DataNinja's Scintillating Digital Random Banter #231

[enderlord99]

Mother and stepfather are back from the thing.

My stepfather's grandfather's will included an explicit mention that there were no provisions giving anything to the toxic people.

My stepfather's uncle apparently laughed more in that moment than in every other time my mother has met him put together.

One of them kept saying that she didn't understand what that meant and according to my mother it was obvious that they had it in their head that they were getting money despite being told they weren't getting money.

That's good to hear.

[Lacco]

True, but sadly the only martial art club up here is Wado Ryu karate and Shindo, which while close isn't what I'm looking for. Though "martial art where you use a short staff" is pretty cool too...

It's fun to swing a staff around. Had a friend who taught me some basic solo flow drills and while I'm extremely lazy when it comes to exercise, I find them enormously satisfying.

Still, doesn't beat the feeling of swinging a sword - it's completely different beast - but it's a good start to get the muscles to work.

As for the generally supportive approach of sword-swingers... I was surprised how welcoming the local HEMA groups were to newbies. It seems swinging a sword makes you generally a friendly person - although that may be just my experience.

I'd suggest looking up HEMA groups in your vicinity.

True, but it's not the actual fighting I'm looking to do. I want to feel the weight of swinging a sword in combat, the rush of it, so I can better deliver on that feeling.

Don't want to sound like an advertisement, but speaking from experience. Had exactly a single opportunity for full geared sparring (in full speed) before the club had to close due to local pestulence measures.

It was awesome. And had exactly the rush you are looking for - after all, we were trying to hit each other with real steel, although blunt.

I like having a hands on touch with some things. I looked up people talking about punching people to write punches cause I don't want to actually **** up my hand, but I'll for sure learn how to sword to write swording good.

If you want, let me know. I can send you some links to relatively good online resources (e.g. Björn Ruther has some good vids) even for single practice.

Also: kudos for doing actual research. World can always use more books with good swordfights

[Anonymouswizard]

So today is international women's day, where people more competent and social than I raise awareness of issues face by women.

Knowing what everybodyu is wondering I checked, and yes International Talk Like A Pirate Day is still 19th September. Oh, and apparently International Non-binary People's day is 14th July.

[LaZodiac]

It's fun to swing a staff around. Had a friend who taught me some basic solo flow drills and while I'm extremely lazy when it comes to exercise, I find them enormously satisfying.

Still, doesn't beat the feeling of swinging a sword - it's completely different beast - but it's a good start to get the muscles to work.

As for the generally supportive approach of sword-swingers... I was surprised how welcoming the local HEMA groups were to newbies. It seems swinging a sword makes you generally a friendly person - although that may be just my experience.

I'd suggest looking up HEMA groups in your vicinity.



Don't want to sound like an advertisement, but speaking from experience. Had exactly a single opportunity for full geared sparring (in full speed) before the club had to close due to local pestulence measures.

It was awesome. And had exactly the rush you are looking for - after all, we were trying to hit each other with real steel, although blunt.



If you want, let me know. I can send you some links to relatively good online resources (e.g. Björn Ruther has some good vids) even for single practice.

Also: kudos for doing actual research. World can always use more books with good swordfights

Thanks for the advice! Unfortunately I don't think there's anything like that up here, we're a bit too secluded, but I'll give it some more looks.

I think part of why I want to get a feel for swords personally is because everyone has said my fight scenes are really good and visceral and real feeling, so I wanna make sure I keep that feeling. Also it'd be good exercise, which I kinda need, and also sometimes it is just cool to think about having a sword.

[Fyraltari]

Oh, and apparently International Non-binary People's day is 14th July.

That would explain all the people parading down the Champs-Élysées each year.

[enderlord99]

I lost The Game again.

[Form]

Mother and stepfather are back from the thing.

My stepfather's grandfather's will included an explicit mention that there were no provisions giving anything to the toxic people.

My stepfather's uncle apparently laughed more in that moment than in every other time my mother has met him put together.

One of them kept saying that she didn't understand what that meant and according to my mother it was obvious that they had it in their head that they were getting money despite being told they weren't getting money.

Ah, a small measure of justice then?

Thanks for the advice! Unfortunately I don't think there's anything like that up here, we're a bit too secluded, but I'll give it some more looks.

I think part of why I want to get a feel for swords personally is because everyone has said my fight scenes are really good and visceral and real feeling, so I wanna make sure I keep that feeling. Also it'd be good exercise, which I kinda need, and also sometimes it is just cool to think about having a sword.

I vaguely remember promising (or maybe not, but I'm sticking with that bit because it sounds better) my fencing instructor that if I ever got my own fencing gear, I'd name my sword Excalibur. I don't fence anymore though, which is kind of too bad. Well, at least I can now defend my honour in the appropriate gentlemanly fashion should someone insult it.

[Rater202]

I've been rewatching Titus for the first time in a long time... Because it's available for the first time in a long time, but it has what I think is the best dark joke ever.

"What makes that guy think he can threaten us with a gun?"
"He has a gun."

[Rockphed]

I've been rewatching Titus for the first time in a long time... Because it's available for the first time in a long time, but it has what I think is the best dark joke ever.

"What makes that guy think he can threaten us with a gun?"
"He has a gun."

Titus? The dark and disturbing sitcom based on the humor of (and staring) Christopher Titus? With Stacy Keach as his father? My wife loves that show. I should, perhaps, have taken that as a hint as to the nature of our future relationship before I married her. (Why no, honey, I'm not saying bad things about you)

[Rater202]

Titus? The dark and disturbing sitcom based on the humor of (and staring) Christopher Titus? With Stacy Keach as his father? My wife loves that show. I should, perhaps, have taken that as a hint as to the nature of our future relationship before I married her. (Why no, honey, I'm not saying bad things about you)

Yeah, the very same.

Gotta say, watching the relationship between Titus and Erin is a bit hard once you find out that the real Erin was a Psycho.

[Rawhide]

Spoiler: Did somebody say Titus Andromedon?

Show

[Rater202]

Spoiler: Did somebody say Titus Andromedon?

Show

...Uh, no.

We're referring to Christopher Titus, a man who has made a career of cracking jokes about his horrible, abusive, dysfunctional life as a form of therapy.

I don't always agree with what he says, but he's really good at finding funny in a dark place.

[Rawhide]

Spoiler: Titus

Show

Spoiler: Andromedon

Show

[Rater202]

Good fences don't make good neighbors.

If you have bad neighbors the fence isn't going to stop them.

Good fences are needed, but only to maintain property boundaries and keep what's supposed to be in the yard in and what's not supposed to be in the yard out.

Good neighbors will respect that, and if they are really good neighbors you'll sometimes want to reach across the fence.

If you have bad neighbors, nothing you do will make them good neighbors... Though walls can help keep them out of your hair.

[Peelee]

Titus Andromedon makes good neighbors.

[Rawhide]

Titus Andromedon makes good neighbors.

He's made some very... questionable decisions regarding his friends. But yes, overall he is indeed a good neighbour.

[Peelee]

He's made some very... questionable decisions regarding his friends. But yes, overall he is indeed a good neighbour.

Let's be fair here, he's made some very questionable decisions regarding his life in general. Though it worked out for him not infrequently. He did get to be in the cast for Cats, after all.

[Rater202]

Cats

Cats is a weird thing if you think about it.

T.S. Eliot: Writes a bunch of nonsense poems about cats meant for his godchildren

Andrew Lloyd Webber: Sets said poems to music and connects them with a framing device about cats having a party.

The party: Hits every single item on the "is this a cult" checklist.

It's fricking weird.

[Mokèlé-mbèmbé]

The cops came to my place on Saturday afternoon. Turns out my brother-in-law, a shiftless workshy sponge who hasn't made an honest buck since the 2nd grade when he passive-aggressively cleaned out the gutters for his elderly neighbour Mrs. Malick, had hit up a medical supply wholesaler in White Plains, NJ and absconded with an excess of surgical apparatus. Purportedly he put in a good haul of gauze, that particular depot hadn't seen so much fabric since they wrapped the Pont Neuf. I would have been happy to sell the lazy oaf down the river, if only I had had an inkling of where he had hidden. I knew intimately that he had put up safe houses in several key metropolitan areas, though the only one I had personally visited was in Annapolis, Maryland. A quaint little apartment overlooking the water on Bay Ridge. I had visited there hoping to tap into my brother-in-law's cache of "emergency money", having promised the then-fiance a night on the town, but my own credit card having a 60 dollar ATM limit the best I could have hoped for was a rousing game of skeeball and some respite at Carl's Jr. While at the safe house I made note of the spartan artwork, the VHS collection (which included a copy of the Matthew Perry vehicle Fools Rush In) and a CD rack which included such oddball choices as Miles Davis' Doo-wop, Hootie & the Blowfish's Fairweather Johnson and Christmas in Vienna with Plácido Domingo, José Carreras & Diana Ross. I found the money in a stack of small bills hidden in the coat closet of the apartment's one bedroom, beneath a loose floorboard alongside a prop skull, several Playboy magazines from the mid 1980s and a ticket stub for De Palma's Bonfire of the Vanities. I left the apartment carrying the memory of that crap film and cursing my brother-in-law for having indirectly placed it in my head when I was having an otherwise nice day. I would have told the police about this safe house, but I was convinced that my brother-in-law wasn't actually there, and that he'd perhaps moved on to Lubbock or Tacoma or even Scottsdale if he was feeling particularly bougie. I knew he had an in with the late John McCain, but they had had some falling out over the 2004 election results, so that could prove to be a dead end. In any case my wife was doing a good job deflecting and the police left with more questions than answers. Later that day we had freshly squeezed orange juice and crackers with hummus.

[Peelee]

Cats is a weird thing if you think about it.

T.S. Eliot: Writes a bunch of nonsense poems about cats meant for his godchildren

Andrew Lloyd Webber: Sets said poems to music and connects them with a framing device about cats having a party.

The party: Hits every single item on the "is this a cult" checklist.

It's fricking weird.

Yes, a similar observation/joke is the basis for a Titus Andromedon joining the cast of Cats.

[Tvtyrant]

You should look up Lindsay Ellis' "why is cats." I'm not just saying that because she hates Rent for the same reasons I do :P

[Rawhide]

Cats is a weird thing if you think about it.

To be fair, every rendition of Cats is just the actors making everything up on the night.

[Rogar Demonblud]

Today: predicted high of 73

Tomorrow: 4 to 6 inches of snow

Welcome to spring.

[Peelee]

That's why we get tornadoes.

[Rogar Demonblud]

That season doesn't officially start for us until the equinox (so next weekend).

[Peelee]

That season doesn't officially start for us until the equinox (so next weekend).

I'll make sure to tell that to the tornado we had a couple weeks back. Won't it feel silly!

[Jasdoif]

That season doesn't officially start for us until the equinox (so next weekend).

I'll make sure to tell that to the tornado we had a couple weeks back. Won't it feel silly!

Yeah, who buys tornados out of season?

[Anonymouswizard]

While you're all discussing windy days I'm lying here in Zoom attire finally getting back to Harold Saxon's Police Career.

Such a shame I was too young for pre-watershed programs when it was first on.

[LaZodiac]

Thinkin' about how the snow won't even begin to start melting until May/June up here and just shaking my head at this notion that Spring even exists.

[Anonymouswizard]

Thinkin' about how the snow won't even begin to start melting until May/June up here and just shaking my head at this notion that Spring even exists.

It was Spring in the UK today, so it'll probably be autumn by the morning.