posted
Was Seinfeld actually as good as everyone thinks it was? I watched a few episodes and they were alright but I don't remember it being amazing.
Posts: 4934
| IP: Logged
posted
I'm doing some really really boring stuff on Excel at the moment and have my phone playing random MP3s at me. It seems to be flicking between Metallica, Pitchshifter, The Wildhears and then to Michel Thomas speaking Italian. The last one doesn't really help me with my working.
Posts: 4934
| IP: Logged
posted
I found some of it very funny, but you have to bear in mind that I have a very poor sense of humour. Stands up better than Friends I think, considering it started five years earlier.
quote:Originally posted by Cherry In Hove: Oh! A bit of Dire Straits now. Exciting.
posted
But you did, presumably? I suppose you must have done - otherwise you wouldn't have found it depressing. Shame no-one else 'got it'. So when it dawned on you that you were the only person getting Ice Cube 'right', was it a gradual realisation or did it just hit you like a fist?
Posts: 13758
| IP: Logged
posted
I'm not really a kid now, am I. In fact, I don't really know what you're talking about. Everybody was having a great time, but it was very much a case of preaching to the long-converted, and what with Ice Cube being one the few rappers in popular culture who is actually trying to say something beyond declaring himself rich, successful, and fearsome, it's a shame that it's only washed up old bastards like myself who can be arsed to watch him live. But what are you talking about? Getting ice-cube 'right'? How so?
quote:Originally posted by Kanye West: I'm not really a kid now, am I.
Well... neither is Boy Racer. I think he's older than you.
I think we need to back up a bit, because I don't think I've followed what you're saying very well. You went to see Ice Cube, and there was an audience of (white?) 30 something men there, which you found depressing because... you felt they didn't care as much about the music? the issues? as you did. Is that correct?
Posts: 13758
| IP: Logged
posted
Or! Are you saying that it was depressing because he wasn't reaching a younger audience? That it was the absence of tha kids rather than the presence of tha boy racers that depressed you?
Posts: 13758
| IP: Logged
posted
If I don't reply to all the things you post in the next half hour it's because I'm on a conference call, so I'm not ignoring you it's just that I can't really check. I'll be able to reply after two!
Posts: 4934
| IP: Logged
posted
*Here is a link to some information about the health risks for oil spill cleanup workers.
And here is some information from the Material Safety Data Sheet for Crude Oil:
quote:Prolonged/repeated skin exposure, inhalation or ingestion of this material may result in adverse dermal or systemic effects. Avoid prolonged or repeated exposure. May be harmful if absorbed through the skin. Prolonged or repeated contact may create cancer risk, organ damage, and adversely affect reproduction, fetal development and fetal survival. Avoid all skin contact. Neurotoxic effects have been associated with n-hexane, a component of this material. Avoid prolonged or repeated exposure.
posted
I think it's getting a lot of attention just because of where it is. There is an oil spill in umm Nigeria? That has been going on for much longer and pumping much more oil out that isn't getting any media attention.
I think that it's a tragedy and seeing all the pictures of the wildlife is heartbreaking, but in the long term hopefully it will make the USA focus more on renewable energy which is an absolute necessity really.
I got my call over in 7 minutes because I'm super organised. I can now get back to the cut and thrust of daily TMO.
Posts: 4934
| IP: Logged
quote:Originally posted by MiscellaneousFiles: And here is some information from the Material Safety Data Sheet for Crude Oil:
quote:Prolonged/repeated skin exposure, inhalation or ingestion of this material may result in adverse dermal or systemic effects. Avoid prolonged or repeated exposure. May be harmful if absorbed through the skin. Prolonged or repeated contact may create cancer risk, organ damage, and adversely affect reproduction, fetal development and fetal survival. Avoid all skin contact. Neurotoxic effects have been associated with n-hexane, a component of this material. Avoid prolonged or repeated exposure.
What do you think about that, CiH?
What is really bizarre about this is that BP are encouraging clean up employees not to wear respirators because they think the image of people wearing them gives negative PR but by not wearing the respirators they're risking their health even more.
Posts: 4934
| IP: Logged
I've just read about the Nigerian oil leaks on the BBC News website.
quote:In the Niger Delta, there is little independent monitoring of spills, and the companies themselves disclose virtually no data about their own pollution.
But, according to the Nigerian government, there were more than 7,000 spills between 1970 and 2000. Environmentalists believe spills - large and small - happen at a rate of 300 every year.
It's a wonder the world's oceans aren't black!
Some interesting photos *here from The Big Picture.
For crazy conspiracy theories, you can always rely on *AboveTopSecret:
quote:BP chief sells shares before the spill!
Goldman Sachs sells shares as well: Yep, these were the same psychopaths that helped the financial collapse!
Haliburton Buys "Boots-N-Coots" Oil clean-up company 8 days before the spill!
The camel's back is about to be broken. Martial law will be declared on the gulf coast. Freedom will be fighting for it's life soon.
quote: I'm losing hope. there is almost NOTHING i/we can do here. Just think of the worst possible situation and thats what will happen. I am not fear mongering, just being honest. This could very well be the end. All we can do is pray/hope for the best. God save us.
posted
I was reading something where BP had some independant safety experts checking out the rig just before it all went wrong, the safety experts told them they had to close it down straight away as it was dangerous but BP said they were wrong. They safety guys asked to get taken back to land straight away but were told there wasn't a helicopter/boat for 8 hours or something. They phoned and got a private helicopter to come and pick up the safety guys straight away and then 8 hours later it all went wrong.
quote:Originally posted by MiscellaneousFiles: I'm losing hope. there is almost NOTHING i/we can do here. Just think of the worst possible situation and thats what will happen. I am not fear mongering, just being honest. This could very well be the end. All we can do is pray/hope for the best. God save us.
I always get the impression with people like this that what they want most is to be saved from a future that's exactly the same as the present, and that they are so intimidated by everyday life that some kind of apocalypse will be a welcome relief.
Posts: 13758
| IP: Logged
quote:Originally posted by Kanye West: I'm not really a kid now, am I. In fact, I don't really know what you're talking about. Everybody was having a great time, but it was very much a case of preaching to the long-converted, and what with Ice Cube being one the few rappers in popular culture who is actually trying to say something beyond declaring himself rich, successful, and fearsome, it's a shame that it's only washed up old bastards like myself who can be arsed to watch him live. But what are you talking about? Getting ice-cube 'right'? How so?
You added a lot of this after I'd already replied, which is why I wasn't able to respond to it properly. I don't think it's a too bad if he's preaching to the long-converted, especially if those people are well outside of the demographic that Cube raps about - clearly the message has gone beyond rabble rousing, and has actually been noticed by the wider society. Which seems quite positive.
What I was talking about before was your reference to "an audience full of Boy Racers throwing up westside hand signs" or whatever, which seems like you were critical of the way in which the audience was enjoying the gig. Maybe it's my fault for assuming that "an audience full of Boy Racers" is a perjorative - to my mind it conjures up the type of person who wants to be seen to be doing the right thing, listenign to the right music, enjoying the right fashions, because those are the kind of things BR was ribbed for on here. Also, the reference to the West Side hand signals carries with it a kind of 'Pretty Fly For A White Guy' posturing, which added to the idea that you felt the audience was enjoying the music in a way you didn't really approve. To be honest, I still believe that that's what you meant, because otherwise you probably wouldn't have described the audience that was there - you would have lamented the audience that wasn't. Anyway! A shame that you didn't enjoy the show - I'd quite like to see Ice Cube live.
Posts: 13758
| IP: Logged
quote:Originally posted by Thorn Davis: I always get the impression with people like this that what they want most is to be saved from a future that's exactly the same as the present, and that they are so intimidated by everyday life that some kind of apocalypse will be a welcome relief.
Yes - the majority of AboveTopSecret members seem to fall into this category. There were similar posts when Obama was elected - "Oh this is the end of the world - we're all going to die - police state - god save us". In fact they probably do the same every time a series of Desperate Housewives comes to an end.
Then you get the pseudo scientists who think they're experts because they can apply some basic secondary school principles to a situation that's clearly way beyond the scope of their understanding, and use this knowledge to come to ridiculous conclusions.
Posts: 14015
| IP: Logged
quote:Originally posted by Thorn Davis: [QUOTE]Originally posted by Kanye West: [qb] What I was talking about before was your reference to "an audience full of Boy Racers throwing up westside hand signs" or whatever, which seems like you were critical of the way in which the audience was enjoying the gig. Maybe it's my fault for assuming that "an audience full of Boy Racers" is a perjorative - to my mind it conjures up the type of person who wants to be seen to be doing the right thing, listenign to the right music, enjoying the right fashions, because those are the kind of things BR was ribbed for on here. Also, the reference to the West Side hand signals carries with it a kind of 'Pretty Fly For A White Guy' posturing, which added to the idea that you felt the audience was enjoying the music in a way you didn't really approve. To be honest, I still believe that that's what you meant, because otherwise you probably wouldn't have described the audience that was there - you would have lamented the audience that wasn't. Anyway! A shame that you didn't enjoy the show - I'd quite like to see Ice Cube live.
dude I'm a Boy Racer, I was in the audience. I'm part of this demographic, I'm not above or beyond it, I'm in it. I think of Boy Racer as a guy who likes his hiphop and doesn't waste time wishing that things could be different, somebody who - correctly - isn't bothered by the stupid things that trouble me, which are mainly hang ups and thorns in my personality. Regardless of how you might like to think of me as some kind of aloof judgement machine, better than other people. I will throw frigging westsides up too, you know this. It isn't posturing, it's enjoying the show. That's maybe your own beliefs creeping in. But you know - I suppose that if I explain what I mean and you want to believe that I mean something different... not something I can do anything about. There's this creeping suspicion I think that you believe that I live some kind of a double life, that I go around thinking myself to be more cool and authentic in some way, but actually I hold this terrible secret that I'm just as inauthentic and uncool as anybody else, that I will protect with my life because it really matters to me what everybody thinks. Again, this... is something you've come up with, perhaps selectively filtering in some way. It's laughably off target, but I wonder why it's this constant thing you try and put on me, as if... I really care... as if there's no way I can actually think and do what I say I do, but it's this tissue of lies constructed to.. I don't know... assume this position of superiority that you're always trying to pin on me.
I don't get it. Yes, I'm aggressive and judgemental, but I've never put myself beyond this stuff or held myself up to be better. This constant sniping is tiring and irritating, this mission to prove that I don't actually think or feel what I say I do, or that there's some giant hypocrisy that I'm missing. I don't know... what you're hoping to gain. Again - this is all completely absurd, again I'm here having to defend against these bizarre allegations of.. I don't know... snobbishness or something... simply because I said I went to an ice cube gig and found it depressing that - yes - it was a crowd of thirty something white guys rather than a younger and more diverse crowd. To me that doesn't seem like some incredibly failure on my behalf, or a declaration of superiority over my peers. I mean, do I have to spell it out for you? Isn't it obvious that I'm worried about ageing, about how things are changing? About how our time as young adults is no a moment trapped in time, a 'past' to our present? I mean isn't this blindingly obvious in 90% of the things I write? Are you you just trying to impress something about yourself onto us here? It's like you don't understand what I'm talking about, but I feel like I couldn't make it any clearer. Perhaps I need to list my fears in bullet point or something. Or do you think this is bullshit too? It's like you don't have the ability to read beyond the crushingly literal, or to believe that I could possibly see and understand myself at all.
posted
i think that the idea that you see boy racer as somebody who needs to be seen to be into this or that says more about you. As if there's something preventing him from actually being into it. If you talk about Slayer, it's authentic. If Boy Racer talks about Public Enemy, it's posing.
Posts: 3821
| IP: Logged
quote:Originally posted by Kanye West: I will throw frigging westsides up too, you know this. It isn't posturing, it's enjoying the show. That's maybe your own beliefs creeping in.
No - it's not my beliefs creeping in - my whole point is that there's nothing wrong with enjoying this music in this way - it was you who found it depressing that the gig was full of a certain type of person behaving in a certain type of way. I don't know - perhaps you've also gone back and edited that post to say something completely different, as you did before. But don't whinge about how I'm not understanding you 'beyond the literal' when you post a single line, then come back and dump another paragraph in there after I've replied, which I now notice you keep fucking doing with this post because I've had to open up another window just to keep up with your edits.
But just to clarify - I don't see it as posturing - it was you who seemed to find it the wrong thing to do (ie, it made you depressed) and it irritated me because I thought it was a pathetic attitude to have.
Posts: 13758
| IP: Logged
posted
I'm not 'whinging', regardless of how annoying you might find this. Believe me, I find it annoying too. Draining. I feel like if you need to get something off your chest, if there's some ancient wrong, then you should take it to email or something. This is just.. embarrassing.
Posts: 3821
| IP: Logged
quote:Originally posted by Kanye West: i think that the idea that you see boy racer as somebody who needs to be seen to be into this or that says more about you. As if there's something preventing him from actually being into it. If you talk about Slayer, it's authentic. If Boy Racer talks about Public Enemy, it's posing.
No - I was basing it on your interpretation of Boy Racer as someone who behaves in this way, because it's something you've riffed on before. For example, in a thread imagining how TMOers might seduce each other you wrote a long skit about Boy Racer based on exactly this idea, with gags about thinking "I hope she appreciates that I'm the kind of guy who does the painting in a [designer I can't remember the name of] t-shirt". So when I read you writing "an audience of Boy Racers" I think what does Benway mean by that? and I think back to this characature of someone desperate to express themselves with symbols. So it's a question of putting things you say in the context of other things you also have said.
Posts: 13758
| IP: Logged
posted
ok, well for the record, in this context of being in the audience of a hip hop audience, a 'Boy Racer' is a white, over thirties hip hop fan who refuses to get hung up on bullshit - like getting depressed that the kids aren't into the music that they're into. Somebody who, as I mentioned, can throw a WestSide at an ice cube gig without finding a tinge of sadness in this. But I really feel a genuine 'fuck off' here. If you want to call me out as being 'pathetic' on the internet, as part of your ongoing quest to prove whatever it is you want to prove, I'm not going to lol that off.
Posts: 3821
| IP: Logged
![[Confused]](confused.gif)
Printer-friendly view of this topic