Dreambiscuit

As the title says, what did your postal delivery folks bring you today? A bunch of bills? Something fun or interesting? Let’s make a big deal out of this and talk about today’s mail.

I certainly hope it’s coming to an end! But it’s too much to hope for. Sites like Facebook and Instagram seem to be more interested in how fast they can cancel active accounts, with or without any reason. I guess they don’t want the business. Many others are just too hard to understand; if they aren’t intuitive enough to navigate and use, no one’s gonna use ‘em. Youtube is a wasteland because they keep a stranglehold on everything; they won’t allow any negative votes and want to control interaction. No one can communicate in that kind of environment. Most forums like MLPF are gone; maybe this format is out of style or whatever, which is unfortunate because it works. But many such forums failed because they either keep too tight a rein on members, or not tight enough. Everything is about control, and people are changing the channel.

I do enjoy a well-written villain with an interesting story, but I’ve seen way too many characters who are just plain crap being treated like they’re just poor little victims and everyone else is to blame. Modern movies portray so many characters like this because they think being dark is so cool and being good is not, and they glamorize the dark side like something to be embraced while falsely twisting the rest of society around to feed this delusion. Bad writing is one thing, but irresponsible writing is quite another. I don’t like either, but the latter is far worse and grossly prolific these days. I have no use for it.

While I’m fairly dubious when it comes to Looney Tunes movies, considering their less-than-stellar track record, I am intrigued by seeing a 2D animated feature, so maybe I’ll give it a whirl if I get the time.

I love every song in Muppet Christmas Carol, but I’ll go with One More Sleep Till Christmas and When Love is Gone. Paul Williams is the best writer of Muppet songs and most of the best songs are in Christmas Carol, hence my choices. Rainbow Connection is also pretty hard to beat, so it obviously has to make the list.

Strike Witches. This show is so gratuitous, but hey, whatever gets it done. It's silly but easy enough to watch.

Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer and most of the early Rankin Bass productions are high on the list. I remember Davey and Goliath being pretty good too.

Linus all the way. Snoopy may be "Man's best friend" according to the rule book, but let's face it, he's a little turd. And entertaining little turd, but a turd nonetheless.

I assume this is in reference to video games as opposed to board games. As far as video games are concerned, my first were Super Metroid and Soldiers of Fortune for SuperNES.

Outland (1981) Starring Sean Connery as the only law on a mining outpost on Jupiter’s moon, Io, this is a pretty decent movie with a good story and sense of fun. Connery has to stop the distribution of an illegal drug which is used to maximize productivity in the outpost’s miners, at the ultimate cost of their sanity. The cast is good, the script is good and it’s well directed. I’m surprised that Peter Hyams was never tapped to do a movie for the Alien franchise. He would have done a lot better than David Fincher (Alien 3), who effectively destroyed it. It had been years since I saw Outland and I had forgotten how solid it was. 7.5/10 The Rocketeer (1991) An absolutely perfect movie. Director Joe Johnston clearly cared about what he was making and paid attention to every detail. He put together a mini classic that went under the radar with most audiences. I’m glad to have this movie among my list of favorites. 9/10 Muppet Treasure Island (1996) After Muppet Christmas Carol, Brian Henson had a good vision of what the future of the Muppet franchise might become, and this movie had the same beautiful cinematography and style to add to that burgeoning concept. Unfortunately this movie fell dramatically short of expectations. Brian Henson started off with some of his signature directorial touches that made Christmas Carol such a masterpiece, but while he had total confidence and command of that movie, he seemed distracted and uncertain with Treasure Island. The songs were competent and even solid, but nothing that could compare with Paul Williams’ line-up of perfect songs that came before. He would have improved this movie had he returned to write the songs. The humor was hit-and-miss and, while harmless, lacked sufficient charm to put this movie into the higher echelons of great moviemaking. A good idea indifferently handled. 4/10 Gladiator 2 (2024) It was alright, at least as good as the first Gladiator movie. It was reasonably well made, for Ridley Scott, and it kept me interested without going off track too far. The action sequences were better than the first movie, having less bullet-time nonsense, and the characters were engaging. *Spoilers ahead* Denzel Washington played a complex character with more going on than what initially appeared as a mere trainer of gladiators; he had a much loftier ambition. But what perplexed me was the fact that this ambition was literally seconds from fruition when he essentially sabotaged his own long-standing and well-orchestrated plans. He inexplicably threw away all his subtle maneuverings for power by jumping the gun and killing everyone, making himself the badguy rather than putting the blame on others while taking control and favor in their stead. This seemed out of character considering all that had happened up to that point. The main character, Lucius, was lauded as having such success in the arena due to his rage, but he was about as raging as a fleecy snowflake. He was strong but very laid-back, even in his fight scenes, but that’s a minor issue. I still liked his character. So, all things considered, I did enjoy this movie enough to give it 7.5/10 Keeping Up With the Jonses (2016) I was surprised by this gem of a comedy about suburbanites dealing with a pair of super spies moving in next door. The comedy is tight, well-directed and subtle when it needs to be. A refreshing and fun movie on many levels. 7.5/10

I love the soundtrack for Your name/Kimi no na wa. Radwimps put together a great lineup and I could listen to it every day. It's not even my favorite style of music, but for whatever reason, it works.

The term is used erroneously. It was never intended to be used as a descriptor of disgust, but, in my opinion and belief, something that makes someone wince with embarrassment or discomfort at something that goes too far in one direction or another.

I joined in April of 2016, and I’m not leaving till I’m dragged away by the hooves.

I haven’t created my own country, but I have created, so to speak, an alternate world. It’s very detailed and populated by many wonderful inhabitants that defy description. I’m not the ruler of this world but just a happy inhabitant, and it’s been a major part of my life for many years. I also create small places within this (‘real’) world, in my imagination and even on paper, that represent my own idealized versions of things that are real but have become less desirable than they should be. So I have my own worlds and places, if not specifically ‘countries.’

I’d be a Pegasus, because I must be able to fly. Flying is the greatest gift I can imagine and I wouldn’t trade it for all the magical abilities in Equestria.

I’m fine with the onset of spring. I’ll get extreme hay fever allergies for a while, but here in SoCal we get beautiful Jasmine flowers blooming everywhere and the scent is intoxicating! It’s the most beautiful smell in the world. Definitely worth a few sniffles here and there.

Eggs over-easy, with bacon and sourdough toast. If you want to toss some western hash browns on the side I won’t complain, I promise.

I like Monopoly as board games go, especially the variant versions like Star Wars or Indiana Jones. I love D&D but I don’t really think that qualifies as a board game. As for card games I like Crazy Eights, and I seem to remember playing War and liking it pretty well. Hey, isn’t Trivial Pursuit technically a card game AND a board game? I’ll go with that one as well, just because I CAN!

She would be in high demand as bellows for making fires.

She’d probably learn to walk backwards and carry out her daily activities in reverse, acting all the while like nothing was wrong (and trying not to stare at all the other ponies going in the wrong direction!)

I’m a lightweight in this category, although there have been many situations where I would love to really unleash some delicious possibilities. But in my small way I used to draw sarcastic little comics and anonymously posted them on the employee bulletin board at work. The characters were thinly disguised caricatures of certain coworkers who had it coming. No names were used but if they could recognize themselves in the artwork they got the point I was making. There was another time when I was much younger and less disciplined, involving a certain (harmless) additive to someone’s coffee, but I’m not going to give details because it wasn’t nice and it’s never wise to potentially tamper with someone’s bodily systems. I regret it and strongly advocate against that sort of thing now. But passive aggression as a rule, yeah, let's party.

I’m most like Rarity I think. I may not be as stylish as she is, but I do appreciate style as a rule and she’s one classy pony, which is something I like and hope to imitate.

The things that stand out to me, and I don’t know if this qualifies as ‘cringe’, but here they are: Deleting Derpy for several seasons over absolutely nothing (we all know the story), changing her voice, and to this day referring to her as ‘Muffins’ in the show credits. When Magical Mystery Cure came out, everypony complained about Twilight getting wings. I mean, so what? So she’s developing along with the show and not stagnating endlessly. Some fans got absolutely furious about it. That stuff is cringy to me.

I like the activity here. It’s almost impossible to find an online forum anywhere that’s still active and healthy like this one. There are new members joining all the time, and lots of old friends here as well. I love that necro-ing of old threads isn’t pointlessly discouraged as is often the case in many forums. I love that there are new threads also introduced on a regular basis, without being arbitrarily locked. The staff here is excellent, attentive and friendly. Lots to like here.