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So for, uh, reasons the idea of a "combination Chinese restaurant and bowling alley is in our national conscious. I found one. Also, Flack back to 13 years ago.

I'm w/ T$ on this one. The writing in ROP is terrible in places and the pacing is awful. The audience manipulation with their guessing games (who is meteor man?) just feels contrived and sophomoric. I don't care about the "Lore" heresies that a lot of the haters go on about but I do feel that overall it just lacks heart. The Jackson movies worked because he is a FAN who LOVES Tolkien. It feels like most of the people involved in ROP are just in it for the $$$. Having said all of that, I am still watching it and I liked the last couple of episodes much better so I have hope. But yeah, HOD is better on every level. Edit: Also, much of the "drama" is removed by the fact that we KNOW that certain characters survive to make it to LOTR (Isildur, cough, cough).

Over the last 15-20 years a series of photos of a Harley Davidson sidecar turned into a (street legal!) go kart have appeared online. The specifics behind them have never been fully explained, but there's a fair amount that's self evident. The photos are from Florida, in 1984. The rider (and presumably creator) of the vehicle is a young fella with an impressive beard. Almost assuredly a boomer. Florida Boomer (as I will now refer to him exclusively) took a vintage even in 1984 HD sidecar and stuck a similarly classic Harley motor on the side of it. How he managed to make a street legal vehicle is beyond me. These are about the best iterations of the photos available online. They have been posted on twitter, reddit and (ugh) pintrest many times. All with requests for more info, but no one has it. I upscaled this shot using Topaz Gigapixel AI and then cleaned it up on Photoshop. I love those 80s rims. Florida Boomer presumably did all of this on an 80s mechanic's salary. Florida Boomer didn't know how good he had it.

I'm planning on going as well. Looking forward to seeing the everyone

(Stuffed) Lobstah Roll From Source Material: Sample View:

I just talked to JP about the NY meet and I might be up for it too. We haven't had a true Travel Team event in ages, so maybe this is the reboot...

https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2022/oct/11/angela-lansbury-the-smart-scene-stealing-grande-dame-of-our-screens-for-75-years Last full stage role was in 2014 at the age of 88, although she continued with voice acting until 2018.

Or a portmanteaux version - discordello 🤡

I'm not sure of the difference between dry and dehydrated beans, but they can be presoaked to cook faster if you wish. I rinsed and soaked for maybe an hour before starting to cook them. I almost blew it because I got involved in something else and returned to the kitchen shortly before all the water was gone. They were great in this stew and I have another container left over that I'm going to turn into refried beans.

Just to make Doug shake his head in disgust, I upgraded the Dewalt planer during the two day sale at Grizzly. I KNOW, I should have just bought a Hammer combo. I am not a smart man.

96 ain’t a bad run and a seriously impressive resume. Have to wonder if Murder, She Wrote isn’t worth a reboot.

Looks pretty great to me, Jeff. How much does the internship pay?

I really need to hire an intern for finish work. I suck massively, especially when doing a million angles as I get at least one streak in every coat. As good as I can get it.

That's too bad, I thought it more than made up for my memory of the parts of seasons 2 and 3 that I had issues with. And the setup for the final season was perfect. Speaking of shows that push boundaries, have you ever watched Legion? I'm totally enthralled, but haven't finished yet, so no spoilers, please, but please feel free to gush about the style -- absolutely amazing.

Blueberry donut and latte in Bar Harbor Village Green Donald Wood Bandstand. Fun Fact: You know this is a busy tourist area (or just somewhere where cruise ships visit) when you get a pager for your coffee order.

What a contrast between the two big budget fantasy shows right now. I think the GOT reboot is great. It is more or less exactly what I would have wanted from a GOT revival. Fun characters, lots of backstabbing. Love the casting, the costumes, the sets. Maybe a little too much computer generated dragon stuff, but on the whole I think it worthy sunday night "event television." Great job by HBO. The Amazon LOTR show, on the other hand, feels like a disaster. I set my expectations low but still find myself disappointed. I can't believe they could spend this much money on the show and not have a few more adults in the room to set them down a better path. The pre-season articles about how they found the right show runners... yeah... I don't know about that. There are just so many scenes where there is zero drama and it is obvious to any viewer that it was filmed on a soundstage. It may or may not look pleasing to the eye but the brain knows it is completely fake. Example below. See also the interminable amount of fake CGI helicopter shots in landscapes that obviously don't exist. Eye-rolling every single time. It sounds like Amazon is already deep in to production on season 2 so hopefully if they can't change horses this late in the game they can at least bring in some new editors. Just yikes. I can't believe how boring season one has been and it has to stick in Bezos' craw that the GOT show is making them look like amateurs. I'm done with the show for now and may revisit down the road if people say it is worthwhile. I'm not hearing any buzz for it online at all from people I follow, and rightfully so. 😴

Entertainment!

I would be interested in attending.

Thinking about attending this year in New York? Any takers?

R.I.P. Angela Lansbury at 96...