn't, but you are absolutely right. My apartment is 100% completely not haunted though. Well there's a Murphy bed that may/not be haunted. Come and try it out and then tell me if you think it's haunted. (Everyone that sleeps on it has really bad dreams and Pipecleaner won't sleep there).

I've been interviewing like crazy this summer, at increasingly banal places that are sure to be rid of crazies, lazies, spooks and crooks.

Also, yay for 10 years of friendship!

Do you know, for a little while I was convinced you were a pathological liar because all the crazy stuff that happens to you sounds so improbable it must be made up. I no longer think that though.

Epignosis wrote:Honey, please get a new job at a place with less weirdness, like at a haunted house.

It won't make any difference. I've known her for ten years and this sort of stuff follows her around.

A Person wrote:The Baader-Meinhof Phenomenon?

Related, but that phenomenon is easily explained by the fact that we tune out things we haven't heard of but are more likely to notice after you've just learned it.
Mine involves simultaneous occurrences, which is less easily explained. I think it is related to Jung's idea of synchronicity.

Mongoose wrote:
thellama73 wrote:Do you guys ever get that thing where you're listening to the radio or TV and you happen to read a word at the exact same time you hear it spoken? That just happened to me with Cloud Atlas, and they were not even talking about the book or the film, but an actual atlas of types of clouds. It kind of freaked me out.
yes! that seems to happen to me fairly frequently (like once every other month or so, which is kind of a lot). When it's more obscure, it's even more unsettling. There's a french word in Cloud Atlas that I had never heard of (it's a music-related job) and the day I watched it was the first day I had heard of it, right? Then I started reading Anatham that night and it had the same word in it.

I feel like it happens to me a couple of times a day, but usually not with such obscure references.

Do you guys ever get that thing where you're listening to the radio or TV and you happen to read a word at the exact same time you hear it spoken? That just happened to me with Cloud Atlas, and they were not even talking about the book or the film, but an actual atlas of types of clouds. It kind of freaked me out.

Epignosis wrote:I want to play chess with somebody.

And people in Hell want ice water.

How do you not close your eyes when periodicals are falling at your face?

Mongoose wrote:Vompers kicked my butt earlier.

I'm up a bishop at the moment, but I can't help feeling it is all part of his plan.

Vompatti wrote:Does anyone play chess here? I desperately want to play chess.

I play on Gameknot.com as thellama73, if anyone wants a game. I am not too good, though.

Vompatti wrote:I can't let them in because there are always two of them and I only have one chair.

For some reason this strikes me as incredibly funny.

Vompatti wrote:
thellama73 wrote:
Mongoose wrote:
thellama73 wrote:What about The Tallamud? My epic philosophical treatise on the Way of the Llama? Mongoose features prominently in it.
Oh my GODDDD yes. I was thinking about that the other day, but I didn't think you'd still have a copy of it!
For a while I was translating it into blank verse, but I got bored and gave up.
It's really long k

What did you think I meant by "epic"?

Mongoose wrote:
thellama73 wrote:What about The Tallamud? My epic philosophical treatise on the Way of the Llama? Mongoose features prominently in it.
Oh my GODDDD yes. I was thinking about that the other day, but I didn't think you'd still have a copy of it!

For a while I was translating it into blank verse, but I got bored and gave up.

Okay, I sent you a couple of submissions to mull over.

What about The Tallamud? My epic philosophical treatise on the Way of the Llama? Mongoose features prominently in it.

I write lots of things. What are you looking for Vomps?

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