Michael Hopcroft

One word: Charmin.

I'm not going to get them out. I'm going to seal them in with a few more bricks and the promise of a small cask of wine.
 
New Topic: They've just decided to make an audiobook of your autobiography! Who's reading it?

Moose Jaw's junior hockey team is in the same league as Portland's, as are the teams from Regina, Red Deer, and Medicine Hat. It must be interesting to get a hockey team on a charter bus through customs twice on every road swing through the other country.

My former employer is a major Rugby fan. He played in college and knew the game inside and out. We watched a replay of a World Cup final match, where the winning try was scored when a player kicked the ball forward and through the defense so he could then retrieve it with a clear path to the goal line. It was an exceptionally creative and exciting play.
 
Sadly there are not very many opportunities to legally watch high-caliber rugby in the US. Soccer is practically everywhere, rugby not so much,

I don't know much about the Wiki, actually. I'm just hoping against hope Surbrook's Stuff gets a new server or something similar emerges -- curated databases of created material for Hero including media adaptations.
 
I've already mentioned this to the pbemguy, but a little context on my signature quote that started this whole mess: before 6e came out, there was a thread about possible ad taglines for the new edition. Hence the quote, which was inspired by the ignored message at the end of all Oregon Lottery commercials of the time. 6e was not even out yet at the time, and was obviously a major topic of discussion -- most of which has since been lost. Many of the tweaks -- especially the elimination of Figured Characteristics and of the Comliness (COM) attribute -- were controversial, and while it was never at the point of an "edition war" there were people who continued to play 5e. I don't get to play any edition as much as I would like.
 
Now all six editions plus the two Complete editions are readily available online, and Hero just launched a Community Content program. Some would say the current creative state of the RPG field has passed crunchy systems like Hero by, but there is still a thirst for superhero-genre roleplaying and few games have ever done that genre better than Hero.

You normally seat your Hatsune Miku body pillow at the breakfast table and offer her toast and jam which, being an inanimate object, she does not eat.
 
Only this time she DOES eat it.

I don't know much about the Wiki, actually. I'm just hoping against hope Surbrook's Stuff gets a new server or something similar emerges -- curated databases of created material for Hero including media adaptations.
 
I've already mentioned this to the pbemguy, but a little context on my signature quote that started this whole mess: before 6e came out, there was a thread about possible ad taglines for the new edition. Hence the quote, which was inspired by the ignored message at the end of all Oregon Lottery commercials of the time. 6e was not even out yet at the time, and was obviously a major topic of discussion -- most of which has since been lost. Many of the tweaks -- especially the elimination of Figured Characteristics and of the Comliness (COM) attribute -- were controversial, and while it was never at the point of an "edition war" there were people who continued to play 5e. I don't get to play any edition as much as I would like.
 
Now all six editions plus the two Complete editions are readily available online, and Hero just launched a Community Content program. Some would say the current creative state of the RPG field has passed crunchy systems like Hero by, but there is still a thirst for superhero-genre roleplaying and few games have ever done that genre better than Hero.

The physical struggle required for that is practically unimaginable. I hope his soul has found rest at last.
 
When I saw the note on Facebook for the first time, I was positive it was a cruel hoax. So I went to CNN and, yes, it was real. To think that he was so sick while filming Black Panther -- that sort of determination just boggles the mind.
 
The Strat-o-Matic and Action PC Sports forums I post to should be interesting because of Boseman's role as Jackie Robinson in 42.
 
One other note: when I took my mom to see Guardians of the Galaxy (she hated it, by the way) she was astonished to find really good actors like John C. Reilly and Glenn Close in a superhero film. She thought they were "slumming" and taking the role just for the paycheck. When she was growing up, superhero films were non-existent and science fiction movies were the realm of actors desperate to have a career at all or playing our the last sad chapter of storied careers. I couldn't figure out how to explain to her that the environment for movie-making has changed and actors actually enjoy making these films. Although I can't even begin to imagine the suffering Boseman endured to make his Marvel films, the fact that someone of his caliber is now best remembered for a superhero movie -- brilliant though Black Panther is -- must be astonishing to her.
 
This is devastating, not just to superhero film but to film in general. Who can imagine what he could have done in the future?

Live and Let Die is very problematic. The Fleming novel is very racist, and the movie only mildly less so. There are jokes about "Whiteface in Harlem", New Orleans funeral parades which gain corpses mid-march, and so on. The worst part is that it played into the stereotype of the corrupt African/Carribean dictator and made it look like that was the defalut whenever black people are put in charge of a country. The racist sherrif in the boat chase was portrayed as a buffoon, but he wasn't really funny.
 
The Man with the Golden Gun, on the other hand, is comedy gold. It was written to be funny, and it worked. Roger Moore found the concept of a secret agent so secret that everybody knew who he was incredibly funny, and everyone played into it (Bernard Lee's slow-burn take as an exasperated M is hilarious). The rest of Moore's run toned down the comedy (and For Your Eyes Only is surprisingly dark for am early '80s Bond film).
 
License to Kill, on the other hand, is cruelly underrated. The greatest weapon of Timothy Dalton's Bond is his brain.  The whole movie is about loyalty -- Bond and Q both put friendship over orders, while the villainous drug lord finds everyone around him becoming more and more disloyal as the result of Bond's masterful mind games.

In the Voyager finale, Barclay has made a fortune as a sort of "holodeck novelist", creating experiences for others (apparently holodecks are also a civilian technology, and Barclay's ability to create new experiences for them is almost without peer). Whether that is the case in the timeline Janeway created by bringing the Voyager home twenty years early is unclear.

"Sarek" was a great episode. The tragic fall of a mighty mind, and Picard's herculean effort to contain the powerful, roiling emotions of another man's tragic history because he was the only one with enough discipline to do it -- and nearly cracking under the strain.
 
Then there is "Yesterday's Enterprise", which gave the fanbase the story said fanbase thought they wanted (evil Klingons and a war in space) and showed it to be a horrifying nightmare. This wasn't the last time they would play with expectations. I wish we had seen more of Seela, but I suspect her failure to manipulate Spock intop doing her bidding was too much for her Romulan masters.
 
Speaking of Romulans, the episode with Hans Conried as a Romulan defector had a special power, to see a many greatest hopes turned against him. I don't remember the title of the episode.

"Sarek" was a great episode. The tragic fall of a mighty mind, and Picard's herculean effort to contain the powerful, roiling emotions of another man's tragic history because he was the only one with enough discipline to do it -- and nearly cracking under the strain.
 
Then there is "Yesterday's Enterprise", which gave the fanbase the story said fanbase thought they wanted (evil Klingons and a war in space) and showed it to be a horrifying nightmare. This wasn't the last time they would play with expectations. I wish we had seen more of Seela, but I suspect her failure to manipulate Spock intop doing her bidding was too much for her Romulan masters.
 
Speaking of Romulans, the episode with Hans Conried as a Romulan defector had a special power, to see a many greatest hopes turned against him. I don't remember the title of the episode.

He was the epitome of how the New Testament describes a "servant of Christ" -- loving and charitable to almost all, teaching unconditional love within families, and being a source of comfort in difficult times. Nowhere is this more evident than in the short video he released after the September 11th attacks in 2001 (has it really been 19 years? I seem to remember it like it was sooner.)
 
The irony is that his message recently came under attack -- by a prominent evangelist, no less -- as instilling self-esteem before it was earned. How can a six-year-old possibly earn the right to value themselves? It would be like a first-grade teacher telling their class "You are all garbage until you have proven otherwise". Worse, imagine parents doing that.
 
While merit is important, it cannot be everything. I was going to ask the teachers in this thread how they would balance teaching the subject and dealing with students who need other forms of support.

I'm pretty sure you're joking, but Fred Rogers' ministry wasn't about "winning souls for Christ".  In fact, a good part of his audience wouldn't even know he was a clergyman. Many still don't, or don't see that as relevant to what he actually accomplished.

You know who else has gotten a major reputation boost after people seriously thought about what he did? Bob Ross. Viewed as endlessly spoof-able during his lifetime, the painter/educator has become admired as an oasis of calm in an increasingly troubled world, the sort of forgiving teacher we need at a certain point in our lives.
 
Now, no doubt to get really good at something you need rigorous teachers. The easygoing, overly-receptive won't help you get better. But Bob Ross wasn't teaching us how to paint. He was teaching us to appreciate the moments of calm we are presented, and to use them to make something beautiful -- even if the end product is not good enough to show anyone else.
 
He left behind many beautiful landscapes that his estate resolutely refuses to put on the open market even though they could be worth millions.

I'm pretty sure you're joking, but Fred Rogers' ministry wasn't about "winning souls for Christ".  In fact, a good part of his audience wouldn't even know he was a clergyman. Many still don't, or don't see that as relevant to what he actually accomplished.

The frequency with which minor embarrassments occur to you compared to everyone around you is higher by a factor of at least a hundred, and you hear lots of laughter but don't actually see anyone laughing.

God, no.

Or they were really cheap and had only one shot glass for everyone on the flight (including the pilot).

Q: I couldn't find Fred Stick fr you. I didn't mishear you, did I?
 
A: I have no choice but to vote for you -- the Seasick Crocodile isn't even on the ballot.

I did feel pity for Charlie Evans, because despite being physically adult he was obviously still a child. No training or experience in social context or emotional self-control, never having had to take responsibility for his actions, turned loose in an environment where he could do whatever he wanted without consequences. The result was inevitable. But all he really wanted was what he never had, acceptance and companionship from others like himself. And when that was finally in his grasp it was taken away.

Ellison hated what the producers did to his story nad refused to acknowsledge it as his own for the rest of hjis life. Having read the teleplay he wrote, I think the changes were a substantial improvement.