Messages

1

/dev/random / Re: The last movie you saw....

« on: March 31, 2025, 03:36:57 PM »

The Exorcism (2024)



Russell Crowe is one of my favorite actors. I don't recall seeing anything he was in that I didn't like. The Insider, Gladiator, A Beautiful Mind, Master and Commander, 3:10 to Yuma, some of the best movies ever.

But this thing... it's so bad. It's every cliche of every dime-a-dozen possession movie. It's like a 13 year old girl watched the Exorcist (1973) and then used the idea of the filming of that movie as a setting for a movie about an exorcism... or something. I can't even describe the plot on my own, because it's so stupid that I can't bring myself to recall it in such a way that I could type it out coherently. The story is dumb. VERY DUMB.  You'll have to read the full plot on wikipedia to know what I'm talking about.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Exorcism_(film)#Plot

 And it'll spoil the movie, but don't worry, there was nothing to fucking spoil anyway. There's no mystery, there's not much development, it's just a bunch of fuckin lights going out and loud bangs and stupid jump scares.

This movie was about 90 minutes long. I'd rather watch 90 minutes of rapid fire short-form commercials on Youtube than watch this movie. I downloaded this movie illegally... AND I STILL WANT MY MONEY BACK.

2

/dev/random / Re: Whatcha listening to?

« on: March 15, 2025, 08:47:38 AM »

A little belated...

RIP David Johansen AKA Buster Poindexter. (Jan 9, 1950 - Feb 28, 2025)

He was singer for the early 70's glam punk band the New York Dolls. I'm sort of into punk, but New York Dolls were never my thing.

Clip of him on the Conan OBrien show back in the 90's talking about funny stories of times from when he was with the New York Dolls.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zwMpn7EmXTY&ab_channel=ConanO%27Brien

He also had a big hit in the late 80's, one that practically EVERYONE knows either from just being alive at the time... or probably from hearing it for one of the 9000 different occasions that it was used as an advertising jingle for all sorts of products.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EhZba-P7R18&ab_channel=BusterPoindexterVEVO

Yeah, I wasn't a fan of his Buster Poindexter stuff either. 

But I did like him as a character actor, especially as the filthy obnoxious cartoony cab driver Ghost of Christmas Past in the Bill Murray Christmas movie Scrooged, one of my favorite Christmas movies. It's a classic!



Even though I was never really any kind of fan of his music, I still think he's one of the most interesting people to ever be in the music business. He's the kind of guy I would've loved to have chatted with about music and movies and such.

He passed February 28th 2025 from cancer of some kind, brain cancer I think. He was 75. 

3

/dev/random / Re: Whatcha watchin'/streamin'...

« on: March 08, 2025, 11:47:36 PM »

Another thing I saw in my firefox feed...

How Streaming Is Making Us All Cinema-Illiterate

The oldest title available on Netflix last month was 1973’s 'The Sting.' Where does that leave the next generation of film lovers?

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-features/streaming-impact-classic-fillms-algorithm-1236146209/?utm_source=firefox-newtab-en-us

Yep. I think a lot of folks who are probably also my age (mid 40's now) are reluctant to give older movies a try. I'll admit that I think a lot of movies like the types they tend to play on Turner Classics aren't all that great. A lot of it has to do with the standard "Style" of acting that was just the normal thing at the time. Guys like Humphrey Bogart who are considered to be all-time greats in some of the most acclaimed films of the period... I don't feel like he was really all that good. And I think that peculiar "style" of acting that you find in all those old black and white 1940's movies probably turns off some people. Like I said, I don't really like it... but I watch some of them anyway.

I've seen a lot of older Westerns that I really liked. The older ones focused more on telling compelling stories. Can't go wrong with John Wayne movies, they all tend to be pretty good. James Stewart did a few good ones.

I'm just a big fan of movies, I like all kinds. I just want to encourage people to branch out more and dig into older movies. Some of them are really good. And considering the fact that a lot of the crap they're churning out these days are nothing but superhero movies, remakes and reboots,... might as well.

I'd highly recommend ANYTHING directed by Alfred Hitchcock. But in particular... definitely see Vertigo (1958), in my opinion, Hitchcock's best movie, and one of the best movies of all time. And he had so many really good ones. Psycho (1960), The Birds (1963), Rear Window (1954). But seriously, pick ANYTHING he ever directed, it's ALL good.

And I'm always looking for something new. If anybody knows of any decent older movies I should see, please make a recommendation.

4

Quake / Re: The FUTURE of Quake 2.

« on: February 24, 2025, 04:08:01 PM »

Remember the Toxic Monkey cartoons? The website changed names years ago and they were lost.

HAHA! Yeah I think so. If it's the one that used video clips from old Indian/Bollywood and Kung Fu movies where people added their own subtitles. Although you said "cartoon"... that sounds vaguely familiar too. Good times.

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/dev/random / Re: Whatcha watchin'/streamin'...

« on: February 21, 2025, 08:11:50 AM »

HEY! DO YA ABSOLUTELY HATE WHAT DISNEY DID TO THE STAR WARS FRANCHISE!?!

Yeah me too. So I can't wait to see how Amazon ruins the James Bond franchise.

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cjd35zm5zl4o?utm_source=firefox-newtab-en-us

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tastyspleen.net / Re: 10 years

« on: February 13, 2025, 07:29:17 AM »

We should play some GTA5. Raid the army base and steal a tank

If you need someone to do GTA5 with, I play it on PC. If you ever get on discord, find me in the Tastyspleen channel and gimme a holler. I got headphones with a mic. Probably have to schedule a time though, I can't always just impromptu jump into a game.

7

poetry / essays / short stories? / Re: Quotes

« on: February 08, 2025, 10:31:19 PM »

I've been slowly reading through the Meditations of Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius lately. The father of Stoicism, he was a "philosopher emperor", and perhaps Rome's only reasonable, fair, and decent emperor. Emperors were effectively dictators, so many of them tended to be considered tyrants in some way. I especially liked this quote, so I made a pic for it.

8

Quake / Re: Seattle FFA Frag Night In Memory of Pepp

« on: February 08, 2025, 08:52:25 PM »

I first met him around the time I showed up to TS in 2007. Back then I had just joined clan EoM, and he would drop into our weekly FFA meets. Used to spend mornings back in maybe 2015-ish or before playing FFA with him, Travolta, and a few others I can't remember off the top of my head at the moment (he had a regular crew he played with) on the Mutant server, occasionally one of the Xatrix mod servers, or the then recently forgotten Vanilla server which we all tried to promote and keep alive as long as we could. I beat him some, he beat me some, he was fun to play against. In more recent years, we antagonized each other arguing about politics and such, but I definitely still liked the guy and it was all in good fun. He was a cool dude, will miss him.

9

art, music, etc. / Re: Live Performances

« on: February 06, 2025, 04:01:34 PM »

One of my favorite groups from the 1960's...

Blind Faith

...a "supergroup" featuring guitarist Eric Clapton and drummer Ginger Baker from Cream, and Steve Winwood on vocals/keyboard from Spencer Davis Group, as well as Ric Grech on bass who would go on to join Steve Winwood in the band Traffic. Unfortunately they only put out one single album and only ever played a handful of live dates. I wish they could've stayed together long enough to put out a couple more albums. I thought the combo of Steve Winwood on vocals paired with the guitar and drum sounds of Cream was really great.

Here's a solo acoustic performance by Steve Winwood of Can't Find My Way Home. You might think he chose the fireplace as just a photogenic place to perform it, but I think it's more likely that it was a cleverly chosen location that along with the mic selection and placement helped maximize the bass projection of his guitar to make it sound fuller and more dramatic when the verses start over. 


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eoSn2Y-b6wI&ab_channel=SteveWinwood

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art, music, etc. / Ozzy Osbourne

« on: February 05, 2025, 03:15:34 PM »

"ONE LAST TIME... THE FINAL SHOW..."

Yeah well... we've all heard that one before. It's always "the last tour"... until the next one happens.

Ozzy Osbourne and Black Sabbath announce final show

At this point, do we even accurately remember when the FIRST TIME that the LAST TIME was supposed to happen? I can't remember if after Randy Rhoads died there was any talk of Ozzy hanging it up. But I do definitely remember that after No More Tears came out in 1991, that tour afterwards was supposed to be his "farewell tour" (the tour itself was called "No More Tours"), which resulted in the 1993 live album Live & Loud, which I thought was a fantastic live album. It really showed just how great of a guitar player Zakk Wylde really was. On the Live & Loud version of Shot in the Dark (originally from The Ultimate Sin, 1986, guitar: Jake E Lee), Zakk played it a tad bit different from Jake E Lee's version, and I always thought Zakk's choice of notes flowed smoother and sounded better.

But then in 1995, he comes out with Ozzmosis. Then the tour after THAT was supposed to be the final tour. Then in 1998 he releases his greatest hits album, Ozzman Cometh, which featured the track that became a hit, Back on Earth. I remember the video got a good amount of play on MTV - the video was a spoof of the old 1922 silent vampire film Nosferatu. The song was actually an unreleased track from the Ozzmosis album, and at the time Ozzman Cometh came out, Zakk Wylde had started his own thing as Black Label Society, so thats when guitarist Joe Holmes joined. I remember seeing Joe Holmes in a live performance Ozzy did on MTV to promote the Ozzman Cometh Greatest Hits album. At that point, Ozzy's voice was GONE. He sounded awful. And I guess they hadn't quite gotten to the point where live digital pitch correction was possible like nowdays, because it sounded BAD. I remember thinking, "God damn, I wish he would've retired, I really don't like remembering him this way."

After that... the 90's were over and I kinda lost interest in Ozzy and lost track of what he was doing. I was a super-duper Ozzy fan in the 90's, collecting all of his albums, listening to them ALL THE TIME. I just looked in my mp3 collection, and I do have the 4 albums that came after Ozzman Cometh (Down to Earth - 2001, Under Cover - 2005, Black Rain - 2007, Scream - 2010), but I honestly couldn't name one single song from any of those albums because I've almost NEVER listened to them.

Part of me wishes he really would've retired for good back in the late 90's. I get why he hasn't. For a musician, music is always there in your head, in your blood, and you can't just turn it off. You can try, but it's still there.

Ozzy ain't getting any younger. He isn't in the best health anymore. Is this "THE LAST" tour, or is this just "the last one... until the next one"... again? I say he'll be back. And this thread is here so that when he does come back, I can point to it and say "Told ya so."

11

art, music, etc. / Re: Cooking

« on: February 03, 2025, 05:19:30 PM »

I made sloppy joes tonight.

I had a really good sloppy joe recipe, but I seem to have lost it. The old way I made them for years was pretty boring and uninspiring...

----------
*1lb ground beef
*1/2 onion diced
Brown the onions, then add the beef, cook, drain the grease in a bowl and colander.
Put it back in the pan (obviously)
Add ketchup and hot sauce. I never had a set amount, I'd just kinda eyeball it.
Simmer til it thickens a little.
--------

See? Boring.

This recipe seemed pretty similar to the newer one that I lost.

-----------------------
*1lb ground beef
*1/2 onion diced
*1 can of your favorite beer, I use Sierra Nevada Pale Ale

- I use big non-stick fry pan, but I sprayed a light layer of canola oil in the bottom so the onions stick less (not entirely necessary).
- Burner on medium or a hair past med. Dump in the diced onions. When the onions start sizzling, make sure to spread them out in a nice even layer.
- Pour some beer in, enough to half-submerge the layer of onions. Let it boil. May need to add splashes as the onions cook. You want the onions a nice golden and carmel brown color with no beer left boiling in the pan when you add the beef. If you burn them a little bit boiling out all the beer, not really a problem, they'll still taste fine.
- Add beef. Cook beef. When beef is fully cooked, drain grease off in bowl and colander.
- Put beef+onions back in pan. Add the following ingredients for the sauce:

*1 15oz. can Red Gold brand tomato sauce (or whatever brand you prefer, just remember, cheap shit makes shitty food)
*1/3 cup Heinz ketchup
*1 tablespoon Lea & Perrins worcestershire sauce
*2 tablespoon Woeber's Sweet & Spicy mustard (or whatever brand of spicy brown mustard you prefer)
*1 teaspoon chili powder
*1 teaspoon Domino light brown sugar

(I'm pretty sure the recipe I had also had some garlic powder and onion powder but I forget the exact amounts. I didn't feel like it was necessary, so this time I only add a sprinkle of garlic powder to the onions as I was browning them.)

- Set your burner back to a tad above medium, stir it all together really well. Continue stirring and cooking for another 10 minutes, not letting it burn. If it's a bit too soupy and watery, adjust your heat to start the mix kinda boiling and keep stirring to keep it from sticking or burning. Once it's at the thickness you want, turn the heat all the way down to low just to keep it warm for serving, or turn it off if you want.

------------------------------------------

Nathan's makes a Kosher Dill Sandwich Slice, they are seasoned pickles sliced length-wise. Usually I have them on the side, sometimes I put one IN the sandwich on top of the meat.

Woeber's Sweet and Spicy mustard - might be hard to find. I'm not really sure how popular it is. I can't find it at Publix, usually I only see it at Ingles, which is an independent Southeast regional grocery store only found in Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Alabama, Tennessee, and Virginia. I HIGHLY recommend trying it though. It's super good stuff.

Beer boiling the onions: pretty much any recipe where ground beef with onions is the base of it, I do the onions in beer. Makes everything better.

I get these packs of Hebrew National Beef Knockwurst at the store, they're about 7 or 8 bucks a pack, you get 4 links. It's basically a big fat higher quality extra jumbo beef hotdog (like the ones they used to have at baseball games). I'll pan fry those in beer and onions too. They smell like beer battered onion rings - obviously - but still, that's just one of the greatest smells in the world. You plop the knockwurst on a top-sliced bun, add a little layer of the browned onions, add your ketchup and mustard. Better than the ball park.

Beer. It's not just for drinking anymore.

12

art, music, etc. / Re: Live Performances

« on: February 02, 2025, 01:27:51 PM »

Sodom

Used to listen to this band a little back in the 90's. I loved them, and would've listened to them a lot more, but their stuff was pretty hard to find. They were one of the original death metal bands that came about in the mid to late 80's when the genre was forming. They had a super tight thrashy sound, complete with the stereotypical very scooped-out midrange sound to all the guitars. I think they were from Germany.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b87jQQG0moo&ab_channel=DiegoChino

13

Bot Drop / Re: Chacal

« on: January 27, 2025, 05:52:57 AM »

It's a pretty poor piss poor attitude to have to think just because someone has been doing something for a long time they are innocent.

Context is everything. It's even worse to publicly ruin someones reputation without proof. Like I said, you've cried wolf so many times now that no one takes you seriously.

Problem is... if you're sitting there on the servers making rude remarks and accusations at Chacal, everyone else is going to see it, and no doubt one or two of them will begin agreeing with and repeating what you are saying. This exact situation happened to me. One particular person began accusing me of cheating with ZERO PROOF. I challenged them numerous times to post evidence of what they were accusing me of to the forums, and they never would. They just kept repeating the accusation. It didn't bother me at all until I saw 2 or 3 other people on the server start agreeing with him. At that point, I had to ask Quadz to intervene. He had to take time out of his day to join up when this person was on and tell them, "Hey, enough with the hack accusations. This has gone from freedom of speech and normal banter to disruptive libelous slander."

They tried to do the same kind of thing to President Trump. Like I said, context is everything, and when you have the full context of all the facts, it's very obvious that E Jean Carroll who accused President Trump of rape was lying. But when you get a corrupt judge who will agree to try him AGAIN for the charge of "libel" (the libel part = he called her a liar), then it's not too hard for the politically biased media to make the inference that he is indeed a rapist... and then morons like representative Ocasio-Cortez will take to twitter posting "Donald Trump is a rapist", and all the morons who follow her and believe everything she says will repeat it. And then it becomes a normalized perfectly acceptable opinion to express now and forever that "Donald Trump is a rapist" even though there was never any evidence proving it, even though there was always an abundance of circumstantial evidence suggesting that such an accusation was complete horseshit. Doesn't matter. In the words of Nazi Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels, "A lie repeated often enough becomes the truth."

14

Bot Drop / Re: Chacal

« on: January 25, 2025, 02:09:58 PM »

A full 24 hours later... still says "downloaded 0 times". 

The GIF is a joke at your expense, and you can get offended that this is some kind of a personal insult, but you've done this SO MANY TIMES that I can't be objective about any accusation you make anymore, I instantly assume you're wrong.

That,... taken with the fact that Chacal has played on TS servers for probably longer than I've been around here... means that if Chacal was going to get caught cheating, he would've been caught doing it already by multiple someone elses.

15

Bot Drop / Re: Chacal

« on: January 24, 2025, 09:04:08 PM »