[OT] Survivor, Survivor, Survivor, Survivor

Who is the last surviving actor (not including extras, of course) from It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World?

[OT] Changes

I got to wondering what’s going to be permanently changed when all this is over…

I have a feeling that having the supermarket deliver groceries rather than shopping in person will become, if not the primary way people shop, then it least a common alternative. I personally had never tried it before; but over the last couple of weeks have done so three times. And I can imagine how convenient it will feel when they’re not out of two-thirds of what I want.

“Oh, and add a couple packages of toilet paper to the order, if you please.”

Telecommuting in many companies will become more common, of course. “The office can’t function unless everybody’s physically in the office” won’t hold water, because  of course we see it is functioning.

And really, it’s a win-win: companies will need to rent less office space, commuting time will be cut, gas consumption and gas emissions will be cut…

Well, I guess not a win for the people who own office buildings.

Movie studios might look into releasing more films directly to streaming. Not big films like Star Wars XVII: More Things Blow Up, but maybe the films aimed at grown-ups, the ones starring Judi Dench.

I’m not saying all these changes would be good: this might be the first step toward us becoming the sedentary lumps from Wall-E

(which ironically would play in theatres)

The point is, all these things are proving they can work on a far larger scale than before, and are becoming accepted as a new normal.

Any thoughts?

[OT] Movie and Television Suggestions

B.A.: One advantage we have being trapped at home today, as opposed to during the pandemic of 100 years ago, is access to a limitless number of movies and television shows. So what will you all be watching, and what have you watched in the past that you’d strongly recommend to others?

Hunters (on Amazon Prime) was recommended to me this morning, and last night I recommended both The Good Place (NBC, available on Hulu) and Orphan Black (Amazon Prime). I’ll add others in Comments as I think of them.

[OT] Podcasts

I used to swear by CastBox, the perfect podcast app that was both free and almost ridiculously easy to use. The designers understood that it had two jobs: allow people to easily download virtually any podcast, and allow people to easily listen to anything downloaded.

But since we can’t have nice things, they decided to change it (ie: severely over-complicate it) and rename and re-arrange the essential functions, so that it’s become almost impossible to use.

Now that I’m swearing at Castbox, I’d happily delete this piece of dreck, even if that means losing every podcast I already have downloaded.

So I’m open to — actually, seriously in need of — suggestions. Nothing fancy: easy download and play, preferably free. I don’t need it to sync with all my devices. I don’t need it to tie into my social media. I don’t need it to walk my dog.

Thanks much.

Yeah, well…

I’m on my way to looking like Bernie Sanders.

No, Bernie Sanders when he’s having a bad hair day. Which is really saying something.

Very Random OT Question

It occurred to me (possibly because I’ve been home too long with no real end in sight) that people use “i.e.” in spoken discussion but rarely if ever “e.g.” Does this seem accurate?

[OT] Venn would be proud

I had this queued up to go live the day the baseball season began; but Lord knows when that’ll be, so here it is.

[OT] Just curious…

Are we all under “lockdown”?

My Primary Thought [OT]

I read that Mike Bloomberg won the primary in American Samoa Tuesday night with 175 votes.

I am not impressed: we were getting more than twice as many views than that from American Samoa every day in January.

Last Lines [OT]

Since we’ve been talking about endings and finales lately… Any candidates for “final line of a film that people know even if they’ve never seen the film”?

I’m pretty sure “It’s people!” ranks highest on the “People know the final line” > “People who know the movie” ratio.

Probably “Forget it, Jake…” is fairly high as well.

Your thoughts? As you can tell, I’m leaving off the names of the films because we are, after all, discussing their final lines, and you can’t get much more spoilerish than that.