Jenksismyhero

QUOTE (Tex @ Oct 2, 2013 -> 10:11 AM) I agree. But wouldn't you agree that Perry would have an easier time in the GOP primaries and Christie would have an easier time in the general? I see Christie being described as a Rhino all the time. That doesn't play well with the Tea Party types and the solidly right of center. Oh for sure. That's why the GOP is screwed unless the national party works the system to basically give those extreme voters no choice in the primaries. Not going to happen, but that's what conservatives have to hope for.

QUOTE (Tex @ Oct 2, 2013 -> 10:00 AM) If I am a prominent Republican with a federal position and with presidential goals, I would be trying to find the very fine line between willing to compromise (gain moderate votes in the general) and not caving in to the President (to win the nomination). That is an almost impossible task. Which I think is why the current governors have a better shot at 2014. They can position themselves and say "we're not part of the gridlock and shut down". Nice position for a reinvented and more ready Perry and a slimmed down Christie. I think their chances go way up the longer this drags on and the longer incumbants have to garner negative attention. Perry is way too extreme. Christie would be a great candidate IMO because he's an actual conservative but not crazy. And the Hurricane Sandy stuff showed he's not going to put stupid party politics over getting s*** done, even when that means *gasp* working with a Democrat.

I have a 360 and couldn't get past the race car queue at the very beginning. 8 of my friends were in the same boat. I don't think it worked for anyone last night.

QUOTE (Chilihead90 @ Oct 1, 2013 -> 10:37 PM) Watched the premiere of this season of Homeland. It was fantastic. Most of the scenes with Quinn were too predictable, but Quinn is such a badass. I really enjoyed it as well. It's not on the BB level, but I think it's probably the best drama on right now. Saul is awesome.

QUOTE (Soxbadger @ Oct 1, 2013 -> 05:15 PM) So you are comparing someone stealing to someone dumb? Which is it, youre argument is all over the place. On one hand you say they are dumb peons, then you are comparing them to someone who is breaking the law?? Since when is being dumb a crime? As for the bolded, many attorneys are idiots and its insulting that Im in the same group as people who are so stupid. Even if the clerks are the dumbest worst people in the world, it seriously helps your client/firm to make them like you. The fact that many attorneys can not even grasp this simple concept shows how dumb of a profession it is. Id bet that your firm is located in the suburbs, probably Dupage if I had to guess. (edit) And this really isnt against you, I dont know you, you could be the nicest person in the world (well probably not as nice as me, but Im kind of ridiculous j/k j/k), but it just annoys me when people make these grand sweeping statements about public employees. I'm saying you can make a sad excuse for anyone to act a certain way, that doesn't make their bad work any better. If your engineer guy still sucks at his job and is mean to people and/or doesn't care about doing what he's doing, he's a bad employee, regardless of his back story. I don't get why you'd jump to attorneys are assholes and therefore created the idiots working in the building. I'm not from Dupage, I work downtown and I've been in the Daley center 3-4 days a week for 5 years. This isn't me complaining about the DMV having dealt with a DMV once every 10 years. This is my opinion from going to that file room twice a day for a year or two, and probably a few times a month since then. And my experience with people at the Daley center is the same as going to the assessor's office or the treasurer's office or anywhere where the person i'm dealing with could give a crap about me because they don't need my business.

QUOTE (Soxbadger @ Oct 1, 2013 -> 04:53 PM) First of all it presupposes that all resources we use today are the same resources that we will use tomorrow. Thats like saying at the turn of the 19th century the Middle East was always going to be worthless because all it had was sand. Also its already happening. Factories move to where cheap labor is. Its why factories moved across the sea from England to the US (it was cost of labor and lax labor laws more than raw materials) as the US had FREE LABOR called slaves. Thus it was far cheaper to pick cotton in the US and ship it back to England than pick cotton closer. When the US began to industrialize you began to see labor move to cheaper places, Mexico, China, because once again, cheap labor. So it only stands to reason that as China/Vietnam and the rest of the East industrialize, as labor becomes more expense, you will see a shift to the last bastion of cheap labor, Africa. You dont need special resources to open sweat shops to make Nikes, you just need to find a place where the standard of living is so low that $1 a day is a good wage. I think you're presupposing that technology won't become advanced and cheap enough here at home where the need for cheap labor, and the cost of shipping goods to/from Africa, will no longer exist.

Anyone been reading this story? http://jalopnik.com/biker-at-start-of-terr...ampaign=tuesday Basically hundreds of bikers surround a Range Rover with a guy, his wife and his 2 year old in it in NYC. The video looks to me like a biker gets in front of the RR and purposefully brake checks, causing the RR to hit it. The hundreds of bikers stop all traffic and allegedly open up the car door (can't see that in the video). The driver of the RR speeds off, hitting a couple of motorcyclists in the process, seriously injuring one to the point that he might be paralyzed and is in a coma. The motorcycle gang then chases the RR for a half hour (RR guys calls the cops by the way...they don't help), eventually catch up to him in traffic, bust up the car and beat the s*** out of him. Luckily they found the asshole responsible for the original brake check that started this whole thing. Not sure if they've arrested the guy(s) that beat up the driver. Pretty tough to blame the RR driver here. I think if I were surrounded by a gang of motorcyclists like that, with them trying (or succeeding) in opening up my door, I'd speed away too.

QUOTE (Soxbadger @ Oct 1, 2013 -> 04:39 PM) Ive been going to the Daley Center since 2003 and know most of the clerks on 6-8 by name (not judges clerks, the people who you pay to file cases etc) The supervisor on 6th floor (Mike) knows me by name. Back when global filing began I used to file all my cases on 12th floor (probate) and knew Melissa and Kiran very well. I can remember the first day Melissa began working there, ha. So one day Im standing there when some attorney comes in and just starts berating Melissa. She starts crying because this lady is just going off on her. Eventually the lady leaves. A few days later when Im there Melissa asked me to speak with her supervisor because of the complaint. Basically the supervisor etc were going to suspend her for nothing. I had to explain that some crazy ass b**** just went off on her for nothing. The other attorney was kind of a big deal so it was a huge complaint because the attorney flat out lied about what happened and said that Melissa refused to help her because her client was Jewish. And the peon Kiran, well he used to be an engineer in India and paid for his children to go to some pretty amazing US schools. He gave up a lot to give his children a better chance in this country and its pretty sickening the way many attorneys would treat him. I guess maybe they arent as stupid as you think and they can tell your disdain? Lets be honest, working with people isnt something everyone is good at. I'm sure if you break it down everyone has an excuse. We had a billing clerk that would write checks to herself and stole a bunch of money from our firm. When she was caught she explained that she was just doing it to feed her kid. She was a good person, right? Everyone in my office and most of the other attorneys I work with at other firms have this conversation about the Daley center frequently. We were the clerks/young attorneys tasked with filing before being able to work as real attorneys. I'm clearly the biggest asshole in the city and treat people accordingly, but not everyone I know in the business is, so i'm confident that your experience there is a rarity.

QUOTE (Soxbadger @ Oct 1, 2013 -> 03:16 PM) I bet there was a DukeNukem back in 16th century telling people why they should not invest in the "colonies". I mean they were so far behind the rest of the world, no way they would ever catch them. Oh wait... Simple economics, eventually Africa will become the cheapest source of labor etc. It may be the last to experience rapid industrialization, but when it does, it likely will have the benefit of having the best new technologies which should allow it to quickly bridge the gap. Same thing happened in the US. When industry came to the US, they had to build new factories. Those factories were newer and better than their European counterparts, thus the US experienced a rapid transformation. Unless your insinuating that for some unknown reason Africa wont develop. Which is kind of odd considering that Egypt developed before Europe... Africa doesn't have the resources the world demands like the US did back in the day. And those resources they do have (mining in particular) have been gobbled up by so few companies that there's no major need for the entire continents population to be displaced in favor of new immigrant workers.

QUOTE (BigSqwert @ Oct 1, 2013 -> 03:22 PM) Sorry you're wrong. Jenks' anecdotal evidence is proof that public employees are worthless. Well, you're clearly a public employee because you can't read!

QUOTE (Soxbadger @ Oct 1, 2013 -> 02:52 PM) Disagree. Most of the clerks at the courthouse will bend over backwards for me. But then again, Im a nice person and I go out of my way to be appreciative and understanding. They talk with me, ask me how my cases are doing, theyll call my case first if I need to go somewhere, hold it last if I have to be in another room. Clerks, DMV, etc, have to deal with unreasonable jackasses all the time. Unlike a private business they cant just say "get the f*** out", so sure, sometimes they are in a bad mood, they are slow or they are dicks. Same thing happens at a private entity. If you believe that there is some sort of difference between private/public people, I really dont know what to say. People are people. You just dont ever walk into my office and have to deal with the idiots answering my phones, so you dont know that they are worse than a public employee. But then again, I get along with all the people who work at the food places around my business. Service industry is s***ty work. Youd be surprised how far being nice goes. Yes, SB, it must be because you are nice and I'm a dick to these people. That's the only explanation. Perhaps my error was calling them dumbasses before explaining what I need. I'll stop doing that from now on. I'm not sure what division and courtrooms you work in, but the Daley center is FILLED with workers as dumb as posts who could give a s*** about their job or helping people out. Yes, there are a few diamonds in the rough over there, but as a whole, it sucks dealing with those people. I'm not talking about judges clerks (though they're not all perfect either), i'm talking about the actual peons working in the various clerk offices - the 8th floor, the archive room, anything underground. They're the people that do work that a computer can do but because they're public employees and part of the union the county/city have to continue to pay them to be data entry clerks. It's a similar issue with people over at City Hall. And no doubt they have to deal with s***ty people and that probably puts them in a bad mood sometimes. But bad moods are temporary. Being an idiot is not. Also i'm glad you completely ignored what I said (referring to the bolded). Almost word for word I admitted that in my post.

I'm not going to support Duke here, but I will say that there are far more s***ty public employees than private employees out there that i've encountered in my day to day life. Ultimately that means nothing as a worker can be s***ty regardless of his employer, but having to deal with clerks at the courthouse or the treasurers office or the like is an exercise in patience. And I do it on a near daily basis. That, and i've had my fair share of litigation involving public constructions workers (various City Departments, road construction crews, etc.) being complete morons. "What's that? We're digging up a water main right near a live electric line? Nah f*** it, let's dig!" Add to that the difficulty the government has firing public employees versus private employees, and you get the stereotype that Duke is referring to.

QUOTE (Y2HH @ Oct 1, 2013 -> 01:15 PM) I don't know if dying alone was ever in his plan. Also, it was VERY important to him that HE be the one to provided for his family. If you recall early on, Walt outright refused help from those rich ex-friends of his, whether they screwed him over at some point or not, he didn't want their help financially, in ANY regard, even for himself. And now, it's those same rich ex-friends that will get credited with helping his family in the future, the LAST people he ever wanted help from. While he died knowing HE provided for them, his family will think otherwise. So, it didn't happen quite the way he imagined, or wanted. I think it was pretty obvious that he knew that was a suicide mission. He wasn't coming back. And the money was still as a result of his work, both in cooking the meth and coming up with a plan to get that money to his family, so it's still a win for him. I don't think he was concerned with getting credit for it. That ship had sailed a while ago and he knew that.

QUOTE (Y2HH @ Oct 1, 2013 -> 12:57 PM) He didn't die on his terms. His terms was for Jesse to kill him. Jesse refused. Instead, Walt died slowly of a gut shot gun wound delivered by himself...alone in a lab. I'd like to highlight the word alone. OK, so he got everything else but the death he wanted. That was easily the least important on the list since he was going to die anyway.

QUOTE (Y2HH @ Oct 1, 2013 -> 12:03 PM) I don't really see it as a "Walt wins" situation, at all. He lost his family, had to say goodbye to the daughter that cannot even understand him/will never know him, and he wasn't even able to say goodbye to his son, or explain anything to him. He also admitted that as Heisenberg, he was 'alive', and liked life, while in contrast to his former self, who he didn't even like being. I don't think it was as clean as people are saying. It tied up loose ends, but the ending was tragic, and what happened to everyone in his life along the way was also tragic. From the beginning, Walt was dead, either way, either from cancer or from this. This took his family from him, and his image to his family. It killed numerous people, etc... How anyone claims this was a win, or clean, I don't think is really thinking about it. This story was classically a retelling that the road to hell is paved with good intentions. In the grand scheme he got a nice send off, not that it was all clean or hunky-dory at the end. Had the show ended an episode earlier, THAT would have been the great tragic ending. He gets a member of his family killed, most of his money he earned through this illegal enterprise is stolen and what he has left is basically worthless since he can't give it to his family, his family hates him and his wife took a knife to him, his baby doesn't know who he is, and he's shipped off to a remote cabin to spend out the rest of his days in isolation, slowly dying from his cancer. Instead he gets to scheme yet another perfect plan that allows him to (1) provide for his family with the drug money that is no longer worthless, (2) exact revenge on his enemies and let his baby (his product) die with him, (3) patch things up at least a little with his wife, (4) be the "good guy" in saving Jesse, and (5) die on his terms. I'd call that a pretty good way to go in comparison to how it could have ended in NH.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Oct 1, 2013 -> 11:37 AM) Because existing government programs get shutdown all of the time... It doesn't matter what the long term effects are, once it is in, it is in for good. Those two statements conflict with each other. Edit: I mean, I get why they did what they did, and I agree that once it's implemented, it's never going away. But Obama called their bluff, and now it doesn't matter. The law is in effect. So no matter how long they hold out, it's not going to be stopped. And on top of this, they've already lost the PR battle. That's not going to get better over time.

After a day thinking about it, I think slightly less of the Breaking Bad finale. At the time I thought it was perfect. But the more I think about it and read some of the reviews, the more I agree that it was a little too perfect, and the fact that Walt "wins" and redeems himself seems a bit cheap given the prior 2-4 episodes. It was 10000 times better than the Sopranos finale, and I'm not sure what ending would have been more satisfying (hence why I think it's still very good), but I dunno. Going out with more of a WTF? bang would have been cool. Also, does anyone know how Jesse didn't pass the cops on the way out of the compound? I mean, I assume there is only one road leading to/from it. Wouldn't one of the cops have stopped him?

QUOTE (NorthSideSox72 @ Oct 1, 2013 -> 11:17 AM) Leaving aside the obvious here - like the fact that this is pure idociy, etc. - from a political point of view, this is the GOP commiting Hari Kari. The schism keeps getting wider within that party. But what is really stunning about it to me, is that the Tea Party crowd is actually just a couple dozen house reps and a few Senators. And all the data tells us their influence is waning. Yet the GOP establishment still continues to cave to them. This whole thing where the GOP feels that you have to stay hyper-conservative in order to survive primaries is a mostly unfounded paranoia. The fear is not placed in much reality. And as they keep going down this "No I'M More Conservative!!!" route, they are continuing to marginalize themselves as a party. They continue to kowtow to a minority of their own party, continue to refuse any attempt at working across the aisle, and continue to find more and more extreme politicians for office. This cannot end well. They either become a regional party with no real power, or they change course to become a little more moderate and reasonable, or they split in two. Anyone want to guess which will happen? I honestly don't know. The whole thing is sad to me. I've always been an independent, but I voted GOP more than Dem until a few years ago. Agree with everything you say here. What kills me about this latest move is that it makes no sense. They've lost. The law is in effect. The cat is out of the bag. So why shut down the government over it? Let the thing fail and win elections later because of it. Do they really think Obama will just close it all down in a week?

f***ing terrible

sigh, just terrible.

QUOTE (Chilihead90 @ Sep 27, 2013 -> 10:15 PM) Showtime has put Sunday's premiere of Masters of Sex up on Youtube. Just got done watching it. It's pretty interesting I think. I wouldn't say there was a ton of action, but obviously it was an introductory episode to the characters. As expected, lots of nudity and sex, and a good amount of humor too. I IGN review I read said the first 2 episodes are a little slower, but the show really takes off after Episode 3, and through the first 6 episodes that she saw, she loved it. I'll keep watching. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IxoEZBjRacU&oref Sepinwall said it was the best new drama this fall. Im excited to see that, Homeland and Stephen Merchant‘s new show on HBO.

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Sep 27, 2013 -> 03:19 PM) GoT also has it's own internal logic and rules for how magic works. It's not reality, but it's not just complete randomness explained away by "magic" that never makes any sense. Lost didn't need a scientific, real-world explanation, but it needed a story arc that didn't render most of the plot lines irrelevant and/or contradictory. Can you throw out a few examples? I'm conceding that some of the early stuff (again, Walt/Michael) were throw ins that didn't really go anywhere. The emphasis on The Others in the early seasons, in hindsight, was a bit of misdirection. But once the story got going and the writers got an end date to work with, what was totally irrelevant and/or contradictory?

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Sep 27, 2013 -> 03:17 PM) See, the last sentence is exactly what's wrong with the first section of your post. Lost was a 'mystery,' plot-driven show. It was presented as if they were giving you all of these different puzzle pieces for you to figure out, and eventually it'll all (mostly) make sense by the end as more and more is revealed. Except the problem was that most of the stuff was completely irrelevant other than providing a sense of "mystery" for whatever episode they threw it in and was never relevant again. I accept that "dragons just exist" in ASOIAF, but they're pretty key plot elements. They didn't appear in the first and second books and then just vanish in the background. Lost repeatedly broke Chekhov's rule that goes "remove everything that has no relevance to the story. If you say in the first chapter that there is a rifle hanging on the wall, in the second or third chapter it absolutely must go off. If it's not going to be fired, it shouldn't be hanging there." There was so much there that, ultimately, had zero relevance to the story. Compare the way Lost presented itself to Pulp Fiction or Ronin. Those movies had a briefcase whose contents were never revealed but still drove the plot. The difference is that those movies never pretended to be mystery movies that would give the viewers clues along the way as to what was in the case or how its contents all tied back to the rest of the plot. The contents were irrelevant. If you remove the mystery element of Lost, though, you're left with a cheesy soap opera. Eh, I think you're being a bit extreme. 90-95% of the mysteries and weird crap that came up was eventually explained in some way. I'm not sure what you think was ultimately irrelevant. Some things were emphasized more than they probably should have been, but that was mainly early plot points that were introduced and they were mostly explained later on (Walt/Michael's importance, Witmore's involvement, etc.) Yes, some huge portions of the story - like the Dharma initiative, Richard, or Jacob - didn't really have a reason for existing in the grand scheme, but so what? They were just a part of the ongoing "present" of the story. Why did Jack grow a beard? Why was Charlie a drug addict? Why was that necessary? I NEED TO KNOW THE ANSWER! Yes, some of the explanations/storylines were pretty stupid (like the origin of the smoke monster coming from the inside of the island with a magical fountain....or the entire Jacob reveal/continued storyline). But I dunno, I watched a show about a polar bear on an island coming through a time traveling portal, i'm not really going to get upset about small plot points introduced in 160 episodes that don't make total sense or seem relevant in the long run. I enjoyed the ride while it lasted.

QUOTE (HickoryHuskers @ Sep 27, 2013 -> 02:33 PM) UConn has lost their coach and their conference--they're no longer a Top 20 program. Texas anywhere near the top 25 is a joke too. Literally all they have is money and a big fan base that doesn't care about basketball unless they're final four good. They have a terrible coach and no talent on that roster.

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Sep 27, 2013 -> 01:38 PM) They "explained" some things but basically the whole first three or four seasons ended up being completely irrelevant to the end of the show. All of the mystery around Dharma, the one lady's dad's company, the bunkers, all of it really meant absolutely nothing by the end. eta: that article is horrible. Every "answer" is basically "who cares" or "magic," i.e. not actually answers at all. eta2: this is a good comment on that article. You can suspend disbelief and accept magic, unique physics, etc. in a story as long as it's internally coherent. I've no problem with magic and dragons in ASOAIF (GoT) because Martin took the time to establish the rules of his universe and stick to them. By the end, Lost was one deus ex machina after silly idea after another. I disagree. It was part of the world. It was part of the island's story. All of that stuff happened. It was all experiences that the characters had on the island. Why does that have to fit into the larger story of "what the hell is going on?" I agree with the second bolded. But everyone bought into it right up until the finale.