War Room Lounge V20: Halloween Awareness: Dispatches Blast Yo Ass from a Pumpkin Patch

[JudoThrowFiasco]

Usually dont let ufc politics and match making bother me but Gus v Jones 2 being for the title rustles my jimmies. Talk about rewarding bad behavior from both sides

 

[Prokofievian]

I live in a closet compared to that. Can't wait til I have a bigger place again.

In order to stave off going logarithmic on the happiness-income curve, I leave certain things to be purchased only when I get more income. The next big one is a backyard. But then there's lots of small ones. Airport lounge access was bigly yuge.

 

[Devout Pessimist]

Movie adaptations are a different story. I agree they mostly suck huge balls. But for the good ones I'd go:
Shawshank
Misery
The Shining (even though it was nothing like the book)
The Green Mile
The Running Man
Stand By Me
Cujo
Carrie

The Running Man with Arnold was an entertaining movie, but King's (or Richard Bachman) story was far superior. The Bachman book's collection was really good. I read that one when I was about 16. Rage, a story about a high-school kid who shoots up his school, was a great story. He does a great job at developing the main character. I think King is letting that one go out of print given the ridiculous amount of school shooting in America over the last few years.

There was a short story of King's I remember reading years ago (It could have been in the Skeleton Crew) where these guys in a van kidnap some kid and it turns out the kid is some kind of bird creature. Eventually the father arrives and brutally kills everyone who kidnapped the kid.

Edit: The story of the Bird creature I referred to is a story called Popsy and was featured in King's short story collection Nightmares and Dreamscapes.

 

[sickc0d3r]

The unabridged version of The Stand is monstrous. It's like there's some sort of siren song luring film makers onto the rocks of failure; the shit is just too weird, too dense, too vivid, or all of the above.

His most prolific novel, imo. If anyone could ever pull it off as a movie I'd be forever grateful. And talk about creating vivid images and profound moments of clarity for the reader, yet stated in a way that's relate-able and sort of homegrown... a lot of it just has to be very hard to do justice on screen.

Spoiler

“He was a clot looking for a place to happen, a splinter of bone hunting a soft organ to puncture, a lonely lunatic cell looking for a mate - they would set up housekeeping and raise themselves a cozy little malignant tumor.”


“Develop a little self-righteousness. A lot of that is an ugly thing, God knows, but a little applied over all your scruples is an absolute necessity! It is to the soul what a good sun-block is to the skin during the heat of summer.”


“Harold glared sullenly at him again, the eyes those of a piggy little boy who wants the whole cookie jar to himself. Ain’t he going to be surprised, Stu thought, when he finds out a girl isn’t a jar of cookies.”


“You just couldn't get hold of the things you had done and turn them right again. Such power might be given to the gods, but it was not given to men and women, and that was probably a good thing. Had it been otherwise, people would probably die of old age still trying to rewrite their teens.”


“Men who find themselves late are never sure. They are all the things the civics books tell us the good citizen should be: partisans but never zealots, respectors of the facts which attend each situation but never benders of those facts, uncomfortable in positions of leadership but rarely unable to turn down a responsibility once it has been offered . . . or thrust upon them. They make the best leaders in a democracy because they are unlikely to fall in love with power.”


“I’m an old man trying to give a young daughter advice, and it’s like a monkey trying to teach table manners to a bear. A drunk driver took my son’s life seventeen years ago and my wife has never been the same since. I’ve always seen the question of abortion in terms of Fred. I seem to be helpless to see it any other way, just as helpless as you were to stop your giggles when they came on you at that poetry reading, Frannie. Your mother would argue against it for all the standard reasons. Morality, she’d say. A morality that goes back two thousand years. The right to life. All our Western morality is based on that idea. I’ve read the philosophers. I range up and down them like a housewife with a dividend check in the Sears and Roebuck store. Your mother sticks with the Reader’s Digest, but it’s me that ends up arguing from feeling and her from the codes of morality. I just see Fred. He was destroyed inside. There was no chance for him. These right-to-life biddies hold up their pictures of babies drowned in salt, and arms and legs scraped out onto a steel table, so what? The end of a life is never pretty. I just see Fred, lying in that bed for seven days, everything that was ruined pasted over with bandages. Life is cheap, abortion makes it cheaper. I read more than she does, but she is the one who ends up making more sense on this one. What we do and what we think… those things are so often based on arbitrary judgments when they are right. I can’t get over that. It’s like a block in my throat, how all true logic seems to proceed from irrationality. From faith. I’m not making much sense, am I?”

That's great writing, I don't care who ya are.

 

[JDragon]

Yeah lighting is the next purchase. I'm trying to figure out smart home stuff.

I wouldn't mind a speaker in every room hooked up to alexa and the smartbulbs that work. So I can be all "alexa play chuck mangione feel so good" and soften the lighting if I ever do blow again.

I have three Alexas since this year, and I have Philipps Hue. There also is a cheap Ikea alternative. It's pretty cool. For example you can tell Alexa to wake you up with a slow sunrise in combination.

I have adjusted the keyword to be "Computer", though. It feeds into my Trek geekdom and I did not want to constantly say "Google".

I also have a smart thermostat for my living room radiator. In fact, it has become a key consideration for me in purchases: is that thing Alexa-capable?

 

[sickc0d3r]

The Running Man with Arnold was an entertaining movie, but King's (or Richard Bachman) story was far superior. The Bachman book's collection was really good.

Agreed, 100%, just like The Shining. Faithfully adapting a King book has got to be hard ass work.

 

[HereticBD]

Anyone else think the recent remake of It really fucking sucked?

I especially didn't care for the take on Pennywise. I get that they had to distinguish it from Curry's character, but when you make Pennywise's clown form so ghoulish and creepy sounding it kind of destroys the whole supposed point of him appearing as a clown to entice children. Like, what child was going to think, "yeah, I should trust that scary looking clown demon"?

It was awful, and Pennywise sounded like Scooby-Doo.

 

[Trotsky]

I loved the halloween movies. Except that fucking abomination Halloween 3: Season of the Witch.

I'm surprised its so popular among the cult followers of the franchise; its a super crappy move - aside from when the fat kid dies.

But I love the zombie remakes and apparently people hate those, so who am I to judge.

Nah, H3 was the second best sequel of the franchise, followed by H4 imo. Not a great movie by any means, but was still miles better than most of what followed it.

 

[Andy Capp]

Apropos of nothing, I came across this, after following a link in another thread,
4-Year-Old Girl Brings Crack Cocaine Home From Daycare, Tests Positive for the Drug After Tasting It, Mom Says
"That’s when Straker’s daughter, who was acting hyper, told her she’d tasted one of the “teeth” at the behest of her friend, she said.

“We kept saying, ‘Why are you so hyper today, Serenity? Normally, you think she has a lot of sugar or something like that at school,” Straker said.

The girl was rushed to the hospital, where she tested positive for crack cocaine, Straker said.

Straker’s daughter has recovered from the incident, but hasn’t returned to the day care, Straker said."

I guess the first one really is always free. But yeah, the kid who gave them to her is going to have some splainin' to do. Police are investigating. My guess is, got into parents' stash.

 

[Prokofievian]

Apropos of nothing, I came across this, after following a link in another thread,
4-Year-Old Girl Brings Crack Cocaine Home From Daycare, Tests Positive for the Drug After Tasting It, Mom Says
"That’s when Straker’s daughter, who was acting hyper, told her she’d tasted one of the “teeth” at the behest of her friend, she said.

“We kept saying, ‘Why are you so hyper today, Serenity? Normally, you think she has a lot of sugar or something like that at school,” Straker said.

• Limo Company Operator Charged in Wreck That Killed 20 People

The girl was rushed to the hospital, where she tested positive for crack cocaine, Straker said.

Straker’s daughter has recovered from the incident, but hasn’t returned to the day care, Straker said."

I guess the first one really is always free. But yeah, the kid who gave them to her is going to have some splainin' to do. Police are investigating. My guess is, got into parents' stash.

 

[Devout Pessimist]

Eh, I think you're misjudging the man. And it's a common misjudgment imo. His most famous material deals ostensibly with the supernatural (monster stories), but when taken against the full bulk of his work- which is 58 novels and hundreds of short stories- you find that a lot of it is simply human drama of some sort. Even with "external forces", he still often comes back to issues as simple as how tough it is to be a kid, or a husband, or whatever. In my experience as a mega fan (i've read and watched virtually everything he has ever created or had a hand in creating), i'd say most people are familiar with the big name books like It, The Shining, The Stand, Carrie, And some others. But it's a small representation of his total body of work. Quite frankly, there's all sorts of shit in there, both crazy and mundane. The dude is prolific. I've always enjoyed his work because he articulates things about the human experience that are hard to put into words. My two favorite short stories, "All That You Love Will Be Carried Away" and "Cain Rose Up" (my all time favorite) are both great examples of this imo. I always recommend his short works to people that haven't read much instead of telling them to dive into a huge 900 page novel he wrote during a coke binge in 1987. They tend to contain a decent mix of pure horror, science fiction, weird stuff you can't quite place, drama, whatever. And mixtures of everything. He has a story called "The Moving Finger" that I always tell people to read. The name sounds gross and seems like it would be a bad choice to name anything, but it's entirely appropriate.

As for translating his work into film, well, I think part of the trap there is trying to fit the vivid- sometimes overly detailed- descriptions of what is often very weird shit just... doesn't fly. With the novels, this is even harder because some of them are gigantic. The unabridged version of The Stand is monstrous. It's like there's some sort of siren song luring film makers onto the rocks of failure; the shit is just too weird, too dense, too vivid, or all of the above.

A short story like Survivor Type reveals how difficult it is to capture the full essence of King's story writing. People hear that the story is about a man stuck on an island who eats himself because he is starving. If one actually reads the story, then they realize there is so much more. King draws you into the character, his personal struggles and how he eventually ends up on a ship full of heroin. The story is more about a man's struggles to come to terms with himself and his failure in the medical profession. It is a story about the human condition and a man doing what it takes to overcome tragedy. The gruesome scenes are just a small part of something much larger.

 

[Gregolian]

I swear my roommates are fucking twats.

Paid the utility bills two weeks ago (natural gas and power bill) and only got money from 3 of the 5. The other two still haven't paid me for it and the water bill is due today and I only have money from 3 of the 5 again.

ARGH! FUCK having roommates. Thankfully with the yearly raise at my courthouse job I am financially in a spot I could probably afford one of the nicer studio apartments in town so the search is beginning. At this stage I don't give a shit about breaking the lease if every month paying utilities feels like pulling teeth.

 

[Fawlty]

I swear my roommates are fucking twats.

Paid the utility bills two weeks ago (natural gas and power bill) and only got money from 3 of the 5. The other two still haven't paid me for it and the water bill is due today and I only have money from 3 of the 5 again.

ARGH! FUCK having roommates. Thankfully with the yearly raise at my courthouse job I am financially in a spot I could probably afford one of the nicer studio apartments in town so the search is beginning. At this stage I don't give a shit about breaking the lease if every month paying utilities feels like pulling teeth.

Are they on the lease?

 

[Gregolian]

Are they on the lease?

They are. We rent through a rental company so all the utilities are on us the tennants.

I'm starting to understand why the person who's room I took over left and left under bad terms. Like, I WANT to ride their ass about it in the Facebook group chat but at the same time I don't want to be that dickhead roommate that acts the way Cartman thinks all Jews act.

 

[Limbo Pete]

The Running Man with Arnold was an entertaining movie, but King's (or Richard Bachman) story was far superior. The Bachman book's collection was really good. I read that one when I was about 16. Rage, a story about a high-school kid who shoots up his school, was a great story. He does a great job at developing the main character. I think King is letting that one go out of print given the ridiculous amount of school shooting in America over the last few years.

There was a short story of King's I remember reading years ago (It could have been in the Skeleton Crew) where these guys in a van kidnap some kid and it turns out the kid is some kind of bird creature. Eventually the father arrives and brutally kills everyone who kidnapped the kid.

Edit: The story of the Bird creature I referred to is a story called Popsy and was featured in King's short story collection Nightmares and Dreamscapes.

The ending to The Running Man is my favorite out of any other book

 

[Fawlty]

They are. We rent through a rental company so all the utilities are on us the tennants.

I'm starting to understand why the person who's room I took over left and left under bad terms. Like, I WANT to ride their ass about it in the Facebook group chat but at the same time I don't want to be that dickhead roommate that acts the way Cartman thinks all Jews act.

Having that many roommates is always going to be a bit of a pain. You have to protect your rental history here though. Just imo, it's best to inform the landlord about this with a detailed letter (and keep a copy). You may need it to establish a pattern of your roommates' behavior down the road, when they really fuck you.

 

[Gregolian]

Having that many roommates is always going to be a bit of a pain. You have to protect your rental history here though. Just imo, it's best to inform the landlord about this with a detailed letter (and keep a copy). You may need it to establish a pattern of your roommates' behavior down the road, when they really fuck you.

The rental company whenever a bill is late hits me up first cause I think I'm the only one that responds.

The last time they were like "we know it's not you but do you know when *X utility is going to be paid" and my response was:
"I gave so-and-so whose name is on the bill the money for that like last week so I'm not sure what's holding them up"

I was straight told by the rental company and home owner they have no issues with me. Rental agency even went as far as saying "if you want to move out and into one of the studios we have we'll transfer your application fee and security deposit to the new place"

I think I'm going to take the nagging every other day a message goes out in the group chat with this vid:


EDIT:
I feel bad doing it but if I were to get the bartender job I applied for I essentially will be working 3 jobs... I'll probably go looking for my own place at that stage.

 

[Jack V Savage]

Eh, I think you're misjudging the man. And it's a common misjudgment imo. His most famous material deals ostensibly with the supernatural (monster stories), but when taken against the full bulk of his work- which is 58 novels and hundreds of short stories- you find that a lot of it is simply human drama of some sort. Even with "external forces", he still often comes back to issues as simple as how tough it is to be a kid, or a husband, or whatever. In my experience as a mega fan (i've read and watched virtually everything he has ever created or had a hand in creating), i'd say most people are familiar with the big name books like It, The Shining, The Stand, Carrie, And some others. But it's a small representation of his total body of work. Quite frankly, there's all sorts of shit in there, both crazy and mundane. The dude is prolific. I've always enjoyed his work because he articulates things about the human experience that are hard to put into words. My two favorite short stories, "All That You Love Will Be Carried Away" and "Cain Rose Up" (my all time favorite) are both great examples of this imo. I always recommend his short works to people that haven't read much instead of telling them to dive into a huge 900 page novel he wrote during a coke binge in 1987. They tend to contain a decent mix of pure horror, science fiction, weird stuff you can't quite place, drama, whatever. And mixtures of everything. He has a story called "The Moving Finger" that I always tell people to read. The name sounds gross and seems like it would be a bad choice to name anything, but it's entirely appropriate.

I was a big fan in HS, and read everything of his up to Desperation/the Regulators (some more than once), and nothing at all since. What would you recommend I start with to get back into his work?

 

[Limbo Pete]

I was a big fan in HS, and read everything of his up to Desperation/the Regulators (some more than once), and nothing at all since. What would you recommend I start with to get back into his work?

Read the short works collections imo
-Nightmares and Dreamscapes
-Everything's Eventual
-Just After Sunset
-Bazaar of Bad Dreams

Nightmares and Dreamscapes is older and has some of his best weird horror stuff, like "Chattery Teeth", "The Moving Finger" and "Crouch End", but also some sort of lame stuff like "My Pretty Pony"(blehhhhh) and some other less rememberable things. Everything's Eventual is more consistent but also less weird. It has "Everything That You Love Will Be Carried Away", one of his very best short stories imo.

 

[Prokofievian]

I swear my roommates are fucking twats.

Paid the utility bills two weeks ago (natural gas and power bill) and only got money from 3 of the 5. The other two still haven't paid me for it and the water bill is due today and I only have money from 3 of the 5 again.

ARGH! FUCK having roommates. Thankfully with the yearly raise at my courthouse job I am financially in a spot I could probably afford one of the nicer studio apartments in town so the search is beginning. At this stage I don't give a shit about breaking the lease if every month paying utilities feels like pulling teeth.

Living in a shitty situation to save money is definitely not worth it. Verily, fuck room mates.