Attending Comic Con suited Laura more than Victoria because Laura was more enthusiastic about cosplay and nerdy things.<|endoftext|>, I confess that I prefer women with pussies or vaginas over women with dicks or penises. Even though women with penises/dicks don’t even exist. I still say that even if they did exist, I give thumbs down to that. If I wanted to fuck humans with cocks, I’d go gay or bi.

A woman with a cock just isn’t a woman to me, sorry. It’s like those drawings you got when you were a kid, “There is something wrong with this picture? Can you spot it?” I can. It’s the woman with the dick. That’s in the picture, and yeah there’s something seriously wrong with that.

If you wan to know what the Alt Left is about, the Alt Left is for liberals and Leftists who think this quote above is ridiculous nonsense.

Alt Left: Banned from Alternet Again

Actually not banned but a lot of my posts got removed. I think I set it off with a post about the Brock Turner rape case along the lines of my post earlier. Then the commenter went through and vindictively removed every single comment I had made that way no matter what I said.

I have a hard time imaging a liberal man being so emotional, but liberal-Left “men” are hardly even real men anymore. They’re humans with male bodies who think and feel like women. They’re actually much worse than women themselves because at least women and nice to look, you can fuck them, and the sensible ones can be quite a bit of fun. There’s no benefit to the male feminist at all. He’s a pussy, a cuck and a gender traitor all at once. Hang ’em high!

On the other hand it may well have been a woman because that emo vindictiveness – removing every post I made just to be a cunt – is classic female behavior. An enraged woman is as good as blind. And the last time I got banned was for criticizing the Epstein case and calling the “victims” things like “little teen whores” which is precisely what those junior strumpets were.

Moderator is probably a feminist woman.

I’m trying real hard to decide who I hate more – American conservatives or American liberals. I really want to like the liberals because I basically am one from back before the movement got body-snatched, but they keep punching me in the face! And you hit a man enough times, and he might just start hitting back, you know. That’s just human nature.

Conservatives are fairly friendly but American conservatives are like…let me think of a good description…”retarded howling apes on PCP.” How’s that?

Blocked you, jackass. If you can’t figure out that “finger-banging” a woman when she has passed out and thus cannot give consent is rape, I don’t know what to say.

I never said he didn’t rape her. I just said it was difficult case. This guy is a flaming SJW faggot with his gay rainbow colors flying high for everyone to see and cheer on his glorious career in sodomy. I’m not against gay men if they were born that; in fact, I cheer them on. But I really hate SJW fags. They’re as bad as feminists or BLM or any of the rest of the Cultural Left scum.

A friend of mine is a bit of an Alt Left gay man. He’s my age. He calls himself a conservative but he’s actually a Marxist! He’s just a conservative Left type like me, left on economics but somewhat right on social issues. He calls these types “gay libbers” the old name for gay liberationists, the first name of the pro-gay movement in the West.

He also hates faggoty pride parades and all the rest of the in your face Gay IP disgusting nonsense. He says, “We gays all just need to get married and move to the suburbs and live just like all the regular normal people there.”

I cannot agree more with that statement.

The Insanity of the SJW War on Tulsi Gabbard

SJW’s declared war on Tulsi Gabbard because she used to be against political homosexuality. She was raised in a very socially conservative household that had an anti-gay agenda and she made a few public statements here and there that the gays don’t like.

But since then she has done a complete 180 and now earns a 100 score on the gay Humans Rights Campaign’s scorecard.

So why are they mad at her?

She used to be not nice to teh geyz! So what! What she did and said wasn’t even that bad. At that time, lots of people were against gay marriage, like more than half the population. My parents were against it most of their lives. I guess my parents are Nazis!

She was worried about gays brainwashing kids in schools, which is a bit of a reach, but really now: why do we need to have homosexual activists coming into the schools of little children teaching them all about the teh geyz and the trannies and all the rest of the Freakshow?! I mean come on, little children do not need to know about this or be taught about it.

Little kids are not particularly homophobic anyway. Mostly they don’t even know what sex is or even what it means to be a homosexual. I had no idea how humans practiced oral sex when I was 11-13. I had to be told what a blowjob was. I hadn’t a clue.

Yes, boys think it’s bad to be a “queer,” but they don’t even know what that means. They just know it is something you don’t want to be, which is an excellent concept for any straight boy to imbibe. Yes, extremely effeminate little boys are bullied, and rightly so. We had two screaming queens in our 5th grade class. Of course they got bullied. Were they born that way? Did they have some genes that made them act like screaming faggots?

Effeminate boys are bullied and the rest of the boys get the message: “Don’t be effeminate or you get your ass beat!” An excellent message for any straight boy to be taught. Tulsi also got in trouble for calling the gays pushing this stuff “gay activists,” which is exactly what they were and are.

Nowadays these idiots go into schools and teach little children stuff like, “Well, if you are a girl, and you like girls, maybe you are gay. If you are a boy and you like boys, maybe you are gay.” Yeah, way to go idiots. Great message to teach to little children.

Your average little kid only has friends of their own gender. An 11 year old girl much prefers her girlfriends to boys, who are gross. A boy the same age prefers his male friends to yucky girls who have cooties. So all these little 11 year old children are getting the message that they must be homosexuals. Way to go gays! Or maybe that’s the idea? Recruitment anyone?

Anyway, Tulsi was raised in a fundamentalist Christian upbringing that was very anti-gay. She imbibed some of that. Her parents were active politically and teh geyz declared war on them. As an impressionable young woman aged 20, she made media appearances defending her parents from these pests. As any young woman that age might well do.

Anyway, she has completely come around and she supports the whole Gay Agenda Package whole cloth. There’s not one i or t she doesn’t dot or cross. But that’s not good enough. Apparently her mind is not pure yet.

Teh geyz have discovered that evil Tulsi is a thought criminal! Oh noes! SJW’s put thought criminals in prison for life, literally. Why? Because Tulsi averred privately that her views about geyz had not changed, even though she supported them 100% politically in overt speech and behavior. But that’s not ok. Because thoughts have to be pure. And Tulsi is still guilty of harboring illegal thoughts. Which means she’s a raging Nazi.

Look. I don’t care what you think. You can think whatever the heck you want to! You can have any opinion you want. I don’t even care if you like me or not. Just pretend to like me and we’re all good. As soon as you walk out my door, you can curse me as a scumbag, but I won’t care if I don’t hear it. If you are good to me, I don’t care about how you feel about me deep down inside.

I don’t care how you think of feel about anything deep down inside. Your thoughts are your private abode. You can run amok in there or do whatever in tarnation you want to, and as long as you don’t tell anyone, it’s all legal.

So now people not only have to be perfectly pure SJW virgins for life, pure as driven snow or the Ivory Soap girl, never having committed even a single SJW transgressions in word or deed, as

, I confess that I prefer women with pussies or vaginas over women with dicks or penises. Even though women with penises/dicks don’t even exist. I still say that even if they did exist, I give thumbs down to that. If I wanted to fuck humans with cocks, I’d go gay or bi.

A woman with a cock just isn’t a woman to me, sorry. It’s like those drawings you got when you were a kid, “There is something wrong with this picture? Can you spot it?” I can. It’s the woman with the dick. That’s in the picture, and yeah there’s something seriously wrong with that.

If you wan to know what the Alt Left is about, the Alt Left is for liberals and Leftists who think this quote above is ridiculous nonsense.

Alt Left: Banned from Alternet Again

Actually not banned but a lot of my posts got removed. I think I set it off with a post about the Brock Turner rape case along the lines of my post earlier. Then the commenter went through and vindictively removed every single comment I had made that way no matter what I said.

I have a hard time imaging a liberal man being so emotional, but liberal-Left “men” are hardly even real men anymore. They’re humans with male bodies who think and feel like women. They’re actually much worse than women themselves because at least women and nice to look, you can fuck them, and the sensible ones can be quite a bit of fun. There’s no benefit to the male feminist at all. He’s a pussy, a cuck and a gender traitor all at once. Hang ’em high!

On the other hand it may well have been a woman because that emo vindictiveness – removing every post I made just to be a cunt – is classic female behavior. An enraged woman is as good as blind. And the last time I got banned was for criticizing the Epstein case and calling the “victims” things like “little teen whores” which is precisely what those junior strumpets were.

Moderator is probably a feminist woman.

I’m trying real hard to decide who I hate more – American conservatives or American liberals. I really want to like the liberals because I basically am one from back before the movement got body-snatched, but they keep punching me in the face! And you hit a man enough times, and he might just start hitting back, you know. That’s just human nature.

Conservatives are fairly friendly but American conservatives are like…let me think of a good description…”retarded howling apes on PCP.” How’s that?

Blocked you, jackass. If you can’t figure out that “finger-banging” a woman when she has passed out and thus cannot give consent is rape, I don’t know what to say.

I never said he didn’t rape her. I just said it was difficult case. This guy is a flaming SJW faggot with his gay rainbow colors flying high for everyone to see and cheer on his glorious career in sodomy. I’m not against gay men if they were born that; in fact, I cheer them on. But I really hate SJW fags. They’re as bad as feminists or BLM or any of the rest of the Cultural Left scum.

A friend of mine is a bit of an Alt Left gay man. He’s my age. He calls himself a conservative but he’s actually a Marxist! He’s just a conservative Left type like me, left on economics but somewhat right on social issues. He calls these types “gay libbers” the old name for gay liberationists, the first name of the pro-gay movement in the West.

He also hates faggoty pride parades and all the rest of the in your face Gay IP disgusting nonsense. He says, “We gays all just need to get married and move to the suburbs and live just like all the regular normal people there.”

I cannot agree more with that statement.

The Insanity of the SJW War on Tulsi Gabbard

SJW’s declared war on Tulsi Gabbard because she used to be against political homosexuality. She was raised in a very socially conservative household that had an anti-gay agenda and she made a few public statements here and there that the gays don’t like.

But since then she has done a complete 180 and now earns a 100 score on the gay Humans Rights Campaign’s scorecard.

So why are they mad at her?

She used to be not nice to teh geyz! So what! What she did and said wasn’t even that bad. At that time, lots of people were against gay marriage, like more than half the population. My parents were against it most of their lives. I guess my parents are Nazis!

She was worried about gays brainwashing kids in schools, which is a bit of a reach, but really now: why do we need to have homosexual activists coming into the schools of little children teaching them all about the teh geyz and the trannies and all the rest of the Freakshow?! I mean come on, little children do not need to know about this or be taught about it.

Little kids are not particularly homophobic anyway. Mostly they don’t even know what sex is or even what it means to be a homosexual. I had no idea how humans practiced oral sex when I was 11-13. I had to be told what a blowjob was. I hadn’t a clue.

Yes, boys think it’s bad to be a “queer,” but they don’t even know what that means. They just know it is something you don’t want to be, which is an excellent concept for any straight boy to imbibe. Yes, extremely effeminate little boys are bullied, and rightly so. We had two screaming queens in our 5th grade class. Of course they got bullied. Were they born that way? Did they have some genes that made them act like screaming faggots?

Effeminate boys are bullied and the rest of the boys get the message: “Don’t be effeminate or you get your ass beat!” An excellent message for any straight boy to be taught. Tulsi also got in trouble for calling the gays pushing this stuff “gay activists,” which is exactly what they were and are.

Nowadays these idiots go into schools and teach little children stuff like, “Well, if you are a girl, and you like girls, maybe you are gay. If you are a boy and you like boys, maybe you are gay.” Yeah, way to go idiots. Great message to teach to little children.

Your average little kid only has friends of their own gender. An 11 year old girl much prefers her girlfriends to boys, who are gross. A boy the same age prefers his male friends to yucky girls who have cooties. So all these little 11 year old children are getting the message that they must be homosexuals. Way to go gays! Or maybe that’s the idea? Recruitment anyone?

Anyway, Tulsi was raised in a fundamentalist Christian upbringing that was very anti-gay. She imbibed some of that. Her parents were active politically and teh geyz declared war on them. As an impressionable young woman aged 20, she made media appearances defending her parents from these pests. As any young woman that age might well do.

Anyway, she has completely come around and she supports the whole Gay Agenda Package whole cloth. There’s not one i or t she doesn’t dot or cross. But that’s not good enough. Apparently her mind is not pure yet.

Teh geyz have discovered that evil Tulsi is a thought criminal! Oh noes! SJW’s put thought criminals in prison for life, literally. Why? Because Tulsi averred privately that her views about geyz had not changed, even though she supported them 100% politically in overt speech and behavior. But that’s not ok. Because thoughts have to be pure. And Tulsi is still guilty of harboring illegal thoughts. Which means she’s a raging Nazi.

Look. I don’t care what you think. You can think whatever the heck you want to! You can have any opinion you want. I don’t even care if you like me or not. Just pretend to like me and we’re all good. As soon as you walk out my door, you can curse me as a scumbag, but I won’t care if I don’t hear it. If you are good to me, I don’t care about how you feel about me deep down inside.

I don’t care how you think of feel about anything deep down inside. Your thoughts are your private abode. You can run amok in there or do whatever in tarnation you want to, and as long as you don’t tell anyone, it’s all legal.

So now people not only have to be perfectly pure SJW virgins for life, pure as driven snow or the Ivory Soap girl, never having committed even a single SJW transgressions in word or deed, as there is no forgiveness or redemption in the world of Calvinist SJW’s.

That’s


Brett had a growth on his face that he went to see Kenneth for and Kenneth informed him that the growth was benign.<|endoftext|> to Indiewire's Film Critic

READ MORE: The 15 Best Movies of 2015 According to Indiewire’s Film Critic

With each passing year, the process of watching movies grows a bit more complicated. Consider some recent twenty-first century cocktail chatter: Do you watch “Beasts of No Nation” on the big screen, on your flat screen TV or your iPhone? Does any theatrical release stand a chance on Friday night when you can binge-watch the new Marvel show on Netflix instead? And why bother seeing that edgy new release when the known universe is planning to gather for "Star Wars" anyway?

But all of these possible issues obscure a far trickier conundrum facing the countless films from around the world that aren’t even available to audiences in the first place.

While top 10 lists provide one opportunity showcase the best movies of the year regardless of how much attention they’ve received in release, at least they’ve been released. The following list culls from numerous 2015 film festival programs to provide a rundown of first-rate cinema that has yet to land U.S. distribution (as far as anyone in the Indiewire HQ knows, anyway). Viewers eager to expand their awareness of contemporary cinema should keep tabs on these excellent options for whenever they become available — assuming distributors are taking notes as well.

10. "Paulina"

Argentine director Santiago Mitre’s first feature, "The Student," was a sleeper hit on the festival circuit that showcased the filmmaker’s original voice in tackling the intermingling of personal and ideological sensibilities among socially conscious members of society. His follow-up, Critics Week winner "Paulina," follows suit in more strikingly intimate terms. While "The Student" followed the developing rebellious sensibilities on a college campus during a period of political upheaval, "Paulina" focuses more specifically on the plight of its young heroine, the daughter of a successful judge, who assigns herself to a teaching gig in a low income town despite more lucrative possibilities at her disposal.

Within short order, she’s subjected to the physical abuse and shocking violence troubling the region, and faced with a personal decision that further complicates her valiant commitment. Littered with sophisticated conversations surrounding the intermingling of personal desire and social advocacy, "Paulina" owes much to leading woman Dolores Fonzi in the title role, as she wields her fierce gaze to stare down the various male figures — her demanding father and boyfriend chief among them — who try to tell her what to do.

Paulina’s radical decision to confront the horrific forces in the disenfranchised community where she takes root, rather than pushing them to the side, creates a bracing source of suspense that transforms the movie from pure character study to major conversation piece on activism, gender discrimination and a grab bag of other tantalizing themes. That conversation should continue with audiences around the world.

9. "Cosmos"

Polish auteur Andrzej Żuławski may be best known worldwide for his 1981 body horror whatsit "Possession," in which Sam Neill and Isabelle Adjani play a couple whose relationship crumbles in increasingly bizarre, expressionistic terms. For the outrageous dark satire "Cosmos," his first feature in 15 years, Żuławski savages a much broader target — the inherent chaos and desperation of human consciousness. It’s often hilarious, confounding and downright strange; if not the director’s most polished work, it nevertheless delivers a demented philosophical puzzle that’s fun to scrutinize in all of its baffling uncertainties.

Żuławski’s French-language production, which adapts the 1965 novel by Polish writer Witold Gombrowicz, follows a crazy-eyed law school dropout named — for symbolic purposes that immediately endow the material with meta quality from the start — Witold (relative newcomer Jonathan Genet, a lanky man with a piercing gaze). As the story begins, Witold walks away from his gig at a Parisian fashion company to take solace at a peculiar family guest house in the woods, where he hopes to write a brilliantly sophisticated novel. With his giddy pal Fuks (Johan Libéreau) by his side, Witold settles into the oddball home and its residents, where inexplicable behavior meets colorful personalities. Then again, Witold isn’t too clear-headed himself, and from the outset it’s hard to tell just how much his subjective perspective impacts the movie’s trajectory. The plot of "Cosmos" has a kinship to Luis Buñuel in its ongoing affinity for probing the pithy concerns of bourgeois society, but this hilarious satire ultimately marches to its own wacky beat. In other words, Żuławski is back and wilder than ever.

8. "Slackjaw"

Judging by recent portraits of neurotic, at times contemptible male anti-heroes in recent releases ranging from Rick Alverson’s "The Comedy" (and his recent follow-up, "Entertainment") to Joel Potrykus’ "Buzzard," American independent film is getting weirder and angrier to fit our confused times. "Slackjaw" is the latest beguiling example, and one that deserves the cult following it could easily develop.

Director Zach Weintraub’s hilariously strange and fleeting comedy follows two men who agree to be part of an experiment at a mysterious new corporation that shows up in their sleepy town. While one of them gets picked for the job and promptly vanishes, the other endures an increasingly cryptic set of experiences: He runs into an old high school pal and attempts to rekindle a band from their teenage years, only to dredge up old rivalries and regrets; in the meantime, a strange sheet-clad ghost pursues him on a bicycle and other figures wander in and out of his consciousness. The whole thing culminates with an American flag face painting and lots of hot dogs.

Is Weintraub attempting an urgent statement on the claustrophobic powers of modern capitalism? Or just a trippy, hypnotizing portrait of obnoxious blue collar bros? Only one thing is certain: With a dash of Alverson and a dollop of Potrykus, "Slackjaw" provides yet another example of an outlaw attitude that’s alive and well in American movies.

7. "Embers"

The directorial debut of New York-based filmmaker Claire Carré, "Embers" (which quietly screened at a handful of festivals this fall) takes place in a post-apocalyptic future in which nearly everyone suffers from short-term memory loss. Imagine "Memento" by way of "The Matrix" and you might start to get an idea for this haunting, innovative drama, in which numerous characters deal with daily confusion. At the center of the movie is a heartbreaking romance featuring a wandering couple (Iva Gocheva and Jason Ritter) who keep waking up unfamiliar with each other or their surroundings. Carré infuses their scenes together with wondrous existential yearning, while cycling through several other alienated figures: a young child, a committed scientist, and a teen woman living underground with her memories intact even as she yearns to escape.

Despite the underlying tragedy of these circumstances, Carré (who co-wrote the script with Charles Spano) suggests an inherent warmth to her characters’ tender struggles, which contain an innocence that deepens as we witness each victim fight through another confounding moment. Even if "Star Wars" caps off the year with the kind of mass appeal moviegoers crave, it’s hard to imagine a drama set a galaxy far, far away generating more intrigue than the challenges facing our own in "Embers."

6. "The Movement" ("El Movimiento")

Argentine filmmaker Benjamin Naishtat’s debut feature "History of Fear" was a sleeper hit on the 2014 festival circuit that followed an eerie series of events creeping into a gated community from the outside world. The premise offered a keen allegory for Argentina’s problems with class. The 67-minute "El Movimiento" ("The Movement") follows suit with another metaphorical take on contemporary Argentina, this one taking place in the distant past. Set in the plague-riddled deserts of 19th century, "The Movement" unfolds as a black-and-white portrait of various warring factions battling for superiority in a post-apocalyptic landscape.

Gorgeously shot and edited with the edgy intensity of a post-modern Western, "The Movement" is equal parts period drama and science fiction parable. Who are these angry men and what defines their cause? The answer is at once open-ended and a precise statement on the ugly power grabs that give way to contemporary society. Like Lisandro Alonso’s "Jauja," Naishtat’s haunting sophomore feature provides a poetic access point for grappling with Argentinean identity. It may be a tough commercial prospect, but the genre elements alone should make it stand out on digital platforms and stimulate further interest in Naishtat’s promising career.

5. "Schneider vs. Bax"

Dutch filmmaker Alex van Warmerdam’s movies tend to take the form of black comedies where doomed characters are trapped by bizarre circumstances. Here, the plot is fairly straightforward: A pair of killers cope

 to Indiewire's Film Critic

READ MORE: The 15 Best Movies of 2015 According to Indiewire’s Film Critic

With each passing year, the process of watching movies grows a bit more complicated. Consider some recent twenty-first century cocktail chatter: Do you watch “Beasts of No Nation” on the big screen, on your flat screen TV or your iPhone? Does any theatrical release stand a chance on Friday night when you can binge-watch the new Marvel show on Netflix instead? And why bother seeing that edgy new release when the known universe is planning to gather for "Star Wars" anyway?

But all of these possible issues obscure a far trickier conundrum facing the countless films from around the world that aren’t even available to audiences in the first place.

While top 10 lists provide one opportunity showcase the best movies of the year regardless of how much attention they’ve received in release, at least they’ve been released. The following list culls from numerous 2015 film festival programs to provide a rundown of first-rate cinema that has yet to land U.S. distribution (as far as anyone in the Indiewire HQ knows, anyway). Viewers eager to expand their awareness of contemporary cinema should keep tabs on these excellent options for whenever they become available — assuming distributors are taking notes as well.

10. "Paulina"

Argentine director Santiago Mitre’s first feature, "The Student," was a sleeper hit on the festival circuit that showcased the filmmaker’s original voice in tackling the intermingling of personal and ideological sensibilities among socially conscious members of society. His follow-up, Critics Week winner "Paulina," follows suit in more strikingly intimate terms. While "The Student" followed the developing rebellious sensibilities on a college campus during a period of political upheaval, "Paulina" focuses more specifically on the plight of its young heroine, the daughter of a successful judge, who assigns herself to a teaching gig in a low income town despite more lucrative possibilities at her disposal.

Within short order, she’s subjected to the physical abuse and shocking violence troubling the region, and faced with a personal decision that further complicates her valiant commitment. Littered with sophisticated conversations surrounding the intermingling of personal desire and social advocacy, "Paulina" owes much to leading woman Dolores Fonzi in the title role, as she wields her fierce gaze to stare down the various male figures — her demanding father and boyfriend chief among them — who try to tell her what to do.

Paulina’s radical decision to confront the horrific forces in the disenfranchised community where she takes root, rather than pushing them to the side, creates a bracing source of suspense that transforms the movie from pure character study to major conversation piece on activism, gender discrimination and a grab bag of other tantalizing themes. That conversation should continue with audiences around the world.

9. "Cosmos"

Polish auteur Andrzej Żuławski may be best known worldwide for his 1981 body horror whatsit "Possession," in which Sam Neill and Isabelle Adjani play a couple whose relationship crumbles in increasingly bizarre, expressionistic terms. For the outrageous dark satire "Cosmos," his first feature in 15 years, Żuławski savages a much broader target — the inherent chaos and desperation of human consciousness. It’s often hilarious, confounding and downright strange; if not the director’s most polished work, it nevertheless delivers a demented philosophical puzzle that’s fun to scrutinize in all of its baffling uncertainties.

Żuławski’s French-language production, which adapts the 1965 novel by Polish writer Witold Gombrowicz, follows a crazy-eyed law school dropout named — for symbolic purposes that immediately endow the material with meta quality from the start — Witold (relative newcomer Jonathan Genet, a lanky man with a piercing gaze). As the story begins, Witold walks away from his gig at a Parisian fashion company to take solace at a peculiar family guest house in the woods, where he hopes to write a brilliantly sophisticated novel. With his giddy pal Fuks (Johan Libéreau) by his side, Witold settles into the oddball home and its residents, where inexplicable behavior meets colorful personalities. Then again, Witold isn’t too clear-headed himself, and from the outset it’s hard to tell just how much his subjective perspective impacts the movie’s trajectory. The plot of "Cosmos" has a kinship to Luis Buñuel in its ongoing affinity for probing the pithy concerns of bourgeois society, but this hilarious satire ultimately marches to its own wacky beat. In other words, Żuławski is back and wilder than ever.

8. "Slackjaw"

Judging by recent portraits of neurotic, at times contemptible male anti-heroes in recent releases ranging from Rick Alverson’s "The Comedy" (and his recent follow-up, "Entertainment") to Joel Potrykus’ "Buzzard," American independent film is getting weirder and angrier to fit our confused times. "Slackjaw" is the latest beguiling example, and one that deserves the cult following it could easily develop.

Director Zach Weintraub’s hilariously strange and fleeting comedy follows two men who agree to be part of an experiment at a mysterious new corporation that shows up in their sleepy town. While one of them gets picked for the job and promptly vanishes, the other endures an increasingly cryptic set of experiences: He runs into an old high school pal and attempts to rekindle a band from their teenage years, only to dredge up old rivalries and regrets; in the meantime, a strange sheet-clad ghost pursues him on a bicycle and other figures wander in and out of his consciousness. The whole thing culminates with an American flag face painting and lots of hot dogs.

Is Weintraub attempting an urgent statement on the claustrophobic powers of modern capitalism? Or just a trippy, hypnotizing portrait of obnoxious blue collar bros? Only one thing is certain: With a dash of Alverson and a dollop of Potrykus, "Slackjaw" provides yet another example of an outlaw attitude that’s alive and well in American movies.

7. "Embers"

The directorial debut of New York-based filmmaker Claire Carré, "Embers" (which quietly screened at a handful of festivals this fall) takes place in a post-apocalyptic future in which nearly everyone suffers from short-term memory loss. Imagine "Memento" by way of "The Matrix" and you might start to get an idea for this haunting, innovative drama, in which numerous characters deal with daily confusion. At the center of the movie is a heartbreaking romance featuring a wandering couple (Iva Gocheva and Jason Ritter) who keep waking up unfamiliar with each other or their surroundings. Carré infuses their scenes together with wondrous existential yearning, while cycling through several other alienated figures: a young child, a committed scientist, and a teen woman living underground with her memories intact even as she yearns to escape.

Despite the underlying tragedy of these circumstances, Carré (who co-wrote the script with Charles Spano) suggests an inherent warmth to her characters’ tender struggles, which contain an innocence that deepens as we witness each victim fight through another confounding moment. Even if "Star Wars" caps off the year with the kind of mass appeal moviegoers crave, it’s hard to imagine a drama set a galaxy far, far away generating more intrigue than the challenges facing our own in "Embers."

6. "The Movement" ("El Movimiento")

Argentine filmmaker Benjamin Naishtat’s debut feature "History of Fear" was a sleeper hit on the 2014 festival circuit that followed an eerie series of events creeping into a gated community from the outside world. The premise offered a keen allegory for Argentina’s problems with class. The 67-minute "El Movimiento" ("The Movement") follows suit with another metaphorical take on contemporary Argentina, this one taking place in the distant past. Set in the plague-riddled deserts of 19th century, "The Movement" unfolds as a black-and-white portrait of various warring factions battling for superiority in a post-apocalyptic landscape.

Gorgeously shot and edited with the edgy intensity of a post-modern Western, "The Movement" is equal parts period drama and science fiction parable. Who are these angry men and what defines their cause? The answer is at once open-ended and a precise statement on the ugly power grabs that give way to contemporary society. Like Lisandro Alonso’s "Jauja," Naishtat’s haunting sophomore feature provides a poetic access point for grappling with Argentinean identity. It may be a tough commercial prospect, but the genre elements alone should make it stand out on digital platforms and stimulate further interest in Naishtat’s promising career.

5. "Schneider vs. Bax"

Dutch filmmaker Alex van Warmerdam’s movies tend to take the form of black comedies where doomed characters are trapped by bizarre circumstances. Here, the plot is fairly straightforward: A pair of killers cope with their families and their targets at once. While more readily accessible, "Schneider vs. Bax" delivers the rare joy ride


The caulk do not stop the crack from leaking because the crack is too wide.<|endoftext|> place. I remembered heritage and connection to the earth. I remembered a boxer dog and pickup trucks. I remembered that I always got teary at the first scent of orange blossoms in the spring.

Yearly high tide 7:32 am +6.9

Silver seas, silver horizon, no delineation no boundary, a loop of beauty and harmony; world without end. The seals on the buoy roll and bark, the sun sends an amber beacon across light years of space and time to warm us. To show us the way.

We’re sailing up the coast. Past places of intimate knowledge: the beach with the special tide pools, the cove with perfect homebody cottages, the inlet where marriage was proposed, the bay with crashing waves and razor rocks where we saw the whales, the rocky cliffs with fortune houses clinging like diamond barnacles…

All of us are a part of this place, landscapes hovering above the limitless ocean. Inhabiting our private planets, each on a tiny piece of earth that holds our footsteps, drains our tears in the sand, scatters our laughter in the wind. We live here.

Dolphins race below us in their world of liquid midnight. They see upward through the shafts of light that pierce the depths. Their eyes see sky and clouds. They see a boat sailing above with a brown-eyed woman leaning over the bowsprit, staring down into the blue-eyed sea. Watching, the dolphins know she is lifted with an ancient joy. And they swim beneath her wings.

Middle Earth explores the inner as well as the outer landscape. Wherever we go, we carry a Middle Earth within: our five senses and that extra sense of spirit… Listen to that voice upon the winds.<|endoftext|>To the moon? Ex-NASA execs hope to sell $1.5B trips

Space • New company aims pitch at countries, but individuals can apply.

Washington • Attention wealthy nations and billionaires. A team of former NASA executives will fly you to the moon in an out-of-this-world commercial venture combining the wizardry of Apollo and the marketing of Apple.

For a mere $1.5 billion, the business is offering countries the chance to send two people to the moon and back, either for research or national prestige. And if you are an individual with that kind of money to spare, you can go the moon for a couple days.

Some space experts, though, are skeptical of the firm's financial ability to get to the moon. The venture, called Golden Spike Co., was announced Thursday.

President Barack Obama canceled NASA's planned return to the moon, saying America had already been there. On Wednesday, the National Academy of Sciences said the nation's space agency has no clear goal or direction for future human exploration.

The firm has talked to other countries, which are showing interest, said former NASA associate administrator Alan Stern, Golden Spike's president. Stern said he's looking at countries such as South Africa, South Korea and Japan. One very rich individual — he won't give a name — has also been talking with them, but the company's main market is foreign nations, he said.

The selling point is "the sex appeal of flying your own astronauts," Stern said.

Many countries did pony up millions of dollars to fly their astronauts to the Russian space station Mir and on American space shuttles in the 1990s, but a billion dollar price tag seems a bit steep, Harvard's McDowell said.

NASA chief spokesman David Weaver said the new company "is further evidence of the timeliness and wisdom of the Obama administration's overall space policy," which tries to foster commercial space companies.

The company will buy existing rockets and capsules for the launches, Stern said, needing to develop new spacesuits and a lunar lander.

Stern said he's aiming for a first launch before the end of the decade and then up 15 or 20 launches total. Just getting to the first launch will cost the company $7 billion to $8 billion, he said.
<|endoftext|>Amazing Spider-Girl #2

May Parker thought she had hung up her webs months ago, but just when she thought she was out... along comes a mysterious resident at the woman's shelter where she volunteers named Mona Carol who is in possession of a mysterious item, her loser ex-boyfriend (or is he?) who has picked up some enemies of his own, and a brand new crisis of conscience for the daughter of Spider-Man. And what May DOESN'T know is that the man behind this whole conspiracy is none other than... the Hobgoblin!

Story 'Rocked by Reverb!'

Peter Parker and Phil Urich are at the St. Andrews Battered Woman Shelter investigating the aftermath of Hobgoblin's attack that put Caitlin Leiber, the director, in the hospital. Both are worried that the attack could have something to do with May, who is at that moment taking the "high road" to school and feeling guilty about it. Her guilt ratchets up a few notches when she meets up with Courtney and learns that Caitlin has been assaulted. Unable to quell the suspicion that she had something to do with the attack, she suits up (in tights and a red hoodie) and heads over to the ice cream parlor where she tracked two of the Hobgoblin's goons to last issue.

At the aforementioned ice cream parlor, Hobgoblin informs two of his minions of his belief that Spider-Girl has an connection to St. Andrews, and orders them to target the teenage volunteers one by one. One of the hoods wonders what to do if Spider-Girl shows, and Hobgoblin shows him a battle suit employing "some advanced sonic technology that recently came into my possession." Hobgoblin leaves the two to bicker about who will wear the suit, and May arrives, making too much noise to enter undiscovered. She subdues the first criminal easily, but gives the second time to don the suit, assume the name of "Reverb," and use his sonic power to blast her through a window. Completely disoriented, May decides discretion is the better part of valor and flees back to school, where she is busted by Principal Slattery and thrown into detention.

Back at the Midtown South precinct, Detective Drasco has come to warn Peter after speaking with Caitlin in the hospital: "the perp asked her about her volunteers. I'm warning all of their parents to keep their eyes open." Peter tries to call May, but can't reach her. He calls MJ, who calls May's cell phone but is told in no uncertain terms by Mr. Slattery that May is unavailable for comment. Realizing that Courtney Duran is on her way to St. Andrews and could be in danger, MJ heads over to Midtown High and pulls May out of detention. May is shocked when MJ gives her her costume back, but honors MJ's one request: "please don't tell your father I caved!"

Still guilty about lying to her mother and now having to keep a secret from her father, May swings off as Spider-Girl in pursuit of Courtney. Webbing her ears shut to keep the sonic blasts from affecting her inner ear, Spider-Girl catches the two thugs just before they attack Courtney and knocks them into a construction site. Dodging a few blasts, May webs all of Reverb's speakers and stomps him deep into a freshly poured building foundation, blowing out his entire costume.

Back at the Hobgoblin's secret base of operations, Detective Drasco is giving Hobby a copy of Mona's jacket, telling him that he has questioned most of the people she knows and that everyone is playing dumb. This does not impress Hobgoblin in the slightest. "Find her! Recover what she stole! And kill anyone who gets in your way!"

General Comments

Not bad. "Reverb" was a fairly generic throw-away villain and the obligatory fight scene was cookie cutter, but the overall story arc is picking up steam. I thought having MJ give May her costume back was a nice touch and completely in character (no matter how much it scares her, she knew her husband had a duty and now her daughter has that same duty.) May's guilty ruminations were a tad over the top, however. Granted, she hadn't been following the letter of her mother's previous edict, but it's not as if she was doing it for kicks, either. That's the Parker guilt for you, I suppose.

So Hobgoblin is trying to become the new Kingpin of Crime, eh? Also completely in character, and a nice parallel to his war against Wilson Fisk back during the Hobgoblin run in the 80s. Hopefully next issue we get a bit more about why this mysterious object in Mona's possession is so central to his plans.

Not a lot going on in this issue, but it gets from point "A" to point "B" rather decisively and is setting up what looks to be a good story arc. Bonus points for the snazzy cover.

Overall Rating

I'm sticking with three and one half webs for the time being, as this issue didn't really have anything special other than the inevitable return to the costume. But I've got high hopes for this storyline.<|endoftext|>Hajarah Name Meaning

Hajarah is a Muslim Girl Name. H

 place. I remembered heritage and connection to the earth. I remembered a boxer dog and pickup trucks. I remembered that I always got teary at the first scent of orange blossoms in the spring.

Yearly high tide 7:32 am +6.9

Silver seas, silver horizon, no delineation no boundary, a loop of beauty and harmony; world without end. The seals on the buoy roll and bark, the sun sends an amber beacon across light years of space and time to warm us. To show us the way.

We’re sailing up the coast. Past places of intimate knowledge: the beach with the special tide pools, the cove with perfect homebody cottages, the inlet where marriage was proposed, the bay with crashing waves and razor rocks where we saw the whales, the rocky cliffs with fortune houses clinging like diamond barnacles…

All of us are a part of this place, landscapes hovering above the limitless ocean. Inhabiting our private planets, each on a tiny piece of earth that holds our footsteps, drains our tears in the sand, scatters our laughter in the wind. We live here.

Dolphins race below us in their world of liquid midnight. They see upward through the shafts of light that pierce the depths. Their eyes see sky and clouds. They see a boat sailing above with a brown-eyed woman leaning over the bowsprit, staring down into the blue-eyed sea. Watching, the dolphins know she is lifted with an ancient joy. And they swim beneath her wings.

Middle Earth explores the inner as well as the outer landscape. Wherever we go, we carry a Middle Earth within: our five senses and that extra sense of spirit… Listen to that voice upon the winds.<|endoftext|>To the moon? Ex-NASA execs hope to sell $1.5B trips

Space • New company aims pitch at countries, but individuals can apply.

Washington • Attention wealthy nations and billionaires. A team of former NASA executives will fly you to the moon in an out-of-this-world commercial venture combining the wizardry of Apollo and the marketing of Apple.

For a mere $1.5 billion, the business is offering countries the chance to send two people to the moon and back, either for research or national prestige. And if you are an individual with that kind of money to spare, you can go the moon for a couple days.

Some space experts, though, are skeptical of the firm's financial ability to get to the moon. The venture, called Golden Spike Co., was announced Thursday.

President Barack Obama canceled NASA's planned return to the moon, saying America had already been there. On Wednesday, the National Academy of Sciences said the nation's space agency has no clear goal or direction for future human exploration.

The firm has talked to other countries, which are showing interest, said former NASA associate administrator Alan Stern, Golden Spike's president. Stern said he's looking at countries such as South Africa, South Korea and Japan. One very rich individual — he won't give a name — has also been talking with them, but the company's main market is foreign nations, he said.

The selling point is "the sex appeal of flying your own astronauts," Stern said.

Many countries did pony up millions of dollars to fly their astronauts to the Russian space station Mir and on American space shuttles in the 1990s, but a billion dollar price tag seems a bit steep, Harvard's McDowell said.

NASA chief spokesman David Weaver said the new company "is further evidence of the timeliness and wisdom of the Obama administration's overall space policy," which tries to foster commercial space companies.

The company will buy existing rockets and capsules for the launches, Stern said, needing to develop new spacesuits and a lunar lander.

Stern said he's aiming for a first launch before the end of the decade and then up 15 or 20 launches total. Just getting to the first launch will cost the company $7 billion to $8 billion, he said.
<|endoftext|>Amazing Spider-Girl #2

May Parker thought she had hung up her webs months ago, but just when she thought she was out... along comes a mysterious resident at the woman's shelter where she volunteers named Mona Carol who is in possession of a mysterious item, her loser ex-boyfriend (or is he?) who has picked up some enemies of his own, and a brand new crisis of conscience for the daughter of Spider-Man. And what May DOESN'T know is that the man behind this whole conspiracy is none other than... the Hobgoblin!

Story 'Rocked by Reverb!'

Peter Parker and Phil Urich are at the St. Andrews Battered Woman Shelter investigating the aftermath of Hobgoblin's attack that put Caitlin Leiber, the director, in the hospital. Both are worried that the attack could have something to do with May, who is at that moment taking the "high road" to school and feeling guilty about it. Her guilt ratchets up a few notches when she meets up with Courtney and learns that Caitlin has been assaulted. Unable to quell the suspicion that she had something to do with the attack, she suits up (in tights and a red hoodie) and heads over to the ice cream parlor where she tracked two of the Hobgoblin's goons to last issue.

At the aforementioned ice cream parlor, Hobgoblin informs two of his minions of his belief that Spider-Girl has an connection to St. Andrews, and orders them to target the teenage volunteers one by one. One of the hoods wonders what to do if Spider-Girl shows, and Hobgoblin shows him a battle suit employing "some advanced sonic technology that recently came into my possession." Hobgoblin leaves the two to bicker about who will wear the suit, and May arrives, making too much noise to enter undiscovered. She subdues the first criminal easily, but gives the second time to don the suit, assume the name of "Reverb," and use his sonic power to blast her through a window. Completely disoriented, May decides discretion is the better part of valor and flees back to school, where she is busted by Principal Slattery and thrown into detention.

Back at the Midtown South precinct, Detective Drasco has come to warn Peter after speaking with Caitlin in the hospital: "the perp asked her about her volunteers. I'm warning all of their parents to keep their eyes open." Peter tries to call May, but can't reach her. He calls MJ, who calls May's cell phone but is told in no uncertain terms by Mr. Slattery that May is unavailable for comment. Realizing that Courtney Duran is on her way to St. Andrews and could be in danger, MJ heads over to Midtown High and pulls May out of detention. May is shocked when MJ gives her her costume back, but honors MJ's one request: "please don't tell your father I caved!"

Still guilty about lying to her mother and now having to keep a secret from her father, May swings off as Spider-Girl in pursuit of Courtney. Webbing her ears shut to keep the sonic blasts from affecting her inner ear, Spider-Girl catches the two thugs just before they attack Courtney and knocks them into a construction site. Dodging a few blasts, May webs all of Reverb's speakers and stomps him deep into a freshly poured building foundation, blowing out his entire costume.

Back at the Hobgoblin's secret base of operations, Detective Drasco is giving Hobby a copy of Mona's jacket, telling him that he has questioned most of the people she knows and that everyone is playing dumb. This does not impress Hobgoblin in the slightest. "Find her! Recover what she stole! And kill anyone who gets in your way!"

General Comments

Not bad. "Reverb" was a fairly generic throw-away villain and the obligatory fight scene was cookie cutter, but the overall story arc is picking up steam. I thought having MJ give May her costume back was a nice touch and completely in character (no matter how much it scares her, she knew her husband had a duty and now her daughter has that same duty.) May's guilty ruminations were a tad over the top, however. Granted, she hadn't been following the letter of her mother's previous edict, but it's not as if she was doing it for kicks, either. That's the Parker guilt for you, I suppose.

So Hobgoblin is trying to become the new Kingpin of Crime, eh? Also completely in character, and a nice parallel to his war against Wilson Fisk back during the Hobgoblin run in the 80s. Hopefully next issue we get a bit more about why this mysterious object in Mona's possession is so central to his plans.

Not a lot going on in this issue, but it gets from point "A" to point "B" rather decisively and is setting up what looks to be a good story arc. Bonus points for the snazzy cover.

Overall Rating

I'm sticking with three and one half webs for the time being, as this issue didn't really have anything special other than the inevitable return to the costume. But I've got high hopes for this storyline.<|endoftext|>Hajarah Name Meaning

Hajarah is a Muslim Girl Name. Hajarah name meaning is Very Hot Afternoon. It has multiple Islamic meaning. The


Grandad liked to get his news from real newspapers, and not online websites. The websites felt impersonal and disconnected.<|endoftext|> so very easily, but would they stay there? There was only one way to find out for sure. It was risky, but so was piracy. The captain smiled as everyone assembled. “Who has that beautiful collection of plants that grow under such arid conditions? The one so big it needed two chests?”

“That’ll be me, captain.” The admiral stepped forward.

“Will it?” The captain opened her eyes wide. “It looks like you have something else for us as well? Oh, yes. The paean and exhortation to continued learning. Yes, that’s a beauty.” She looked up at the crew. “Bury them here.”

There was a pause this time, but a raised eyebrow from the captain (and a nod from the admiral) got the shovels moving. Standing next to the woman she’d just condemned to death made the captain edgy. She caught one of the crew watching her fidget.

“Make this hole extra wide as well. Cujo359′s cry to feed our very human need for learning belongs with the admiral’s booty, as do his pretty pictures that tell the ugly tale about science literacy.”

The captain turned and strode away as briskly as the cursed sand would let her. When she stepped around a large rock, she paused for a breath and small moment of self-congratulation.

The timing was perfect. There was no one left who would challenge her control of the Elitist Bastard.

She was still celebrating when the crew caught up to her. “Ahem. Yes, this is another good spot. Where is the tribute to the achievements of human excellence? DuWayne, thank you. Here, please.” Then she wandered off to celebrate some more.

At her next stop, she ordered the burial of the lovely debunking of the idea that nature (or Nature) maintains a balance, as well as the simple explanation of why thinking of government as “them” is so gratingly wrong. It was a pity to see Greg and Mike go. They’d helped to get her this far, after all, but with a secure captaincy…well, best not to be seen playing favorites.

Then it was time for a damned fine explanation of the pricing of prescription drugs. Shame about Chris, too, being as he was new to the crew and all, but booty like that must be guarded.

All this slogging through sand was making the captain hungry. Time for some rations. She decided to spare Last Hussar, whose recipe for cheesy stuffed baked potatoes was the envy of the rest of the crew.

Then it was back to burying booty and bodies. Lou had his turn with his skeptical view of Governor Crist’s answered prayers for good Florida weather. The captain shuddered as she ordered its internment. She’d been too close to that last storm for her liking.

The captain’s feet were starting to hurt. At her next stop, she took pity on the grossly overburdened John, who was carting refutations of Luskin and Egnor, Meyer and West, and Klinghoffertwice! She figured he’d be happy to get the rest, even if it was eternal.

Stumbling through the sand, she sorted through the remaining treasure. What was next? Oh, yes, Toaster’s mad burning away of chakra energy and woo.

Then George’s tale of the comforts of elitism to an intelligent but dyslexic child. A pity to bury that one before responding to its request for more tales of inspiration, but booty was booty, after all.

And then…and then…ah, yes. Brian’s clever differentiation of modes of writing, his realization that even fantasy must be grounded in reality, and a demonstration of the elitist’s dedication to producing quality even in the face of adversity.

Oh, and she wouldn’t forget where she had them bury Vic’s refusal to reject an historical theory out of hand just because it related to woo. Important to remember that sounding strange doesn’t mean no one ever believed it. Yes, very important.

And that was…no. That couldn’t be everything, could it. There was something else, something she was forgetting. Damn this sand. She kicked at it and almost lost her footing.

Looking down, she finally remembered that she was carrying something herself. She stared blankly at the box in her hand for a moment, wondering what was inside. Ah, right. A little essay about why knowledge of scientific fact, and trust in scientists, isn’t enough. Time to bury that.

But who would…who was left to guard her treasure. Oh, right. “Last Hussar, I need your pistol.”

There was only silence. The captain looked behind herself to see empty beach. How long had it been since she’d last turned around? How long since she last heard a shot or a shovel hitting sand?

She stumbled three steps back along her path before realizing she’d come almost all the way around the island. She turned again and staggered on.

She saw the ship first, then the dinghy about a hundred feet off shore. In it sat…no. She shielded her eyes from the now-setting sun.

“Admiral, ahoy!” The captain waived her arm over her head. “Come back! You can’t strand me here!”

“Aye, lassie, we can. We have.” The admiral pointed further up the beach. “We’ve brought ye rations and grog. We’ll check on ye in a month to see whether ye’ve learnt yer lesson ’bout booty.”

The admiral nodded, and the oarsmen took up their job again.

“But wait! I don’t understand.”

One of the oarsman spit overboard and laughed. “Oh, Cap’n. Yer as barmy as any we’ve seen this last month. Ye’ve heard too many tales meant fer bairns if ye think pirates wuld trust booty to ghosts. The only way fer keepin’ your treasure safe is t’ spend it. Spread it far and wide, as we mean to do.”

The captain, who was captain no more, collapsed again on the wet sand, where she lay to watch the Elitist Bastard sail on.

Tags: ,

5 Responses to “Carnival of the Elitist Bastards XVI”

  1. August 31st, 2009 at 12:35 pm

    thoughtcounts Z says:

    Wow, what a story! This is awesome. Thanks for a great carnival, Stephanie!

  2. August 31st, 2009 at 2:26 pm

    Cujo359 says:

    Hmmm, what was that, a .44? Ah well, round shot,smooth bore, low velocity. Good thing a true elitist bastard never goes anywhere without lots of reading material.

    See you next month.

  3. August 31st, 2009 at 11:29 pm

    Cujo359 says:

    No embedded URLs, eh? I meant “lots of reading material” like this:

    The subject matter is incidental, BTW. ;)

  4. September 1st, 2009 at 6:27 am

    Lou FCD says:

    Thanks, Captain! A lovely yarn and one about which a shanty should be sung!

    Bring me some grog, to wash the sand from me skivs!

  5. September 1st, 2009 at 12:09 pm

    Jason Thibeault says:

    Wish I could join you in some grog Lou, but I’m went t’ Davy Jones’ locker.

SEO Powered by Platinum SEO from Techblissonline<|endoftext|>Professional, Technical & Career Training

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No courses found<|endoftext|>Use your words, dear

Communication skills are key in any marriage, especially if you want to stay married. I think we can look at our parents and see some key points we can learn from.  My parents, for example, made sure we all ate at the table together.  They made sure they were a united front when we had issues, and they made sure to talk out their differences.  My husbands parents never eat in the same room or the same time.  They don’t discuss their marital problems, hoping they will all just slide by.  Television is their moderator.

My parents are divorced.  His parents are still together.

But in an effort to combine the good and the bad of each, we’ve created our own unique blend.  Take last night, for example.

Me:  I want to bake something.  Translation:  I am sick of watching you channel surf between Deadliest Catch and every other macho reality tv show that you have nothing in common with.

Husband: Like what?  Translation: why are you talking to me during my very important 7

 so very easily, but would they stay there? There was only one way to find out for sure. It was risky, but so was piracy. The captain smiled as everyone assembled. “Who has that beautiful collection of plants that grow under such arid conditions? The one so big it needed two chests?”

“That’ll be me, captain.” The admiral stepped forward.

“Will it?” The captain opened her eyes wide. “It looks like you have something else for us as well? Oh, yes. The paean and exhortation to continued learning. Yes, that’s a beauty.” She looked up at the crew. “Bury them here.”

There was a pause this time, but a raised eyebrow from the captain (and a nod from the admiral) got the shovels moving. Standing next to the woman she’d just condemned to death made the captain edgy. She caught one of the crew watching her fidget.

“Make this hole extra wide as well. Cujo359′s cry to feed our very human need for learning belongs with the admiral’s booty, as do his pretty pictures that tell the ugly tale about science literacy.”

The captain turned and strode away as briskly as the cursed sand would let her. When she stepped around a large rock, she paused for a breath and small moment of self-congratulation.

The timing was perfect. There was no one left who would challenge her control of the Elitist Bastard.

She was still celebrating when the crew caught up to her. “Ahem. Yes, this is another good spot. Where is the tribute to the achievements of human excellence? DuWayne, thank you. Here, please.” Then she wandered off to celebrate some more.

At her next stop, she ordered the burial of the lovely debunking of the idea that nature (or Nature) maintains a balance, as well as the simple explanation of why thinking of government as “them” is so gratingly wrong. It was a pity to see Greg and Mike go. They’d helped to get her this far, after all, but with a secure captaincy…well, best not to be seen playing favorites.

Then it was time for a damned fine explanation of the pricing of prescription drugs. Shame about Chris, too, being as he was new to the crew and all, but booty like that must be guarded.

All this slogging through sand was making the captain hungry. Time for some rations. She decided to spare Last Hussar, whose recipe for cheesy stuffed baked potatoes was the envy of the rest of the crew.

Then it was back to burying booty and bodies. Lou had his turn with his skeptical view of Governor Crist’s answered prayers for good Florida weather. The captain shuddered as she ordered its internment. She’d been too close to that last storm for her liking.

The captain’s feet were starting to hurt. At her next stop, she took pity on the grossly overburdened John, who was carting refutations of Luskin and Egnor, Meyer and West, and Klinghoffertwice! She figured he’d be happy to get the rest, even if it was eternal.

Stumbling through the sand, she sorted through the remaining treasure. What was next? Oh, yes, Toaster’s mad burning away of chakra energy and woo.

Then George’s tale of the comforts of elitism to an intelligent but dyslexic child. A pity to bury that one before responding to its request for more tales of inspiration, but booty was booty, after all.

And then…and then…ah, yes. Brian’s clever differentiation of modes of writing, his realization that even fantasy must be grounded in reality, and a demonstration of the elitist’s dedication to producing quality even in the face of adversity.

Oh, and she wouldn’t forget where she had them bury Vic’s refusal to reject an historical theory out of hand just because it related to woo. Important to remember that sounding strange doesn’t mean no one ever believed it. Yes, very important.

And that was…no. That couldn’t be everything, could it. There was something else, something she was forgetting. Damn this sand. She kicked at it and almost lost her footing.

Looking down, she finally remembered that she was carrying something herself. She stared blankly at the box in her hand for a moment, wondering what was inside. Ah, right. A little essay about why knowledge of scientific fact, and trust in scientists, isn’t enough. Time to bury that.

But who would…who was left to guard her treasure. Oh, right. “Last Hussar, I need your pistol.”

There was only silence. The captain looked behind herself to see empty beach. How long had it been since she’d last turned around? How long since she last heard a shot or a shovel hitting sand?

She stumbled three steps back along her path before realizing she’d come almost all the way around the island. She turned again and staggered on.

She saw the ship first, then the dinghy about a hundred feet off shore. In it sat…no. She shielded her eyes from the now-setting sun.

“Admiral, ahoy!” The captain waived her arm over her head. “Come back! You can’t strand me here!”

“Aye, lassie, we can. We have.” The admiral pointed further up the beach. “We’ve brought ye rations and grog. We’ll check on ye in a month to see whether ye’ve learnt yer lesson ’bout booty.”

The admiral nodded, and the oarsmen took up their job again.

“But wait! I don’t understand.”

One of the oarsman spit overboard and laughed. “Oh, Cap’n. Yer as barmy as any we’ve seen this last month. Ye’ve heard too many tales meant fer bairns if ye think pirates wuld trust booty to ghosts. The only way fer keepin’ your treasure safe is t’ spend it. Spread it far and wide, as we mean to do.”

The captain, who was captain no more, collapsed again on the wet sand, where she lay to watch the Elitist Bastard sail on.

Tags: ,

5 Responses to “Carnival of the Elitist Bastards XVI”

  1. August 31st, 2009 at 12:35 pm

    thoughtcounts Z says:

    Wow, what a story! This is awesome. Thanks for a great carnival, Stephanie!

  2. August 31st, 2009 at 2:26 pm

    Cujo359 says:

    Hmmm, what was that, a .44? Ah well, round shot,smooth bore, low velocity. Good thing a true elitist bastard never goes anywhere without lots of reading material.

    See you next month.

  3. August 31st, 2009 at 11:29 pm

    Cujo359 says:

    No embedded URLs, eh? I meant “lots of reading material” like this:

    The subject matter is incidental, BTW. ;)

  4. September 1st, 2009 at 6:27 am

    Lou FCD says:

    Thanks, Captain! A lovely yarn and one about which a shanty should be sung!

    Bring me some grog, to wash the sand from me skivs!

  5. September 1st, 2009 at 12:09 pm

    Jason Thibeault says:

    Wish I could join you in some grog Lou, but I’m went t’ Davy Jones’ locker.

SEO Powered by Platinum SEO from Techblissonline<|endoftext|>Professional, Technical & Career Training

Processing, please wait.

IMPORTANT NOTICE: Once you are enrolled arrangements will be made for starting your class.

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No courses found<|endoftext|>Use your words, dear

Communication skills are key in any marriage, especially if you want to stay married. I think we can look at our parents and see some key points we can learn from.  My parents, for example, made sure we all ate at the table together.  They made sure they were a united front when we had issues, and they made sure to talk out their differences.  My husbands parents never eat in the same room or the same time.  They don’t discuss their marital problems, hoping they will all just slide by.  Television is their moderator.

My parents are divorced.  His parents are still together.

But in an effort to combine the good and the bad of each, we’ve created our own unique blend.  Take last night, for example.

Me:  I want to bake something.  Translation:  I am sick of watching you channel surf between Deadliest Catch and every other macho reality tv show that you have nothing in common with.

Husband: Like what?  Translation: why are you talking to me during my very important 7 hours of tv time?

Me:  I dunno.  Something that takes some serious measuring.  Translation: Something


an, 10 Va. App. 728, 732, 735, 396 S.E.2d 675, 679, (quoting Young v. Young, 3 Va. App. 80, 81-82, 348 S.E.2d 46, 47 (1986)).  Wife helped establish husband’s earning potential, and cashed out rather well.<|endoftext|>Ryan is better at telling a story than Neil because Ryan took storytelling classes in college.<|endoftext|>Insinuation 2.5

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If you looked at Brockton Bay as a patchwork of stellar and squalor, upper class and lower class with no middle ground, then downtown was one of the nice areas.  The streets and sidewalks were wide, and that meant that even with skyscrapers in every other lot, there was a great deal of blue overhead.

Following my retreat from school grounds, I hadn’t been sure what to do.  My dad worked an unreliable schedule, so I couldn’t spend the rest of the afternoon at home unless I wanted to risk having to explain what I was doing home on a school day.  I didn’t want to hang around the general area of my school, so that had left me the options of the half-hour walk to downtown or a trip to the Boardwalk.  Between my morning runs and the previous night’s escapades, I had seen enough of the Boardwalk, so I’d decided to head downtown.

I didn’t want to dwell on the subject of school or Emma, so I turned my focus to the recent message from Tattletale.  She wanted to meet, presumably to repay the favor she felt she owed me.  I considered the possibility that it was a trap, but I couldn’t imagine any angle where it would be.  She just didn’t have any reason to go after me.  The worst case scenario was that it wasn’t Tattletale, but that wasn’t the impression I’d had.  What she said in the message seemed to flow with what I had seen of her last night.  I would be careful, nonetheless.

It was perplexing.  These guys were, in large part, virtual unknowns.  From what I knew of Grue and Hellhound, they were both marginally successful B-list villains who had been barely scraping by.  Now both were on a team that was pulling high profile heists and confounding even the likes of Armsmaster.  The two of them seemed totally different in methodology and style, and if I was remembering right, both Grue and Hellhound had lived in different cities prior to teaming up and setting roots in Brockton Bay.  That raised the question: who or what had drawn these four very different individuals together?

It was possible that Tattletale or Regent were the uniting factors, but I couldn’t really imagine it, having seen what I did of their group dynamic.  Grue had poked fun at Regent rather than treat him like a leader, and while I couldn’t put my finger on it,  the more I imagined Tattletale uniting that group of unconnected people with powers, the harder I found it to picture.  In fact, when I thought about it, hadn’t Grue said they had fought for a considerable amount of time over how to deal with Lung?  It didn’t really sound like they had any leadership worth speaking about.

It wasn’t hard to sympathize with Armsmaster.  The whole scenario there was just bizarre, and it was made worse by the fact that there were practically no details as far as Tattletale or Regent went.  Information, it seemed, was a major factor when dealing with capes.

The streets were busy with people on their lunch break.  Businessmen and businesswomen were heading to restaurants and fast food places.  My stomach growled as I passed a line of people waiting their turn at a street vendor.  I checked my pockets and winced at the realization that I didn’t have enough for even a hot dog.  My lunch had been in my backpack.

I stopped myself before I could finish that train of thought and put myself into a worse mood by dwelling on what had happened at school.  Still, as I thought back to the circle of villains and Tattletale’s message, the amusing thought crossed my mind that I could ask them to repay the favor by buying me lunch.  It wasn’t a serious thought, but the ridiculousness of the mental image – me eating a burger with a group of supervillains – put a dumb smirk on my face.  I was pretty sure I looked like a moron to anyone on the street who happened to glance at me.

As I thought on it, though, the notion that I might actually consider taking Tattletale up on her offer of a meeting nagged at me.  The more I thought on it, the scarier the idea got, and the more it seemed to make sense.

What if I did take them up on the offer?  I could meet them, talk with them, see what they had to offer, and all the while, fish for information.  If I got anything worth sharing, I could turn around and give it to Armsmaster so he could use it against them.  Just going by what Armsmaster had said about these guys and the scarcity of information on them, it would be a pretty major coup for the good guys.

Okay, so they would likely see my ploy as a monumental betrayal if and when I pulled it off.  I would be making enemies.  That said, I suspected that when it came out that I was a hero and not a villain, they would count it as such regardless.  Didn’t it make sense to leverage as much information as I could from them before they caught on, as far as their misconception went?

I turned around and headed in the direction of the public library.  It was only a few blocks away.

The library was busy, which made sense, given the number of offices and businesses around, the number of people wanting some quiet during their lunch hour, and people doing research or casual browsing they couldn’t do at their workplaces.  I would have included Brockton Bay’s biggest and fanciest high school, the nearby Arcadia High, in that generalization, but I doubted many students were spending their lunch breaks at the library.

The Central Library looked almost more like a museum or art gallery than anything else, with tall ceilings, pillars and massive pieces of artwork hung to frame the hallways between the major sections of the building.  I headed up to the second floor, where there were about twenty computers and a line of people waiting their turn to use them.  I anticipated a fifteen or twenty minute wait, but as the clock approached one o’clock, people headed back to work and the line rapidly thinned out.  A free computer came up within a few minutes of my joining the line. I let the person behind me go on ahead, waiting a bit longer so I could get a station with a little more privacy.

By the time I sat down, I had a pretty good idea of what I wanted to write.  I found the message with the search function and clicked on the username ‘Tt’.  A drop down menu appeared, and I chose ‘send private message’.  It gave me the option of making an account, signing in with an already existing account, or sending the message as an anonymous guest.  I chose the last option, then typed:

Subject: Re:Bug

Bug here.  Would like to meet, but want proof you are Tt.  I’ll reciprocate if needed.

I didn’t send it right away, taking a moment to consider.  Getting decent proof would prevent any potential problems like the message turning out to be a trap laid by, say, Bakuda.  Leaving the burden of proof on Tattletale and leaving it up to her to decide if she wanted verification I was indeed ‘Bug’ meant I didn’t have to worry about coming up with exactly how one might prove their identity.  I reread it twice over, then sent the message.

The reply came only two or three minutes later.  It was fast enough that I couldn’t imagine Tattletale taking the time to check and double check every aspect of her message the way I had mine.  Was that recklessness on her part, or just the benefit of experience?

I closed the tabs I had opened in the meantime and checked to see what she had written.  It was a private message, from her to me, and it set my fight or flight instincts in high gear:

Subject: re:Bug

Proof?  Last night you didn’t say anything until I asked your name.  Big guy had a mess of nasty bites and you pepper sprayed him and I told my pal G that when he asked.  Good enough?

G R and me will meet you at the same spot we crossed paths last night, k? Don’t have to get gussied up if you catch my drift. Rest of us will be in casual wear.

If we meet at 3 will that give you enough time to get there from library with everything you need?  let me know

Ta ta

My heart pounded.

 or reasonably foreseeable future”.  Srinivasan v. Srinivasan, 10 Va. App. 728, 732, 735, 396 S.E.2d 675, 679, (quoting Young v. Young, 3 Va. App. 80, 81-82, 348 S.E.2d 46, 47 (1986)).  Wife helped establish husband’s earning potential, and cashed out rather well.<|endoftext|>Insinuation 2.5

Last Chapter                                                                                Next Chapter

If you looked at Brockton Bay as a patchwork of stellar and squalor, upper class and lower class with no middle ground, then downtown was one of the nice areas.  The streets and sidewalks were wide, and that meant that even with skyscrapers in every other lot, there was a great deal of blue overhead.

Following my retreat from school grounds, I hadn’t been sure what to do.  My dad worked an unreliable schedule, so I couldn’t spend the rest of the afternoon at home unless I wanted to risk having to explain what I was doing home on a school day.  I didn’t want to hang around the general area of my school, so that had left me the options of the half-hour walk to downtown or a trip to the Boardwalk.  Between my morning runs and the previous night’s escapades, I had seen enough of the Boardwalk, so I’d decided to head downtown.

I didn’t want to dwell on the subject of school or Emma, so I turned my focus to the recent message from Tattletale.  She wanted to meet, presumably to repay the favor she felt she owed me.  I considered the possibility that it was a trap, but I couldn’t imagine any angle where it would be.  She just didn’t have any reason to go after me.  The worst case scenario was that it wasn’t Tattletale, but that wasn’t the impression I’d had.  What she said in the message seemed to flow with what I had seen of her last night.  I would be careful, nonetheless.

It was perplexing.  These guys were, in large part, virtual unknowns.  From what I knew of Grue and Hellhound, they were both marginally successful B-list villains who had been barely scraping by.  Now both were on a team that was pulling high profile heists and confounding even the likes of Armsmaster.  The two of them seemed totally different in methodology and style, and if I was remembering right, both Grue and Hellhound had lived in different cities prior to teaming up and setting roots in Brockton Bay.  That raised the question: who or what had drawn these four very different individuals together?

It was possible that Tattletale or Regent were the uniting factors, but I couldn’t really imagine it, having seen what I did of their group dynamic.  Grue had poked fun at Regent rather than treat him like a leader, and while I couldn’t put my finger on it,  the more I imagined Tattletale uniting that group of unconnected people with powers, the harder I found it to picture.  In fact, when I thought about it, hadn’t Grue said they had fought for a considerable amount of time over how to deal with Lung?  It didn’t really sound like they had any leadership worth speaking about.

It wasn’t hard to sympathize with Armsmaster.  The whole scenario there was just bizarre, and it was made worse by the fact that there were practically no details as far as Tattletale or Regent went.  Information, it seemed, was a major factor when dealing with capes.

The streets were busy with people on their lunch break.  Businessmen and businesswomen were heading to restaurants and fast food places.  My stomach growled as I passed a line of people waiting their turn at a street vendor.  I checked my pockets and winced at the realization that I didn’t have enough for even a hot dog.  My lunch had been in my backpack.

I stopped myself before I could finish that train of thought and put myself into a worse mood by dwelling on what had happened at school.  Still, as I thought back to the circle of villains and Tattletale’s message, the amusing thought crossed my mind that I could ask them to repay the favor by buying me lunch.  It wasn’t a serious thought, but the ridiculousness of the mental image – me eating a burger with a group of supervillains – put a dumb smirk on my face.  I was pretty sure I looked like a moron to anyone on the street who happened to glance at me.

As I thought on it, though, the notion that I might actually consider taking Tattletale up on her offer of a meeting nagged at me.  The more I thought on it, the scarier the idea got, and the more it seemed to make sense.

What if I did take them up on the offer?  I could meet them, talk with them, see what they had to offer, and all the while, fish for information.  If I got anything worth sharing, I could turn around and give it to Armsmaster so he could use it against them.  Just going by what Armsmaster had said about these guys and the scarcity of information on them, it would be a pretty major coup for the good guys.

Okay, so they would likely see my ploy as a monumental betrayal if and when I pulled it off.  I would be making enemies.  That said, I suspected that when it came out that I was a hero and not a villain, they would count it as such regardless.  Didn’t it make sense to leverage as much information as I could from them before they caught on, as far as their misconception went?

I turned around and headed in the direction of the public library.  It was only a few blocks away.

The library was busy, which made sense, given the number of offices and businesses around, the number of people wanting some quiet during their lunch hour, and people doing research or casual browsing they couldn’t do at their workplaces.  I would have included Brockton Bay’s biggest and fanciest high school, the nearby Arcadia High, in that generalization, but I doubted many students were spending their lunch breaks at the library.

The Central Library looked almost more like a museum or art gallery than anything else, with tall ceilings, pillars and massive pieces of artwork hung to frame the hallways between the major sections of the building.  I headed up to the second floor, where there were about twenty computers and a line of people waiting their turn to use them.  I anticipated a fifteen or twenty minute wait, but as the clock approached one o’clock, people headed back to work and the line rapidly thinned out.  A free computer came up within a few minutes of my joining the line. I let the person behind me go on ahead, waiting a bit longer so I could get a station with a little more privacy.

By the time I sat down, I had a pretty good idea of what I wanted to write.  I found the message with the search function and clicked on the username ‘Tt’.  A drop down menu appeared, and I chose ‘send private message’.  It gave me the option of making an account, signing in with an already existing account, or sending the message as an anonymous guest.  I chose the last option, then typed:

Subject: Re:Bug

Bug here.  Would like to meet, but want proof you are Tt.  I’ll reciprocate if needed.

I didn’t send it right away, taking a moment to consider.  Getting decent proof would prevent any potential problems like the message turning out to be a trap laid by, say, Bakuda.  Leaving the burden of proof on Tattletale and leaving it up to her to decide if she wanted verification I was indeed ‘Bug’ meant I didn’t have to worry about coming up with exactly how one might prove their identity.  I reread it twice over, then sent the message.

The reply came only two or three minutes later.  It was fast enough that I couldn’t imagine Tattletale taking the time to check and double check every aspect of her message the way I had mine.  Was that recklessness on her part, or just the benefit of experience?

I closed the tabs I had opened in the meantime and checked to see what she had written.  It was a private message, from her to me, and it set my fight or flight instincts in high gear:

Subject: re:Bug

Proof?  Last night you didn’t say anything until I asked your name.  Big guy had a mess of nasty bites and you pepper sprayed him and I told my pal G that when he asked.  Good enough?

G R and me will meet you at the same spot we crossed paths last night, k? Don’t have to get gussied up if you catch my drift. Rest of us will be in casual wear.

If we meet at 3 will that give you enough time to get there from library with everything you need?  let me know

Ta ta

My heart pounded.  She knew