Re: Chops

1

Decent guitar playing, too.


Posted by: nattarGcM ttaM | Link to this comment | 02-25-08 10:38 AM
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Also, just to rub it in, bastard was a rowing blue at Cambridge, and his novel is pretty good.


Posted by: nattarGcM ttaM | Link to this comment | 02-25-08 10:40 AM
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He was great in Blackadder too.


Posted by: Heloise | Link to this comment | 02-25-08 10:46 AM
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Decent guitar playing, too.

I noticed that; I was thinking, What if you have a great idea for this gag, but you can't pull of the guitar bit? What a shame that would be.


Posted by: JRoth | Link to this comment | 02-25-08 10:47 AM
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I hate it when the audience is already engaged from before the clip, and it ends up sounding like a heavy-handed laugh track while I'm watching it for the first time.


Posted by: heebie-geebie | Link to this comment | 02-25-08 10:48 AM
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Why does Bertie Wooster hate America?


Posted by: Flippanter | Link to this comment | 02-25-08 10:49 AM
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I suppose commenting on Laurie's appeal would lower the tone of the blog. So I won't.


Posted by: LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 02-25-08 10:51 AM
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Holy shit, is he the same guy who stars on that doctor show?


Posted by: PerfectlyGoddamnDelightful | Link to this comment | 02-25-08 10:53 AM
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8: Yes indeedy.


Posted by: Minivet | Link to this comment | 02-25-08 10:55 AM
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I highly recommend the DVDs of "Bit of Fry and Laurie." Much better than piecemeal via YouTube.


Posted by: Minivet | Link to this comment | 02-25-08 10:59 AM
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They are very funny -- the incredibly polite and stupid spy thing is great.


Posted by: LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 02-25-08 11:00 AM
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Also this series.


Posted by: Minivet | Link to this comment | 02-25-08 11:05 AM
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11: do you mean bernie wooster, the wodehouse character? I haven't seen the show, just read some of the stories.


Posted by: soup biscuit | Link to this comment | 02-25-08 11:24 AM
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What if you have a great idea for this gag, but you can't pull of the guitar bit? What a shame that would be.

You record it with a friend who plays guitar, sync it in a video, put it on YouTube, and reap the whirlwind.


Posted by: Wrongshore | Link to this comment | 02-25-08 11:32 AM
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13: No, Fry and Laurie had a sketch comedy show. One of the recurring bits was the two of them as moronically cheerful and polite spies.


Posted by: LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 02-25-08 11:38 AM
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13: Bertie wooster has nothing to do with spies. 11 to 10.


Posted by: Cryptic Ned | Link to this comment | 02-25-08 11:39 AM
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7: Would it lower the tone of the blog to note, very tastefully, that I wouldn't mind having Hugh Laurie's babies?


Posted by: Di Kotimy | Link to this comment | 02-25-08 11:48 AM
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Nah.


Posted by: LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 02-25-08 11:49 AM
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Would it lower the tone of the blog to note, very tastefully, that I wouldn't mind having Hugh Laurie's babies?

I think it is shameful how the women here reduce men to pieces of meat. The leering, is it really necessary?


Posted by: Will | Link to this comment | 02-25-08 11:51 AM
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Control and Tony.


Posted by: gdr | Link to this comment | 02-25-08 11:52 AM
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Seconding Blackadder, the Regency years, HL is marvelous. And the WWI ones. Oh hell the whole thing.


Posted by: Penny | Link to this comment | 02-25-08 11:54 AM
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Huh. Would it be cliched of me to say that it would never have occurred to me that people find Hugh Laurie particularly attractive?


Posted by: Beefo Meaty | Link to this comment | 02-25-08 11:55 AM
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re: 14

Yeah, although he is pretty clearly playing in that clip.


Posted by: nattarGcM ttaM | Link to this comment | 02-25-08 11:56 AM
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Incidentally, his novel really is quite good. Sort of a blackly comic thriller. A little bit Hiassen, a little bit Ian Fleming.


Posted by: nattarGcM ttaM | Link to this comment | 02-25-08 11:57 AM
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22: Cliched of you? Dunno. But it's a fairly conventional reaction among women of my acquaintance.


Posted by: LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 02-25-08 12:00 PM
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Stephen Fry has discussed a couple times how he is incredibly unmusical; Hugh Laurie plays guitar, piano, and sings quite well, so apparently he was constantly attempting to write in moments where Stephen Fry would have to sing. (There's a fantastic moment of discomfort in a Jeeves and Wooster episode where Fry speaks the response lines from "Minnie the Moocher".)


Posted by: snarkout | Link to this comment | 02-25-08 12:02 PM
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Laurie's The Gun Seller didn't do anything for me, I'm afraid.

But I can't recommend Stephen Fry's Making History and The Hippopotamus highly enough.


Posted by: zadfrack | Link to this comment | 02-25-08 12:02 PM
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25: More evidence that women cannot be trusted to objectify others properly. It takes centuries of training, apparently.


Posted by: SomeCallMeTim | Link to this comment | 02-25-08 12:03 PM
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re: 25

Well, isn't that one of the clichéd things people always say about Laurie? There was a character piece in one of the Sunday papers here where the (female) journalist said she could never understand why Emma Thompson had gone out with him. Until she met him.


Posted by: nattarGcM ttaM | Link to this comment | 02-25-08 12:04 PM
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But I can't recommend Stephen Fry's Making History and The Hippopotamus highly enough.

Huh. I can't remember which is which, but I much preferred the one with the sainted boy. The second: eh.


Posted by: SomeCallMeTim | Link to this comment | 02-25-08 12:04 PM
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re: 27

I liked it. But then I'm a sucker for that sort of thing. Violence and a bit of comedy and a novel that doesn't take itself very seriously. Not as good as others in the genre, but I enjoyed it.


Posted by: nattarGcM ttaM | Link to this comment | 02-25-08 12:05 PM
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I think it is shameful how the women here reduce men to pieces of meat.

Oh, no, you misunderstand. It's not the meat. It's the raw genetic material. He is just so unfuckingbelievably talented, I have to assume a good measure of that is some pretty potent DNA that even my mediocre chromosomes couldn't drag too far down into the gutter.


Posted by: Di Kotimy | Link to this comment | 02-25-08 12:05 PM
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As I've said before, Hugh Laurie is one of those annoyingly versatile fuckers who can do pretty much anything he feels like turning his hand to (as already detailed above), and whom people consistently underestimate because they'll know him for doing just one of those things, especially when it's (e.g.) Bertie Wooster or whatever. It's funny to see this happen now in the U.S. as people who know him from "that doctor show" discover his earlier stuff.


Posted by: Gonerill | Link to this comment | 02-25-08 12:06 PM
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32: It's like I don't even know you, Di.


Posted by: LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 02-25-08 12:07 PM
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It's the raw genetic material. He is just so unfuckingbelievably talented

Ok. That makes sense. Laurie is an amazingly talented guy.

House is one of the few shows we try to watch regularly.


Posted by: Will | Link to this comment | 02-25-08 12:08 PM
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25:

All the women I've spoken to find him exceedingly attractive. We're all under 30 and from the UK though - maybe there are only pockets of the population that get the allure...


Posted by: Heloise | Link to this comment | 02-25-08 12:08 PM
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The truly must-read Stephen Fry is The Liar.


Posted by: redfoxtailshrub | Link to this comment | 02-25-08 12:09 PM
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32: His father won an Olympic gold medal in rowing, and became a doctor in his forties.


Posted by: Eggplant | Link to this comment | 02-25-08 12:09 PM
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Australian Soap.


Posted by: Gonerill | Link to this comment | 02-25-08 12:12 PM
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's funny to see this happen now in the U.S. as people who know him from "that doctor show" discover his earlier stuff.

Part of it is that his character on "that doctor show" seems pretty insufferable and not especially funny - it's a bigger leap to his earlier stuff than you'd expect.


Posted by: JRoth | Link to this comment | 02-25-08 12:13 PM
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I had no idea that Stephen Fry the writer was half of Fry and Laurie.


Posted by: ben w-lfs-n | Link to this comment | 02-25-08 12:13 PM
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What's disconcerting is the degree to which Stephen Fry is the same way. Enough with the brilliant polymath comedy teams, UK! If I find out Mitchell and Webb are writing up some statistical physics work you're in big trouble.


Posted by: Beefo Meaty | Link to this comment | 02-25-08 12:13 PM
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30: The Hippopotamus is the one with the sainted boy. Making History is science fiction - the protagonist reaches back in time to keep Hitler from being born. (Yes, it sounds like it would be a total cliche, but it's hilarious.)

Fry also wrote The Liar (his first novel), to which my reaction was "meh".


Posted by: zadfrack | Link to this comment | 02-25-08 12:13 PM
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26: "Ho dee ho dee ho, sir."


Posted by: Flippanter | Link to this comment | 02-25-08 12:13 PM
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Recall that his father was an Olympic rower -- I believe a medalist in the '50s. Laurie started acting when he was laid up with an injury and couldn't row.

Also, he gave the world this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cxkFwwRYnco


Posted by: snarkout | Link to this comment | 02-25-08 12:14 PM
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Curses, try here: https://www.videosift.com/video/Young-Ones-University-Challenge


Posted by: snarkout | Link to this comment | 02-25-08 12:14 PM
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Control and Tony are great, but they've got nothing nothing on John and Peter from the Uttoxeter health club.


Posted by: Ginger Yellow | Link to this comment | 02-25-08 12:15 PM
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42 to, appallingly, 32. Mr. Write-so-slo offers his apologies.


Posted by: Beefo Meaty | Link to this comment | 02-25-08 12:15 PM
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37: Heretic!


Posted by: zadfrack | Link to this comment | 02-25-08 12:16 PM
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34: Let me clarify -- I'm not saying I'd say no to the piece of meat. I'm just saying I'd not be averse to the bearing of his offspring whether genetic material were contributed by vial or more traditional means.


Posted by: Di Kotimy | Link to this comment | 02-25-08 12:16 PM
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Fry also wrote The Liar (his first novel), to which my reaction was "meh".

Oh man, it's great.


Posted by: snarkout | Link to this comment | 02-25-08 12:16 PM
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Laurie was goofy-looking when he was younger. He's still kinda goofy-looking, but he looks better older.

And he has way too much talent.

(I may be the only person I know who started watching House because of Laurie, and not the other way around. I am whiter than you.)


Posted by: Cala | Link to this comment | 02-25-08 12:17 PM
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Pwned by Eggplant. (Vegetable rights and peace!)


Posted by: snarkout | Link to this comment | 02-25-08 12:17 PM
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12 to 47.


Posted by: Minivet | Link to this comment | 02-25-08 12:17 PM
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26: I've been revisitng the Jeeves & Wooster series and that may be up there for the funniest moment of the whole series.

Hee-dee-hee-dee-hee (sir.)


Posted by: Cala | Link to this comment | 02-25-08 12:18 PM
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Enough with the brilliant polymath comedy teams, UK!

I'll note that it's not just the comedians. Heavenly, the best band ever to come out of Oxford, featured the future chief economist of the UK Office of Fair Trade, the future editor of Oxford University Press's philosophy imprint, and the future host of Junkyard Wars.


Posted by: snarkout | Link to this comment | 02-25-08 12:20 PM
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House is one of the few shows we try to watch regularly.

Rory announced to me the other night that Dr. Chase is Hott. We then proceeded to have a disconcertingly earnest debate about whether he'd be too young for me to date. I think Rory was using "too young" as a euphemism for "out of your league."


Posted by: Di Kotimy | Link to this comment | 02-25-08 12:20 PM
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37: Heretic!

Oh, I fear that it is you who are the heretic.


Posted by: redfoxtailshrub | Link to this comment | 02-25-08 12:20 PM
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On the subject of Fry & Laurie, the very Netflix-worthy Peter's Friends was--finally!--released on DVD for the first time in the US a couple weeks ago.


Posted by: potchkeh | Link to this comment | 02-25-08 12:21 PM
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55: I'm just as white as you are Cala. I'm not really one for medical shows, but I started watching House because of Laurie.

Then I stopped when they got rid of the original trio of residents. I'm probably asking the wrong group, but is the show still holding up?

Oh, and while I'm asking about TV shows, does Six Feet Under hold up after the second season? I just started watching season 3 on DVD, and I don't really care so far for the direction they're taking the show in. Took the show in. Were taking the show in. (English needs another tense.)


Posted by: zadfrack | Link to this comment | 02-25-08 12:24 PM
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It's okay. I don't think they were intending to get rid of the original trio permanently, but just shake things up, and then the writer's strike happened. The new trio's not bad, but it does feel like they've been watching the show for three seasons for allegedly new residents.


Posted by: Cala | Link to this comment | 02-25-08 12:28 PM
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God, I've been in a hyper-obsessive House mode for the last month or so. A partner was just giving me background on a failure to diagnose/wrongful death case, and I swear to God I couldn't stop myself from asking a bunch of inane, pseudo-diagnostic questions about the damn differential. (And apparently a thing or two has sunk in because the partner kept looking at me all funny, "Um, actually, our expert did explore that question, but they ruled that out because...") What about auto-immune? Toxicity? Could be sarcoidosis!

I'm such a geek.


Posted by: Di Kotimy | Link to this comment | 02-25-08 12:29 PM
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58: I join with RTFS to denounce you. Ours is the One True Faith.


Posted by: oudemia | Link to this comment | 02-25-08 12:29 PM
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Enough with the brilliant polymath comedy teams, UK!

Actually, Ben Miller, of Armstrong and Miller, was writing up a PhD in some esoteric area of quantum physics before giving it up for comedy.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=lwNQf08Kxsw


Posted by: nattarGcM ttaM | Link to this comment | 02-25-08 12:31 PM
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Schism!


Posted by: Merganser | Link to this comment | 02-25-08 12:31 PM
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What about auto-immune? Toxicity? Could be sarcoidosis!

What no lupus?

Granted it is an auto-immune disease so it is kind of covered above.


Posted by: CJB | Link to this comment | 02-25-08 12:31 PM
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60: I think there's a strong case to be made that Six Feet Under didn't really hold up after the first season. Every season took it in some weird direction, and each season, I think, was less successful than the previous one. I still watched it through to the end and mostly enjoyed it all the way through.


Posted by: politicalfootball | Link to this comment | 02-25-08 12:33 PM
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Have snarkout and rfts ever disagreed in public about anything?


Posted by: ben w-lfs-n | Link to this comment | 02-25-08 12:33 PM
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64: why I oughta...

... TiVo some Armstrong and Miller, actually. I've been meaning to do that.


Posted by: Beefo Meaty | Link to this comment | 02-25-08 12:35 PM
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64: Sascha Baron Cohen was also working on a PhD. On the American civil rights movement, I believe. He managed to shock his adviser by getting interviews with people who don't give them, like Bob Moses.


Posted by: oudemia | Link to this comment | 02-25-08 12:36 PM
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55: "The British knee is firm! The British knee is muscular! The British knee is on the march!"


Posted by: Flippanter | Link to this comment | 02-25-08 12:37 PM
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Have snarkout and rfts ever disagreed in public about anything?

We're waiting for the Big Trouble in Little China post, w-lfs-n.


Posted by: snarkout | Link to this comment | 02-25-08 12:38 PM
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71: I had my class last semester read The Code of the Woosters and watch that ep. of Jeeves and Wooster in class and they didn't think it was funny. Not one bit. *Sigh.*


Posted by: oudemia | Link to this comment | 02-25-08 12:39 PM
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We're waiting for the Big Trouble in Little China post, w-lfs-n.

Great, great pulp movie. Up there just above "The Last Dragon."


Posted by: SomeCallMeTim | Link to this comment | 02-25-08 12:40 PM
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* taps nose * See, Tim gets it!


Posted by: snarkout | Link to this comment | 02-25-08 12:40 PM
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73: I don't usually advocate violence, but they must go.


Posted by: Flippanter | Link to this comment | 02-25-08 12:43 PM
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Just to make it fully explicit, I cannot, will not, do not enjoy Big Trouble in Little China.


Posted by: redfoxtailshrub | Link to this comment | 02-25-08 12:49 PM
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A partner was just giving me background on a failure to diagnose/wrongful death case, and I swear to God I couldn't stop myself from asking a bunch of inane, pseudo-diagnostic questions about the damn differential.

You're not kidding. It's turned a nation of hypochondriacs into a nation of informed hypochondriacs. That said, remembering that House is second-most popular scripted show in America makes me think all hope ain't lost sometimes.


Posted by: SEK | Link to this comment | 02-25-08 12:50 PM
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Informed? "Doctor, I think I might have cranial malaria!"


Posted by: Minivet | Link to this comment | 02-25-08 12:52 PM
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64: Meanwhile, the guitarist for Queen didn't finish his astrophysics dissertation until just this decade, and he turned it into some sort of non-technical education piece, the slacker.


Posted by: Cryptic Ned | Link to this comment | 02-25-08 12:52 PM
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78: I think the show's declining, because they're running out of interesting ways to kill patients before they save them. I watch it now for the House/Wilson prank wars. But the first season has some awesome episodes.


Posted by: Cala | Link to this comment | 02-25-08 12:53 PM
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77: I know, that movie is awesome. Isn't John Carpenter great?


Posted by: Beefo Meaty | Link to this comment | 02-25-08 12:54 PM
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66: It's never lupus.


Posted by: Eggplant | Link to this comment | 02-25-08 12:56 PM
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I liked Big Trouble in Little China, but in general don't like John Carpenter. They Live, for example, feels like it's about four hours long. And Escape From New York was like BTiLC without all the great goofy parts.


Posted by: Cryptic Ned | Link to this comment | 02-25-08 12:57 PM
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But the first season has some awesome episodes.

Let me recommend the truly enjoyable, if uneven, Life. It takes a little bit, but the best things about it are the hard-boiled female cops, especially the half-Iranian partner. (She's startling beautiful, so I wouldn't trust my opinion 100%. But Henley, I think, likes the show, too, and, as libertarian, he's immune to the baser biases.)

The first season is streamed online at NBC.


Posted by: SomeCallMeTim | Link to this comment | 02-25-08 12:58 PM
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I got sick of House whenever he was having all of those legal problems with the painkillers -- the reactions of his coworkers seemed bizarre to the point that I wasn't enjoying the show anymore.


Posted by: LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 02-25-08 1:00 PM
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Let me recommend the truly enjoyable, if uneven, Life

I also very much like that show. I hope it is coming back for another season.


Posted by: CJB | Link to this comment | 02-25-08 1:01 PM
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I never watched House with any regularity, so I'm curious: did anyone ever have kuru?


Posted by: Minivet | Link to this comment | 02-25-08 1:02 PM
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There's a TV show called "Life"? Is it a British show?


Posted by: Cryptic Ned | Link to this comment | 02-25-08 1:02 PM
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Mystery (1987) vs Mystery (2006).


Posted by: gdr | Link to this comment | 02-25-08 1:04 PM
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You can't trust television anymore, man. I've been telling people that since they cancelled Swift Justice.


Posted by: Flippanter | Link to this comment | 02-25-08 1:05 PM
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89: No. It's on NBC.


Posted by: SomeCallMeTim | Link to this comment | 02-25-08 1:06 PM
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I just started watching The Sopranos. Ah, Netflix. I'm about halfway through the first season and so far I'm mostly impressed by Gandolfini.


Posted by: Cala | Link to this comment | 02-25-08 1:09 PM
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Amazingly, 80 is true.


Posted by: ben w-lfs-n | Link to this comment | 02-25-08 1:10 PM
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While we're on the subject of recommending canceled TV shows, Wonderfalls is delightful. And the only TV show, as far as I know, whose protagonist was a philosophy major.


Posted by: zadfrack | Link to this comment | 02-25-08 1:17 PM
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It's turned a nation of hypochondriacs into a nation of informed hypochondriacs.

You're telling me. I watched the entirety of season one over the course of a weekend while couch-ridden with an awful cold/flu/virus. I mean, I knew I didn't really have meningitis. But, damn, the headache, the stiff neck... A few days later, as I was recovering from a coughing fit, Rory told me, "I think we need to stop watching House for awhile. Every time you do that, I think something really bad is about to happen."


Posted by: Di Kotimy | Link to this comment | 02-25-08 1:25 PM
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Anyone else enjoying Ugly Betty?


Posted by: lw | Link to this comment | 02-25-08 1:27 PM
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OT

Here is an interview with the stuff white people like guy:

TAN: How did SWPL get started? Take us through the moment of inspiration, white people love knowing that. Behind the Blog, DVD Extras etc.
SWPL: IM conversation. about The Wire. simple as that. my friend declared he didn't not value the opinions or trust anyone who did not watch The Wire. we said "they don't watch because they are too busy doing yoga" and it just spit balled from there. or snowballed. fuck it, it just grew from there.


Posted by: lemmy caution | Link to this comment | 02-25-08 1:28 PM
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ok. I am white. here is another non surprise. there are pictures of me on the site. I'm the dude recycling. and the guy at dim sum. and the guy holding the iphone. and the bicycle picture is my bicycle.
oh yes. this site pokes fun at ME. that's why I use pictures of myself. those aren't taken out of irony. this is the shit that I do. I need to call myself out for all of the stupid shit that I take for granted. why do I need $300 bike rims? why is a $10 sandwich considered normal?

Uptight motherfuckers. Go hug your stand mixers.


Posted by: Cala | Link to this comment | 02-25-08 1:34 PM
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Uptight motherfuckers. Go hug your stand mixers.

If you knew the pain of the white (or "white," as the case may be), you wouldn't be so dismissive. But how can you? You don't even have a stand mixer.


Posted by: SomeCallMeTim | Link to this comment | 02-25-08 1:39 PM
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I only hate because I covet. (And because telling people to hug their stand mixers fills me with GLEE!)


Posted by: Cala | Link to this comment | 02-25-08 1:41 PM
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Cell phones white people like.


Posted by: ben w-lfs-n | Link to this comment | 02-25-08 1:43 PM
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Those polymaths from the British Isles are annoying. Ian Bostridge holds a PhD from Oxford in history (yet another study of witchcraft). Of course he is now a renowned tenor.


Posted by: md 20/400 | Link to this comment | 02-25-08 1:46 PM
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103: I was trying to remember his name! Thank you.


Posted by: oudemia | Link to this comment | 02-25-08 1:50 PM
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103: I was trying to remember his name! Thank you.


Posted by: oudemia | Link to this comment | 02-25-08 1:50 PM
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oudemia in stereo.


Posted by: oudemia | Link to this comment | 02-25-08 1:51 PM
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Yeah, don't get on someone's case until you've walked a mile in his [insert name of absurdly-expensive white-people shoe here].


Posted by: John Emerson | Link to this comment | 02-25-08 1:52 PM
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The job market in history is so bad that he was reduced to singing for his supper. Terrible story, really.


Posted by: ben w-lfs-n | Link to this comment | 02-25-08 1:53 PM
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Those grey Irish sneakers I've seen advertised in the back of the New Yorker and on Larry David's feet in Curb Your Enthusiasm and on the feet of my friend's brother who is the president of a film studio. I vote for those.


Posted by: oudemia | Link to this comment | 02-25-08 1:54 PM
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Yeah, don't get on someone's case until you've walked a mile in his [insert name of absurdly-expensive white-people shoe here].

This would be a better riposte if it didn't betray your ignorance: white people don't walk, they Segue.


Posted by: SomeCallMeTim | Link to this comment | 02-25-08 1:55 PM
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107: Only white women wear absurdly-expensive shoes. "his" cannot be used in that context.


Posted by: Cryptic Ned | Link to this comment | 02-25-08 1:56 PM
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w-lfs-n doesn't Segue. Is he not White?


Posted by: md 20/400 | Link to this comment | 02-25-08 1:57 PM
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111: You're kidding, right?


Posted by: Cala | Link to this comment | 02-25-08 2:00 PM
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w-lfs-n doesn't Segue. Is he not White?

A Jew-fro is still a 'fro. Sorry w-lfs-n.


Posted by: SomeCallMeTim | Link to this comment | 02-25-08 2:01 PM
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113: where's your evidence that a man has worn them?


Posted by: Cryptic Ned | Link to this comment | 02-25-08 2:02 PM
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This reminds me to ask: is w-lfs-n going back on the air this year?


Posted by: md 20/400 | Link to this comment | 02-25-08 2:04 PM
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At UnfoggeDCon a beloved female Unfoggedatarian solved the walk-a-mile-in-her-shoes by taking them off and walking barefoot. At the dark end of December in the bitter DC winter.


Posted by: John Emerson | Link to this comment | 02-25-08 2:05 PM
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I only hate because I covet. (And because telling people to hug their stand mixers fills me with GLEE!)

Yuppie crisis? Cooks Illustrated has deprecated the kitchenaid in favor of a cuisinart stand mixer.


Posted by: things white people whinge about | Link to this comment | 02-25-08 2:20 PM
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"...Heavenly, the best band to come out of Oxford"
RADIOHEAD.
(maybe the ideal of a white-person band... shrug...)

I was against SWPL until I read the interview, and now feel both that it's funny and that I should have acknowledged its funniness before I read the interview.


Posted by: Dr. Zeuss | Link to this comment | 02-25-08 3:17 PM
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w-lfs-n doesn't Segue. Is he not White?

Huh? I'm not even sure what Segueing in this context is.


Posted by: ben w-lfs-n | Link to this comment | 02-25-08 3:18 PM
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120: I meant "Segway." Sorry about that.


Posted by: SomeCallMeTim | Link to this comment | 02-25-08 3:21 PM
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Expensive white man shoes:

http://www.duckerandson.co.uk/history.php

Bad-ass expensive white man shoes, at that. Any shop that has 'the Baron von Richthofen' in their customer book ...


Posted by: nattarGcM ttaM | Link to this comment | 02-25-08 3:23 PM
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I have two pair of Ducker and Sons. I use them for kicking only the best-tailored of rear ends.


Posted by: slolernr | Link to this comment | 02-25-08 3:29 PM
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re: 123

I don't have any. My wife manages one of their rivals. So I have shoes from ... elsewhere. Not in the same league, though.


Posted by: nattarGcM ttaM | Link to this comment | 02-25-08 3:30 PM
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Writing "two pair" instead of "two pairs" is so … something or other, slol, I'm not sure what, but it's probably bad.


Posted by: ben w-lfs-n | Link to this comment | 02-25-08 3:31 PM
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Wait, did my usage leave ben actually at a loss for words?


Posted by: slolernr | Link to this comment | 02-25-08 3:33 PM
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You have accomplished what Michael never could.


Posted by: ben w-lfs-n | Link to this comment | 02-25-08 3:35 PM
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It's just a countryish irregular plural, like "two foot tall" or "two mile down the road".

White countryish, of course. But not yuppyish.


Posted by: John Emerson | Link to this comment | 02-25-08 3:37 PM
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The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language: Fourth Edition. 2000.

After a number other than one, pair itself can be either singular or plural, but the plural is now more common: She bought six pairs (or pair) of stockings.

Posted by: slolernr | Link to this comment | 02-25-08 3:40 PM
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i like Hugh Laurie too
House can't watch, coz always late to the show
but it's seems unbelievable so don't regret much to miss it


Posted by: read | Link to this comment | 02-25-08 3:44 PM
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The OED gives me Jane Austen ("Six shifts and four pair of stockings") and (ahem) "J. SIMMONS et al. My Adidas," thusly: "Got fifty pair Got blue and black 'cause I like to chill And yellow and green when it's time to get ill."

I believe there's some universal rule of usage indicating that Run and Jane kick Ben w-lfs-n's ass.


Posted by: slolernr | Link to this comment | 02-25-08 3:44 PM
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I never said it was wrong, slol, and I would say it myself on occasion. I said that its employment bespoke a certain I don't know what.


Posted by: ben w-lfs-n | Link to this comment | 02-25-08 3:48 PM
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I don't think I need to point out the unsavory roots of your defensiveness in this matter.


Posted by: ben w-lfs-n | Link to this comment | 02-25-08 3:49 PM
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I never said it was wrong

No, just "probably bad." You do split a mean hair, champ.


Posted by: slolernr | Link to this comment | 02-25-08 3:49 PM
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the unsavory roots of your defensiveness

I'm not sure I like the image of you chewing distastefully on the roots of my defensiveness.


Posted by: slolernr | Link to this comment | 02-25-08 3:50 PM
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Slol, slol, slol. I split a mean hair indeed, but your reading skillz are even meaner. I wrote Writing "two pair" instead of "two pairs" is so ... something or other, slol, I'm not sure what, but it's probably bad.; "it's probably bad" here clearly characterizes the predicate that's gone missing (a candidate might be "white", for instance), and anyway the subject of the predication isn't the usage itself, but your having written it. Hence: its employment bespeaks something, I'm not sure what, which is probably bad.

I'm not sure I like the image of you chewing distastefully on the roots of my defensiveness.

How much longer will I have to do it before you are sure?


Posted by: ben w-lfs-n | Link to this comment | 02-25-08 3:53 PM
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Let me see if I understand correctly: I misconstrued your imputation that my usage indicated a "probably bad" character trait as an allegation that the usage was itself "probably bad"?


Posted by: slolernr | Link to this comment | 02-25-08 3:57 PM
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Precisely.

Let's say some stereotypically U phrase had passed your lips or fingers; you referred, perhaps, to a looking-glass (without also referring to Miss Liddell). It's not, like, you know, wrong. But it would probably indicate some sort of failing in you.


Posted by: ben w-lfs-n | Link to this comment | 02-25-08 4:00 PM
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I believe there's some universal rule of usage indicating that Run and Jane kick Ben w-lfs-n's ass.
See Jane. See Run. See Jane and Run kick Ben's ass. Kick (kick), Run, Kick.


Posted by: TJ | Link to this comment | 02-25-08 4:01 PM
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Let's say some stereotypically U phrase had passed your lips or fingers

Yes, it would, Nancy. (And for god's sakes you don't need to wiki-link "U.") But "two pair" is not stereotypically "U," as the confluence between Run and Jane plainly shows.


Posted by: slolernr | Link to this comment | 02-25-08 4:02 PM
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I didn't say "two pair" is U. Indeed, I explicitly introduced the situation in which you said something U as a hypothetical; I wasn't explicating something that had already happened. It was an example that I thought might make my meaning clear. I see that I did not know with what refractory material I dealt.

(And for god's sakes you don't need to wiki-link "U.")

You just don't know when to stop, do you, slol?


Posted by: ben w-lfs-n | Link to this comment | 02-25-08 4:05 PM
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I haven't been reading for a few days, so if someone already posted Jimmy Kimmel's response to the "I'm fucking Matt Damon" video, I apologize for the repeat.


Posted by: mrh | Link to this comment | 02-25-08 4:05 PM
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I didn't say "two pair" is U.... You just don't know when to stop, do you, slol?

No, traditionally not. But in this case I'm, I think quite forgivably, trying to figure out what kind of aspersion you're casting on me. Is it just generalized hostility, or has it some specific content?


Posted by: slolernr | Link to this comment | 02-25-08 4:07 PM
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I suppose I should admit that any irritation I am evincing may be compounded by current events: I am commenting in between responding to an incredibly annoyingly copy-edited article. How annoyingly? Imagine one editor cut my thesis graf, then another editor stuck in a note saying "where is thesis graf?"


Posted by: slolernr | Link to this comment | 02-25-08 4:10 PM
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You know I can't stay hostile at you, slol.


Posted by: ben w-lfs-n | Link to this comment | 02-25-08 4:10 PM
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OK, Ben, but your point appears to have been, I said something that indicates some kind of rhetorical pose to which I am not by virtue of your ideal of "authenticity" entitled. Whether it was inappropriately hickish or inappropriately aristocratic or inappropriately someotherthing remains to be determined.

Have I got this mishegoss about right?


Posted by: slolernr | Link to this comment | 02-25-08 4:12 PM
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I think you may need to take a breather and read Standpipe's blog, perhaps while wearing a cummerbund.

Since you say you are apparently put out owing to other circumstances, I'll summarize the post there explaining the current contretemps:

- I am just messing with you.
- There was no particular content to my initial accusation.
- I just picked up your comment about the U wikipedia article by the way.


Posted by: ben w-lfs-n | Link to this comment | 02-25-08 4:16 PM
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Let us never speak of it again.


Posted by: slolernr | Link to this comment | 02-25-08 4:20 PM
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-'s
people fight over correct english, my english must be just unbearable to read then, ssssssigh


Posted by: read | Link to this comment | 02-25-08 4:26 PM
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then another editor stuck in a note saying "where is thesis graf?"

When this happens to me I write "^I can has thesis graf?" in the margin.


Posted by: Gonerill | Link to this comment | 02-25-08 4:26 PM
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And then there are the polymath British Brians: Brian Cox (particle physicist and former keyboard player for D:Ream) and Brian May (guitarist for Queen and doctor of astronomy)


Posted by: Ginger Yellow | Link to this comment | 02-25-08 4:27 PM
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I write "^I can has thesis graf?" in the margin.

Thesis graf is in recycle bucket, dammit.


Posted by: slolernr | Link to this comment | 02-25-08 4:29 PM
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How bout nice cheezburger then?


Posted by: Gonerill | Link to this comment | 02-25-08 4:31 PM
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Don't worry, Read, that was just Slol and Ben's routine. Like kittens play-fighting, except way cuter.


Posted by: John Emerson | Link to this comment | 02-25-08 4:33 PM
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How bout nice cheezburger then?

I would gladly give you a cheezburger Tuesday for a thesis graf today.


Posted by: slolernr | Link to this comment | 02-25-08 4:38 PM
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142: That was very funny, mrh. Thank you.


Posted by: NickFranklin | Link to this comment | 02-25-08 4:47 PM
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oudemia in 70:

64: Sascha Baron Cohen was also working on a PhD. On the American civil rights movement, I believe. He managed to shock his adviser by getting interviews with people who don't give them, like Bob Moses.

He's from a pretty talented family; his brother Simon is a prominent psychiatrist who studies autism.

On the subject of polymaths generally, there's a guy who blogs in Boston who got a music degree from NEC, but when he found that he wasn't able to get enough work, he went to law school. He did well enough to clerk for Justice O'Connor.

His voice has changed somewhat, and now he splits his time between law and opera singing. He worked for the State Attorney General's office at one point; he now writes briefs on a contract basis for a law firm, so he's managed to avoid the business development stuff that he never cared for.


Posted by: Bostoniangirl | Link to this comment | 02-25-08 5:09 PM
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Simon and Sacha are cousins, not brothers.


Posted by: ben w-lfs-n | Link to this comment | 02-25-08 5:12 PM
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I just looked up Simon Baron-Cohen on wikipedia, and it looks like he's a psychologist and not a psychiatrist, but he's still prominent.


Posted by: Bostoniangirl | Link to this comment | 02-25-08 5:12 PM
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||

I am so, so disturbed to learn what Souljah Boy means when he talks about
Supermanning.

Apparently at my undergrad alma mater, U of Michigan, one of the dorms got in trouble for publishing shirts saying "Superman that ho!"

I hate everything.
||


Posted by: heebie-geebie | Link to this comment | 02-25-08 5:31 PM
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JE, i was kidding
mean did not mean to complain coz i hate to sound whiny something, anyway, an informative routine, hope i'll read more language threads


Posted by: read | Link to this comment | 02-25-08 5:47 PM
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150: I think DO NOT WANT would be more appropriate.


Posted by: Cala | Link to this comment | 02-25-08 5:49 PM
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I see Ben beat me to the little-bitchery re: the cousins Baron-Cohen.


Posted by: redfoxtailshrub | Link to this comment | 02-25-08 5:57 PM
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62: The script writers seem to have a thing for teh sarcoidosis. It appears far too often as a potential diagnosis. Given that it's seldom fatal, even when one wants it to be, I think they just like the way it sounds.

And yeah, Hugh Laurie = intellectual hott.


Posted by: DominEditrix | Link to this comment | 02-25-08 6:04 PM
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Along the same lines, my brother's band from Austin made this wonderful video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G4k2g4xWaNc


Posted by: A. Chandler Moisen | Link to this comment | 02-25-08 7:17 PM
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One of the Doobie brothers (Skunk Baxter) claims to have contributed to military electronic guidance systems in some way. Not everyone believes him. The actress Hedy Lamarr and avant-garde musician George Antheil really did get a patent for "frequency hopping", a process still used today.

But in 1957, the concept was taken up by engineers at the Sylvania Electronic Systems Division, in Buffalo, New York. Their arrangement, using, of course, electronics rather than piano rolls, ultimately became a basic tool for secure military communications. It was installed on ships sent to blockade Cuba in 1962, about three years after the Lamarr-Antheil patent had expired. Subsequent patents in frequency changing, which are generally unrelated to torpedo control, have referred to the Lamarr-Antheil patent as the basis of the field, and the concept lies behind the principal anti-jamming device used today, for example, in the U.S. government's Milstar defense communication satellite system.


Posted by: John Emerson | Link to this comment | 02-25-08 8:21 PM
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So how did avant-garde musician meet inventor and sex goddess hedy Lamarr? He was promoting a breast-enlargement therapy he had invented.


Posted by: John Emerson | Link to this comment | 02-25-08 8:27 PM
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The script writers seem to have a thing for teh sarcoidosis. It appears far too often as a potential diagnosis. Given that it's seldom fatal, even when one wants it to be, I think they just like the way it sounds.

You'd think that, but then why don't they make it coccidioidiomycosis? That's even cooler.


Posted by: Cryptic Ned | Link to this comment | 02-25-08 8:29 PM
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OK, I'm not ashamed to say the I'm fucking ben affleck thing was hilarious.


Posted by: alameida | Link to this comment | 02-26-08 7:12 AM
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on reflection, maybe there's a wee morsel of shame.


Posted by: alameida | Link to this comment | 02-26-08 7:12 AM
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Sascha Baron Cohen was also working on a PhD. On the American civil rights movement, I believe. He managed to shock his adviser by getting interviews with people who don't give them, like Bob Moses.

Is it becos he was black?


Posted by: OneFatEnglishman | Link to this comment | 02-26-08 7:20 AM
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167 - I love that story! You're missing the fact that Lamarr was married to a Nazi-sympathizing European arms merchant at the time, so she probably was more interested in the issue of torpedos than other starlets not named Jayne Mansfield might have been. (Also, she was about to leave him, so I'm sure giving her idea to the Allies was a delightful final fuck-you.)


Posted by: snarkout | Link to this comment | 02-26-08 8:29 AM
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Oops, I have my chronology slightly off -- she left the arms dealer a couple of years before she met Antheil.


Posted by: snarkout | Link to this comment | 02-26-08 8:30 AM
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she left the arms dealer a couple of years before she met Antheil.

She drugged the maid who was guarding her and climbed out the window, then ran away to London! Positively Shakespearean.


Posted by: redfoxtailshrub | Link to this comment | 02-26-08 8:41 AM
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See, Hedy Lamarr. Hot.


Posted by: nattarGcM ttaM | Link to this comment | 02-26-08 8:42 AM
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One of a short but select list of hott weapons system communications engineers.


Posted by: Alex | Link to this comment | 02-26-08 9:06 AM
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168: You'd think that, but then why don't they make it coccidioidiomycosis? That's even cooler.

Because it has to be something that actors other than Laurie can pronounce.


Posted by: DominEditrix | Link to this comment | 02-26-08 12:56 PM
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||
I sing a song of my paper:
5794 words of shit;
5794 words of shit;
5794 words of shit;
Damn thing still isn't done.
Lalalalalala.
|>


Posted by: Cala | Link to this comment | 02-26-08 1:04 PM
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