Completely Inconsequential Hot-Takes 2: People Take Too Long to Post New Threads

[Draconi Redfir]

Mo-Squi-toes. While the letter Q is a rare beast, it does in fact just make that sound on its own. Its not like Colonel being pronounced with only one L or anything.

We always pronounced it Miss-skeet-oh. so i have no idea where that O is coming from.

[Domino Quartz]

We always pronounced it Miss-skeet-oh. so i have no idea where that O is coming from.

It comes from a Spanish word, "mosca." "Mosquito" is the diminutive form of "mosca."

[veti]

We always pronounced it Miss-skeet-oh. so i have no idea where that O is coming from.

It's a schwa, which is to say, a vowel so short that it's practically toneless. It could just as easily be spelled with any other vowel, but because of the etymology of the word, in this case it just happens to be an 'o'.

[Bohandas]

Hot take: the Office is pretty much the dumbest TV show in the last 20 years.

Dumbest broadcast TV show at any rate.

But on cable the former educational channels all have stuff that's dumber. The History channel is full of programs promoting far-fetched conspiracy theories, Discovery and NatGeo are nothing but bad reality TV, and The Learning Channel is a circus freakshow

[theangelJean]

Roll-cut vegetables are neither more aesthetically appealing nor more convenient to cook than angled discs. Why does this cut even exist?

The idea is to form a mouthful-sized mass of vegetable with plenty of surface area. As far as I can make out, they're meant to be roasted. If you're cooking any other way, they're probably the wrong answer.

... well, you asked.

I'd never heard of these and after looking them up, I immediately have strong opinions about them. Thanks for the new thing to be confused and annoyed about!

Huh.

Late to the party, today I learned that's a thing.

However ... You know how in many plants, the stem/leaf buds come out of the main body in a spiral pattern? So if you want to cut one branch off at a time while retaining a small amount of the main stem at the end of each branch, that is how you do it.

Which is why I was taught to cut florets off broccoli and leafstems off gai lan (Chinese broccoli) that way. Not sure why people are applying this to non-branching vegetables, though.

[Bohandas]

Situations where person A loves person B but person B loves person C should not be called "Love triangles" unless person C also loves person A. Because otherwise that's just one angle.

[Draconi Redfir]

Stories where everyone turns out to be related to one another and all share the same origin despite all not knowing one another before the story began

are INFINITELY less interesting then a story where a bunch of completely unrelated characters who all come from unique origins end up coming together to tell the story.


The former just makes the world feel so much smaller. like interesting things are only allowed to happen to this one specific group, rather then literally anyone in the world.


Looking at you Star Wars and Sweet Tooth.

[Rockphed]

Too much urban fantasy (i.e. magical creatures running around in the modern world) centers around characters who either powerful or have been in on the masquerade all their lives or both. I want stories where bog-standard humans find out that there is magic all around them and have to deal with it with zero super powers.

[Peelee]

Stories where everyone turns out to be related to one another and all share the same origin despite all not knowing one another before the story began

are INFINITELY less interesting then a story where a bunch of completely unrelated characters who all come from unique origins end up coming together to tell the story.


The former just makes the world feel so much smaller. like interesting things are only allowed to happen to this one specific group, rather then literally anyone in the world.


Looking at you Star Wars and Sweet Tooth.

Note to self, Draconi Redfir has never seen Santa With Muscles.

[Batcathat]

Note to self, Draconi Redfir has never seen Santa With Muscles.

Note to self: Peelee really likes that joke.

[Peelee]

Note to self: Peelee really likes that joke.

Never waste a chance to organically seize upon a good running joke.

ETA: Santa With Muscles is a great comedy, albeit entirely unintentionally.

Double ETA: Rater, now that i have time, here's an example of thr characters.

Spoiler

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[WritersBlock]

On the subject of movies

Death to Smoochie is an all time classic

[Rater202]

Never waste a chance to organically seize upon a good running joke.

ETA: Santa With Muscles is a great comedy, albeit entirely unintentionally.

Double ETA: Rater, now that i have time, here's an example of thr characters.

Spoiler

Show

1: That was in the other thread.

2: I'm starting to realize that all of the best bits in Family Guy since it was uncanceled were all just flat out stolen from other works.

I was okay with the musical numbers because it's clear that McFarland really enjoys older music and briging it up n his show is introducing it to a new audience but he just flat out took that bit line for line almost without making it clear it was a reference in one episode.

[Draconi Redfir]

Note to self, Draconi Redfir has never seen Santa With Muscles.

this is true.

[Rynjin]

Too much urban fantasy (i.e. magical creatures running around in the modern world) centers around characters who either powerful or have been in on the masquerade all their lives or both. I want stories where bog-standard humans find out that there is magic all around them and have to deal with it with zero super powers.

I mean, these exist they're just usually...not very interesting. "Fish out of water" has extremely limited mileage as a plot device, and inherently leads to a lot more exposition and a lot less action happening than having a character who is already familiar with the world.

[LaZodiac]

Too much urban fantasy (i.e. magical creatures running around in the modern world) centers around characters who either powerful or have been in on the masquerade all their lives or both. I want stories where bog-standard humans find out that there is magic all around them and have to deal with it with zero super powers.

If it helps, my novel Initial Sparks has a protagonist who isn't all powerful AND doesn't know about the supernatural beforehand!

[Draconi Redfir]

I mean, these exist they're just usually...not very interesting. "Fish out of water" has extremely limited mileage as a plot device, and inherently leads to a lot more exposition and a lot less action happening than having a character who is already familiar with the world.

what about stories of like, magical fairies and elves and stuff, but they need to manage a coffee shop and deal with student dept?


Magical people in a mundane world kinda thing. and it's not any kind of secret or anything, it's just like a D&D world that finally entered the digital age.

[Rynjin]

what about stories of like, magical fairies and elves and stuff, but they need to manage a coffee shop and deal with student dept?


Magical people in a mundane world kinda thing. and it's not any kind of secret or anything, it's just like a D&D world that finally entered the digital age.

Yeah, these exist too. Trying to remember a story I read a while back about that. The main character ran a barber shop for monsters or something like that, then got swept up into some kind of fae politics. Been a while since I read it, let me try to dig it up.

It is the Razor's Edge Chronicles

I found the first book reasonably entertaining but never read further.

I'm pretty sure every book Laurell K. Hamilton has ever written has a similar premise but how entertaining you find her will somewhat depend on your interest in softcore erotica.

[Bohandas]

Too much urban fantasy (i.e. magical creatures running around in the modern world) centers around characters who either powerful or have been in on the masquerade all their lives or both. I want stories where bog-standard humans find out that there is magic all around them and have to deal with it with zero super powers.

Aren't like most vampire movies like that?

[Peelee]

1: That was in the other thread.

Eh, potato potato.

2: I'm starting to realize that all of the best bits in Family Guy since it was uncanceled were all just flat out stolen from other works.

I was okay with the musical numbers because it's clear that McFarland really enjoys older music and briging it up n his show is introducing it to a new audience but he just flat out took that bit line for line almost without making it clear it was a reference in one episode.

I was all set to say "it ever wasn't that?" but looked up the clip and, while far be it from me to defend the honor of Family Guy, that looks like a pretty clear reference. In FG fashion, of course, which means its randomly crammed in hamfistedly, but still. Not much different than when i saw the show as it was first coming out.

[Rater202]

I mean, you're familiar with the source material so the reference is obvious... I'm usually pretty good bout picking out what's a reference even when I'm not familiar with what's being referenced... Maybe I'm just weird.

As for whether or not it was always like that... In the first couple of seasons, they made an effort. It wasn't necessarily good, but you could tell that they were trying.

Like, and I've mentioned this a few times in the Banter thread, I like bathos. When you derive humor not from the traditional joke but by the absurdity of a situation, usually by contrasting two radically different things, and as I've cited before, early Family Guy has a great example of Bathos.


This is not a joke. While there is a set up for this cutaway(Peter lamenting that the cable's ou and wondeirng what Scooby and the Gang are up to) there's no proper punchline.

It's funny, at least if Bathos is your thing, because they got Frank Welker to say those lines in the actual voice he uses for Fred. If they had just used a sound-alike, this bit would not have worked.

They made an effort.

Modern Family Guy would have done one of four things.

1: The same line, but with a sound like phoning it in and the setup for the cutaway wouldn't have been as natural.
2: To paraphrase Peter when he did a guest shot in the Cleveland Show, they would have shown the mutilated corpse and then done a song about the mutilated corpse.
3: A completely different scene that deconstructed the idea of Scooby Doo in a mean-spirited way like the "ghost" just being a dude who kills Scoby in an unnecessarily brutal and gory way that lasts far too long so it's not even shocking or the gang getting arrested and sent to prison for trespassing and vigilantism with a prison rape joke as the punchline.
4: The same tired old jokes about Shaggy being a stoner and Fred and Daphne constantly sneaking off to have premarital sex.

[Bohandas]

Exercise bikes should not have bike seats or handlebars

[veti]

Exercise bikes should not have bike seats or handlebars

Something gives me the idea that Bohandas has never spent a lot of time on an exercise bike.

[Rockphed]

My mother used to have an exercise bike that was just the pedals. You could use it while sitting on the couch. I'm not sure it ever got used as an exercise tool.

[Bohandas]

I'm saying it should have a seat, just not one shaped like a teardrop crossed with a triangle

[H_H_F_F]

Too much urban fantasy (i.e. magical creatures running around in the modern world) centers around characters who either powerful or have been in on the masquerade all their lives or both. I want stories where bog-standard humans find out that there is magic all around them and have to deal with it with zero super powers.

Neil Gaiman does that well, I think. Neverwhere comes to mind as the quintessential example of what you're asking for.

[Rynjin]

I'm saying it should have a seat, just not one shaped like a teardrop crossed with a triangle

Any particular reason you think the exercise bike shouldn't be shaped like a bike? Because bikes, specifically, are shaped that way for a reason. And if you're using an exercise bike as intended, with proper form, you're gonna want it to be...shaped like a bike. So the skills are somewhat transferable to a real bike.

[Peelee]

Y'all want inconsequential hot takes, ok. Here's the hottest, most inconsequential take you done ever got.

In episode 2 of Futurama, when watching the Chuck-E-Cheese-style show at the moon theme park, Fry gripes and an animatronic gopher pops up and responds, "Address all complaints to the Monsanto Corporation."

I contend that joke works even better if they're wholly uninvolved and Luna Park just hates Monsanto.

[Rockphed]

I contend that joke works even better if they're wholly uninvolved and Luna Park just hates Monsanto.

Plenty of people have an irrational hatred of Monsanto. It is more than a little depressing how many of them only do so because it is cool.

[Draconi Redfir]

i like (Most of) World of Warcraft's lore.

It has it's flaws yeah, and i think everyone collectively agrees Shadowlands never happened, but in the broad strokes at least, it's pretty cool.


Particular aspects i like are the origins of the different races, and the world history and the like. Titans sleeping inside the planet, and Elune granting vengeance powers, I'm more meh about.


Also Warlords of Dranor was a great expansion. Garrisons and Followers were a fun mechanic, not allowing flying while providing multiple "flight without flight" trinkets and rewards for exploring was a great idea.

Real shame the Followers don't follow you into future expansions. i was writing backstories for them and everything.