CHICAGO: If Hepatitis C Were Attacking Your Face Instead of Your Liver You'd Be Doing Something About It

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I refuse to watch BATTLENERD GEEKLACTICA

― jaymc (jaymc), Monday, 16 October 2006 19:15 (eighteen years ago) link

I thought I'd had my fill of space operas, but I think I'm hooked.

I never saw the original BSG, but I want to now that I see Dirk Benedict was in it! I love that dude. Tarantino should hipster him up in his next movie.

― JordanC (JordanC), Monday, 16 October 2006 19:18 (eighteen years ago) link

Tom Zarek's character needed a little refining, I thought. And I got sick of the pro-military rah rah totally uncritical of your superior officers crap. I'm still a little sick of that, actually, but...

I can't say anymore!

Oh, those handful of episodes that were dripping with dad issues were a little sickening, too. Basically, as soon as they started focusing on the CYLONS and all their attendant evil I was back into.

― jenny (pullapartgirl), Monday, 16 October 2006 19:18 (eighteen years ago) link

I thought I'd had my fill of space operas

hahahahahahaha

― jaymc (jaymc), Monday, 16 October 2006 19:19 (eighteen years ago) link

You are in no position to mock someone for their chosen brand of nerdery, mister.

― jenny (pullapartgirl), Monday, 16 October 2006 19:21 (eighteen years ago) link

What's so funny? I mean, I ain't gonna lie, I've seen a lot of sci-fi tv shows.

― JordanC (JordanC), Monday, 16 October 2006 19:24 (eighteen years ago) link

He's laughing because there's no such thing as "too many" space operas. It's an infinite genre and I say THANK GOODNESS.

― Laurel (Laurel), Monday, 16 October 2006 19:32 (eighteen years ago) link

See, here's the thing: a lot of my friends who were considered nerds in junior high school have openly embraced their nerdhood as adults. But whenever one of them says something like, "Isn't it funny how so many of us who graduated from K were total dorks growing up, and we still kind of are?" -- then I'm resistant. Because yeah, I was probably considered a nerd at one point -- but why? Because I got good grades and I wasn't good at sports? So what? I mean, sure, that gets you mocked when you're in 7th grade, but I don't know why that should define me as a nerd now. Or they say something like, "Well, you know, we read The New Yorker and listen to NPR" -- and I'm like, okay, well you have a pretty broad definition of "nerd." I plead guilty for wanting, at various points in my life, to be an intellectual/elitist/cultural snob, but I never read a fucking Piers Anthony paperback.

― jaymc (jaymc), Monday, 16 October 2006 19:33 (eighteen years ago) link

xpost I'm laughing at the concept of there being so many space operas that one could conceivably have his fill of them.

― jaymc (jaymc), Monday, 16 October 2006 19:34 (eighteen years ago) link

Or they say, "We're soooooo not cool enough to be in a rock band" and I'm like, "Well, that attitude is exactly why our band isn't cool."

― jaymc (jaymc), Monday, 16 October 2006 19:36 (eighteen years ago) link

Because yeah, I was probably considered a nerd at one point -- but why? Because I got good grades and I wasn't good at sports

something tells me that wasn't it. I'm not sure what it is, I'm having trouble putting my finger on it...

*cough*
skipped driver's ed on the day of a quiz not to go out and smoke pot behind the school or anything like that but to go to another section of my favorite English teacher's class instead.
*cough*

― otto midnight (otto midnight), Monday, 16 October 2006 19:36 (eighteen years ago) link

Ohh nooo, I was considered a nerd because I never took my nose out of the book, and the book was usually sci-fi. Also, apart from some rather more "cerebral" authors like Iain Banks and the PKD renaissance, run-of-the-genre science fiction & fantasy STILL comes in for mostly ridicule, as evidenced by John's last sentence above. I read a lot of Piers Anthony.

― Laurel (Laurel), Monday, 16 October 2006 19:36 (eighteen years ago) link

Haha, oh John. I mean, it's not the part of my life that I'm most proud of, but there was Star Trek and TNG as a kid, a little DS9, Farscape and Babylon 5 with Maddie, etc. etc., and I enjoyed them all.

― JordanC (JordanC), Monday, 16 October 2006 19:38 (eighteen years ago) link

(xpost) See, Otto, but that was about wanting to hang out with EJ Bronkema. When I used to stay after school and talk with her in the English office, it was about, I dunno, Woody Allen and Nabokov -- not Tolkien and Deep Space Nine.

― jaymc (jaymc), Monday, 16 October 2006 19:41 (eighteen years ago) link

Yeah...still not cool.

― JordanC (JordanC), Monday, 16 October 2006 19:42 (eighteen years ago) link

Anyway, I'm happy that you guys can enjoy that stuff, I just don't want any of it pinned on me. And my distaste for it means that I have total license to make fun of you for it.

― jaymc (jaymc), Monday, 16 October 2006 19:43 (eighteen years ago) link

WOODY ALLEN ISN'T COOL???

― jaymc (jaymc), Monday, 16 October 2006 19:43 (eighteen years ago) link

Good thing, because Woody Allen is TOTALLY less pathetic than Tolkien.

― Laurel (Laurel), Monday, 16 October 2006 19:43 (eighteen years ago) link

not Tolkien and Deep Space Nine

Dude give us a LITTLE credit here. Everynerd knows that's the worst Star Trek evolution ever.

xpost: Yeah, remember how you used to talk about Lost...

― danno martinez (danno martinez), Monday, 16 October 2006 19:43 (eighteen years ago) link

or wait, was that Nick? Fuck.

― danno martinez (danno martinez), Monday, 16 October 2006 19:44 (eighteen years ago) link

Nerdy, intellectual, Jewish pedophile = really not that cool, yo

Everynerd knows that's the worst Star Trek evolution ever.

~~But better than Voyager and Enterprise~~

― JordanC (JordanC), Monday, 16 October 2006 19:45 (eighteen years ago) link

Wait, what about Lost? Lost is awesome. There are no spaceships or evil wizards in Lost.

― jaymc (jaymc), Monday, 16 October 2006 19:45 (eighteen years ago) link

Yeah, Lost is totally geeky sci-fi that it's okay to like.

― JordanC (JordanC), Monday, 16 October 2006 19:46 (eighteen years ago) link

Jewish intellectuals are very cool, in my book. Maybe not the neo-cons, but most of the others.

― jaymc (jaymc), Monday, 16 October 2006 19:46 (eighteen years ago) link

Jordan, you forgot "massively neurotic".

― Laurel (Laurel), Monday, 16 October 2006 19:48 (eighteen years ago) link

Re Woody Allen, not re "Lost"!!

― Laurel (Laurel), Monday, 16 October 2006 19:48 (eighteen years ago) link

Oh yeah. Anyway, obviously I've playing devil's advocate to some degree, but there's cool and then there's cool.

― JordanC (JordanC), Monday, 16 October 2006 19:50 (eighteen years ago) link

wait wait wait... WOODY ALLEN?!?!?? prophetic.

― otto midnight (otto midnight), Monday, 16 October 2006 19:52 (eighteen years ago) link

And compared to sex and drugs and rock n' roll, Woody Allen is not very cool. Neither are the Jews, really.

― JordanC (JordanC), Monday, 16 October 2006 19:53 (eighteen years ago) link

(j/k about the Jews, uh, kinda)

― JordanC (JordanC), Monday, 16 October 2006 19:55 (eighteen years ago) link

What about Gene Simmons?

― danno martinez (danno martinez), Monday, 16 October 2006 19:55 (eighteen years ago) link

Eh, the Hasidim are usually cool. Their stories are K-CLASSIC, although the gender division in modern life leaves something to be desired.

― Laurel (Laurel), Monday, 16 October 2006 19:55 (eighteen years ago) link

No way. I was specifically thinking that there are obv. cool Jews out there, but that the Hasidim are WAY LAME.

― JordanC (JordanC), Monday, 16 October 2006 19:57 (eighteen years ago) link

But but but WHY?

― Laurel (Laurel), Monday, 16 October 2006 19:57 (eighteen years ago) link

I mean, my own personal & fam issues to thread, but I basically hate interacting with them and "cool" is absolutely the last word that comes to mind.

― JordanC (JordanC), Monday, 16 October 2006 19:58 (eighteen years ago) link

Ooohh, I vaguely recall some mention of that but I don't know yr story. Oh well. The book Tales of the Hasidim is cool, anyway.

― Laurel (Laurel), Monday, 16 October 2006 19:59 (eighteen years ago) link

Anyway, I think we've been over this before, but what I like about Lost is that it a) takes place in the present-day, with recognizable human characters, and b) the sci-fi element has so far been a vague sense of creepiness and mystery. It's almost more like a suspense/horror movie in that we're identifying with people like us who have been thrown into an unusual situation, and we want to get to the bottom of it all. We're not starting out on an alien planet and just accepting that a race of green humanoids with yo-yos for eyes exist in this world.

― jaymc (jaymc), Monday, 16 October 2006 20:01 (eighteen years ago) link

Maybe they're cooler to a non-Jew, but I get a really patronizing vibe off them. And they cut themselves off physically and culturally from the rest of the world...how can someone be cool if they don't understand/don't care about/are afraid of modern culture? Stick to your Torah and clapping on the downbeats and lack of birth control dudes, I'll be in the real world.

/over the top rant

― JordanC (JordanC), Monday, 16 October 2006 20:03 (eighteen years ago) link

Sorry. Basically my mom has become extremely Orthodox so I'm forced to deal with that community sometimes, and I'm not exactly what they expect from her son. At all. And they can be dicks about it.

― JordanC (JordanC), Monday, 16 October 2006 20:04 (eighteen years ago) link

I don't know what's wrong with me today. I'm full of hate, apparently.

― JordanC (JordanC), Monday, 16 October 2006 20:08 (eighteen years ago) link

Yeah, I'm not talking about Orthodox, more like, you know, Elliott Gould.

― jaymc (jaymc), Monday, 16 October 2006 20:09 (eighteen years ago) link

Jordan, your hateful rant is so far making people not notice that I just defended horror movies.

― jaymc (jaymc), Monday, 16 October 2006 20:10 (eighteen years ago) link

(I like horror movies, though. Rosemary's Baby is one of my favorite movies ever. I just don't have the will to sit through a lot of bad ones.)

― jaymc (jaymc), Monday, 16 October 2006 20:12 (eighteen years ago) link

you know who's awesome is that robbie gould fella

― deep space nine, Monday, 16 October 2006 20:13 (eighteen years ago) link

Totally understood, Jordan. But the cutting themselves off thing is interesting. In the first place, the Hasidim came to America not to take part in the American dream or to assimilate, but to continue living exactly as they had in Europe except for being safe from pogrom/Holocaust. Second, their rebbes refused to come here until AFTER WWII, so that generation had very different priorities from the next gen, which is the group currently "in power" in most places. Third, in a sense the Hasidim who immigrated to America could have taken part in a culture of privilege, being a white European group, but they specifically chose not to benefit from that privilege...a restraint which could, if investigated constructively, make them less estranged from the minority groups they usually live near.

Also, I don't know what their problem is w/r/t you -- I know someone whose daughter is an out lesbian (not practicing Orthodox, obv) but her father is very scholarly, respected, visible among his peers.

Also there are definitely some very lousy things about modern Hasidic life, NOT THE LEAST OF WHICH is their attitude/code of conduct for women.

― Laurel (Laurel), Monday, 16 October 2006 20:17 (eighteen years ago) link

Haha.

I think at this point the basic sci-fi setting is so entrenched that it's not so different a starting point than here & now. Meaning, saying "okay, it's the future and there are space ships and humans living on different worlds" isn't a big deal, it's "okay, it's the future and there are space ships AND here's the hook". Although if those tropes really bother you than that's something else (I forget, have you read any Delany?).

― JordanC (JordanC), Monday, 16 October 2006 20:17 (eighteen years ago) link

Yeah, I don't know why it bothers me. Most of what I like, narrative-wise, still tends to be contemporary American realism. Who's Delany?

― jaymc (jaymc), Monday, 16 October 2006 20:20 (eighteen years ago) link

Samuel Delany

― JordanC (JordanC), Monday, 16 October 2006 20:21 (eighteen years ago) link

'Cause a lot of his work has trad sci-fi/fantasy tropes + excellent writing, race and gender issues, dude sex, etc.

(a lot of his writing also lacks those tropes, but that's what he came out of)

― JordanC (JordanC), Monday, 16 October 2006 20:24 (eighteen years ago) link

later chicago.

― otto midnight (otto midnight), Monday, 16 October 2006 20:39 (eighteen years ago) link

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