This is not an acceptable solution.


by Kevin Church

Earlier this week, Amazon opted to limit the length of a discussion thread. Reading their post, it’s obvious that this wasn’t done on a whim: people were reporting errors when attempting to access threads that were much longer than the software was built to handle. Amazon responded by announcing that they were creating a system that allowed discussions that were growing unwieldy to continue in a new location, with a link back to the previous parts of the conversation. Guess what the first comment was.

Uh-oh.. I hate these stupid long discussions (Thread without a Reason, Holiday Recipes).. but to limit them? Isn’t that a little like supressing freedom of speech?

Yes, that’s right! A company taking a measure that ensures more people get to participate in a discussion with a one-click inconvenience is First Amendment Assault. Then there’s this person, who obviously read the original post several times and weighed their options carefully before jumping in:

Great, we will now lose all the past posts. This is not an acceptable solution.

You know, back in the 30s and 40s there was another wrongheaded person who was all about a solution he was happy with.

Thankfully, “Dieting Deb” (once she reaches her weight loss goal, will she become Maintaining A Weight I’m Happy With Deb?) has a great alternative:

There are much better boards to post on than this one. QVC for instance, and no, you don’t have to watch or purchase from QVC to get into some rather good discussions, especially in the Viewpoints section.

Oh, Deb. Thank you for this.

Thanks to Tipster ADB for this post’s content!



And left Churchill Downs/In a heavenly band/Of Angels


by RJ White

Last year, as you may recall, the sainted horse Barbaro was put down after a long illness. His fans reacted with restraint and a healthy dose of perspective. For a nice summary, here’s the Field Guide to Barbaro Message Board Factions .

This past weekend, tragedy struck the horse racing world once again, with the injury and subsequent euthanization of Eight Belles at the Kentucky Derby. Would Barbaro’s online fans at the Alex Brown Racing forums face the news with the same restraint and healthy dose of perspective?

Well, of course.

Kent, I too look forward to the day we’ll see these majestic champions together in Heaven. The Heavenly Herd just keeps growing….

Anger flares!

This is what nightmares are made of. Afterwards, these lady horses are forced to have sex with different men horses they don’t know that well so they can become pregnant only for their baby to be taken away is sad. I will never see the Kentucky Derby as a festive wonderful event. We need to respect these creatures. Judgement day will come for us.

Elsewhere, there is confusion -

Can we start candles.. where is the candle lady. I am not good at doing the candle link

Questioning of faith-

Am sitting here crying over this. Prayed all day that all horses would make it safe all day. Dont understand what happened.

Either prayer doesn’t work or god specifically does not like you.

I’m not sure, but I think 8 bells translates to 6:00, which would correspond to the time the Derby was run - God I hope not - how prophetic

ALSO THERE WERE SEVEN LETTERS IN KENNEDY’S NAME!

To all on this sad Sunday. Am enclosing a link here to watch a Dan Fogelberg tribute video to Barbaro that is very lovely and emotional. But as you listen to the words it applies to dear Eight Belles also.

Dan Fogelberg = healing balm. But speaking of beautiful, beautiful poetry, does anyone have anything they’d like to offer up ?

Eight Bells for Eight Belles

Sunday morning in Kentucky
The day after the Derby
The sun shines bright
On my Old Kentucky Home
But my heart is heavy
And my shoulders droop
Under the load I carry
The white country church
Stands in the valley
Church bells are ringing
On the eighth bell
I am sobbing
The tears finally
Unleashing
The bell tolls for thee
Eight Belles
My beautiful gray girl
You did
What the experts
Thought you couldn’t
You beat the boys
You ran the race
Of your life
And it took your life
You were big and strong and beautiful
And you were all girl…

Perhaps the saddest thing to come out of this is that Eight Belles won’t get nearly the acclaim or deification her predecessor in racing-aided horse death garnered, much like the way in which nobody cared when Shannon Hoon died so soon after Kurt Cobain killed himself.



Public Service Announcement: The Tony Stark does not want you on his bandwagon.


by Ted Grant

Newsarama poster “VinnyPic” has a message for comic book fans eager to see the new Iron Man movie who haven’t been supporting the Iron Man comic:

All of you, who have sullied his good name the past two years, and are poised to wank off 24 hours from now to his greatness can throw yourselves on the leftovers of The Dark Knight and The Incredible Hulk.

You’ve bashed him. Called for him to die, be a skrull, and all this other ____.

Now you can shut up. It’s Shellhead’s time, and time for his fans who’ve enjoyed this character for a long time, and put up with ignorant ____ of people like you.

As a long time fan, whose first comic was a John Byrne Iron Man issue including Cap and Widow, you can all eat a dick.

Don’t bandwagon up, you aren’t welcome.

So, that would be “VinnyPic” and the 74 other Iron Man fans as the only ones going to see it this weekend, then?



That’ll Learn ‘Em


by Ted Grant

“Corba,” a poster at a G.I. Joe message board, is not happy with the quality of recent toys:

So…i picked up a another duke today so i could open him. When i opened him, i was pissed he’s cheap ass plastic. HE IS NOTHING LIKE THE ORIGINAL. IM NEVER GOING TO OPEN ANYMORE OF THEM BUT I WILL COLLECT THEM.

So…you’re not happy with the quality of your toys…but you will continue to buy them…

What a bold way to send a message to the manufacturer about your displeasure with their products: give them even more money. It’s just so crazy it might work!

Or, no, wait…it’s just crazy.



I will make it the least enjoyable experience and make them never want to come back to our stadium.


by RJ White

After attending last Sunday’s game between the Philadelphia Phillies and New York Metro-Politans “mgardner” has a question-

On my way back to the seat from the restroom at the Phillies-Mets game today, I saw a couple donned in Mets apparel being harassed by Phillies faithful. Upon telling them to leave the Mets fans alone, they turned their anger towards me. (For the record, I was wearing a Phillies cap.) Fortunately, I was on my way back towards my seat so I did not have to endure their taunts for long. Apparently Phillies fans who stand up for Mets fans are no better than Mets fans themselves in the eyes of Philadelphia.

This is not, of course, the first time I have experienced such hostility coming from Philadelphia sports fans, but it got me wondering why they feel a necessity to be this way. Though I am (and have long been) a Phillies fan, I have a lot of respect for our biggest division rivals (as well as any other opposing team) and see no absolutely no problem with their fans showing their support. Why am I in the minority?

Fair enough. Now, does anyone have-

I don’t care what you think, I don’t want a NY chant in a stadium funded by OUR taxpayers for a team FUNDED by me and other fans. If you want to sit back and let them take over our stadium fine, but I will VERBALLY HARRASS THE HELL out of any Mets fans that come here. I do not want their experience to be nice and enjoyable. If I go to a game at Shea, I will not wear my teams colors and scream Phillies chants the whole time. Those chants were an ABSOLUTE INSULT TO OUR CITY!!

I will not make it Physical, but I will make it the least enjoyable experience and make them never want to come back to our stadium. If you defend them and allow them to embarrass us, you are fair game.

You will never hear a Yankees chant at a RedSox game and vice versa, if we want Met/Phillies to be the same level, we need to respect our stadium.

Thank you, ah, “Towelie,” now let’s see if we can-

Like I stated before, I do not condone violence. But my family and I have had season tickets for a long time and waited a long time for a good team and shouldn’t have to be embarrased like this. Where were all you “leave em alone” fans between 94-2002 huh? The true fans were down there cheering for the team even in the bad years, and I don’t need to hear “leave them alone” from some fairweather fans that only show up when the team is good. Same with the Eagles, I love how we used to rock the Vet even when the team was bad during the mid to late 90’s. Then all of a sudden the team gets good/raises prices by $50 a seat and then these fairweather fans have the nerve to call the die hard fans “animals?” Go back to the suburbs you fair weather fans.

Now, don’t other teams’ fans possibly have a right to be at the game, seeing as how they purchased tickets and-

They have a right to come, but when they don their colors and chant their teams chants on National TV, they are completely fair game to any and all insults. They can’t have their cake and eat it too.

Once again, I am not condoning violence at any level. Not even spitting or throwin Peanuts, but I do take issue when our stadium starts to become flooded with Blue and Orange. I find it well within my right and take pride in making it a rough experience for Mets fans to try and make Citizens Bank park their second stadium. If they take issue with my insults, they are well within their right to leave or say something witty back. I had a couple Mets fans on Friday night say you “Your right, we do suck after that collapse last year”. I found that to be pretty funny and left those guys alone the rest of the night. They weren’t screaming “Lets go Mets” either. That annoys me more than anything.

So, now you know- if you go to a Phillies game and you’re rooting for the opposing team, be sure to wear something neutral.

Thankfully, however, someone finally has a clear, direct and easy answer to the central question of why Philadelphia’s sports fans are so hostile-

They are a bunch of drunkin scumbags. You are in the minority because you are sober.



Surprised they didn’t redesign the bottle neck to go along with this campaign.


by Ted Grant

We’ve already talked a bit about…interesting reactions to a cheeky vodka ad campaign, but if you thought that was the only advertising campaign to get people upset, then, well, I suppose you’ve lived a very sheltered life up until now.

Because Absolut is also running this campaign, primarily in gay newspapers and magazines:

“Aha,” you say, “It’s a joke about penis size. Clearly people are offended at such a cheap and easy gag appearing in their magazines!”

Well, no.

Perhaps they are exploring a new niche market for their product - promoting it as a disinfectant after having gay sex….

These fools are determined to make sure that I won’t buy any of their products. First the Mexican map now supporting queers.

Is anyone really surprised about this? After all, my guess is that you need to imbibe a lot of vodka before doing what the pillow-biters normally do…

To me, these ads are more or less as offensive to me as if Absolut ran ads advocating child sexual abuse or extoling the vitrues of the Third Reich.

WHAT ON EARTH HAS HAPPENED TO MY CULTURE?

Hey, it wouldn’t be the internet without a completely inappropriate Nazi reference…

I’ve gave up Gray Goose when the Frenchies “stabbed us in the back” about the war in Iraq…my father who was “over there” in WWI must have rolled over in his grave…
guess the Frenchies have a short memory…
especially since we “pulled their bacon out of the fire” TWICE!

“Interesting” punctuation “aside,” I wonder what “Gray Goose” or the “French” have to do with “this.”

Can you imagine Jack Daniels or Old Grand Dad ever advertising itself as “the preferred whiskey for gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgendered consumers”? Neither can I.

Will Absolut’s advocacy stop at Aztlan and the homo agenda? Doubt it. Expect a map of the Mideast excluding Israel next. …and perhaps a map of a U.S. with a submerged coastline (due to ice cap melting from global warming)

I don’t even like Vodka, and suddenly I want a big glass of it…



I accept that they made it a little too camp however there is a big difference between Alpha Centuri and the Flumps or the Teletubbies.


by Ted Grant

Oh, let’s take another peek at the Doctor Who fans, shall we?

User “sparacus” is unhappy with the look of a new monster on the show:

I can’t believe that even RTD would introduce an alien into the series that makes the Mr Men & Teletubbies look mature. If its true then these ‘creations’ will rank as the worst aliens in the Who canon.

What follows is a long conversation between “sparacus” and other board users on the “seriousness” of other Who-monsters and, well, how much better than the actual show “sparacus” thinks his fan-fiction is…

If they are real ‘monsters’ then words fail me. They look like something off a Kelloggs Cornflake ad aimed at kids or some pre-school programme. I accept that the context of the episode could be better than their appearance suggests , after all the Candyman looked ridiculous but ‘The Happiness Patrol’ as a story was good. However these risible things make the Clangers look intimidating and mature.

The point is that still image or not they look ridiculous. Clearly the production team (assuming they arn’t a hoax) think that they will appeal to young children. Fine. But Doctor Who is not a Cbeebies programme for the 2-5 age group. This is the programme that gave us the Daleks, Morbius, Sutekh…..

The Slitheen were a rubbery, blubbery disaster. The wind-breaking jokes were completely inappropriate for Doctor Who. I also notice that they have not been included in the new ‘Ultimate Monsters’ Battles in Times card series, so low is their status among fans.

I’m reading “Crystal”. It features Kittens clawing out a guys eyes and Tigers massacaring woman and children.

Fart jokes are inappropriate?!

Doctor Who has always featured elements of violence. Torchwood even more so. My episodes contain a degree of horror as they reflect aspects of the classic Hinchcliffe era. However I do not include characters that evoke the Mr Men or Weebles.

Political correctness and representation of minorities is sweeping across Britain and The Doctor and Ben hold the only key to stop it. But in a world where snobbery is in decline, who’s side is Ben on?

The point is that Alpha Centuri was intended to be a serious alien. It was a transgendered thing neither male or female and this is why it behaved the way it did. I accept that they made it a little too camp however there is a big difference between Alpha Centuri and the Flumps or the Teletubbies.

My characters a real people with good and bad qualities. If you compare Ben Chatham or Katie Ryan with the Slitheen or Adipose I think you will find that it isn’t the former that evoke CBBC.

Ben is a sophisticated post-modern hero with a full range of non-stereotypical character elements.

Of course not. However these Adipose things are completely unbelievable and unrealistic. Cartoony things like that couldn’t possibly exist. At least the Candyman could be explained as a robot.

This is an absolute insult to Doctor Who and I can only assume its an excercise in self-indulgent sending up of the show by the production team. I accept that small ‘humorous’ creatures in sci fi can also be convincing (think the Tribbles in Star Trek) however these Adipose are just ridiculous. Blobs of fat coming to life with cartoon mouths , why not go the whole hog and have the TARDIS land on the Clangers’ planet before Roobarb the dog joins the team for an encounter with Bagpuss and Professor Yaffle.

Insult to Doctor who? Coming from you, the bloke who thinks that the Doctor should hang out with snobbish alcoholics, who makes the Doctor come second to a scumbag, coming from the creator of Chatham. It’s just a joke.

And have you just presented us with the plan for your next fanfic?

My stories maintain the integrity of Doctor Who. Whether you like Ben Chatham or not, he is still a serious character. Thiese things however are pre-school.

Part of me is hoping that “sparacus” is fully committed to an elaborate hoax, that he’s only pretending to play the pretentious fan-fic writer who thinks he can do better than the people who are actually paid to do the show for a living, but, well…



With the help of the space jockeys we take out the planet or if they don’t wanna help we fight them too!


by Sluggo, Agent of N.A.N.C.Y.

Your bogus film news with spelling errors aplenty for the day:

“Alien 5: Genocide : Ripleys Back 2008
Ripleys back for one last showdown with the xenomorphs in Alien 5 : Genocide.

“At the far reaches of the universe a scientific way station is in posession of the last surviving Xenomorph. when the company discover the new breed they track down the Aliens homeworld and take the Alien back home intent on creating an unstopable Army. Back on earth an elite group of rebels led by General Ripley 8 take action, following the company to the Alien homeworld to destroy the species forever. and For Ripley this really is personel

“TEASER POSTER”
[fake link to nonexistent image redacted]

One respondent refutes the theoretical existence of said fifth installment with a pithy rejoinder:

There is no Alien 5 fool

Another denier:

ya definately fake plus it would be Alien 5: Xenocide as the xenomorphs are aliens and chicks gotta be what 50 in real life?

A little intrepid investigation reveals the logical flaw undermining this exciting claim:

and plus if it wuz to come out it would be in 2007 cause i looked it up

Some feel that even the possibility of the series being continued is a bad idea:

The alien series is dead. It died with 4. And then the corpse was kicked a few times with Avp. The only alien movie that would spark my interest is if they ditched Ripley. The title of these movies is “Alien” not “Ripley’s Adventures”.

the aliens series is dead, can´t see any more being made except the AVP story

Who gives a shit. All i need to hear is that weaver is returning to know that it will be utter shit.

One person explains why the series had already gone on one film too many:

This sounds like a really bad idea for them to make more alien movies it ended with four which think should not have been made anyway due to the fact that they put the stupid grey alien it.

However, if one were to happen, some folks know what they want to see:

no way not another one god but if they did they should make a new alein like the alien king the bigger and badder one that could kill a queen

Another person goes into more detail. A lot more detail. By which I mean a LOT more detail:

I may be bold but this is how it should go… ALIEN ANNIHILATION: Call takes Ripley to see Bishop. We find out that Bishop was taken from Fury 161 and rebuilt by Weyland-Yutani to find out if he knows anything of use. Turns out Bishop designed the second-gen droids. Ripley, being half alien starts to have nightmares and realizes that she is sensing the hive from a great distance…something calling her. Ripley, Bishop and Call go to the government and make them realize the threat of these creatures and that they must be destroyed. We send Ripley, Bishop, Call, the other second-gen droids and a crapload of space marines to wipe them out. Ripley uses her connection to the hive to find the space jockey planet along with some major fire power and an armada. With the help of the space jockeys we take out the planet or if they don’t wanna help we fight them too! The Queen could be bad-ass because she came out of one of the space jockeys. She would be a little different of a design and a helluvalot bigger. Let Ripley and the Queen showdown and let Ripley take out the aliens and the planet along with herself for total annihilation. Because as long as Ripley lives, she could be captured and the aliens could be brought back. BAM! There’s your film. It would kick ass, especially with Scott and Cameron involved and it would let Ripley go out with the bang she deserves. No weepy death scene like ALIEN 3.

And that was only half that person’s post, by the way.



yeh fine they can kiss and have a relationship but why so much? BBC Wales should give a thought to those wathing with their dads!


by Ted Grant

If there’s one thing a Doctor Who fan hates, it’s the suggestion that a fictional character has a sex life. The only thing that could make the situation worse if if that’s a male character having sex with another man, as happened on a recent episode of Who spin-off Torchwood:

I felt it was totally irrelevant and gratuitous. One of RTD’s tiresome attempts to introduce something simply for shock value but it let the whole episode down.

I personally disliked the Jack/Ianto scene, it was unneccesery & quite obviously shoehorned into the episode to please all the “shipper” fans of TW.

Pathetic and uncalled for

I thought this bit was utterly terrible and honestly just there to titillate the fangirls. What disturbed me was how casually the shift was from denying the search for missing children and wanting to get back to shagging Ianto.

So unnecessary. yeh fine they can kiss and have a relationship but why so much? BBC Wales should give a thought to those wathing with their dads!

Pretty disgusting really the BBC spending license payers money to produce porn. A handful of decades back people wouldn’t have stood for that kind of filth.

Another silly thing about the show today is the constant shoehorning in of interacial marriages/relationships/etc. I personally don’t care what race someone I date is of, but in general people tend to stick to their own race in society. Off the top of my head we’ve seen:

Mickey/Rose
Martha’s sister/Lazarus
Donna/Lance
Foon/Morvin
Adeola/Boyfriend
Martha’s Dad/Girfriend
Black man trying to romance Sally Sparrow in Blink
Martha/Tom

Well, that’s all very well and good, but it’s too darned civil! This is Doctor Who fandom, people! Why haven’t any of you brought the crazy?

It is also Racist. Where are the black and asian (UK asian not US asian) people working in Torchwood. The percentage of black and asian people in Wales far exceeds the GLB groups (according to the office of statistics from the last censors that gave results).

Ah, there we go, a claim that showing a male/male sex scene is racist. I feel like my understanding of how the world works has been restored.



I’ll be over at Aint It Cool News where the right to free speech is still enforced. You cocksm’kers! Get the duck sauce out of your ears.


by Brought to you by Carl's, Jr.

It’s true that established film critics are slowly losing ground as print publications’ markets shrink. One of the latest to get the axe is Newsweek critic David Ansen, a truly sane and entertaining voice that will be missed by many. I saw this announced on Rotten Tomatoes, a site I hardly ever visit, and, because I’m a moron, I decided to check the comments.

Now instead of getting a boring old 2007 BMW they can now afford the 2008 series.

Kind of an obtuse line. The OP misinterprets:

he point is not that he’s being replaced by a “2008 series” but that his position and that of tons more critics around the country is being eradicated. It won’t be upgrading an old model, it’ll be making everyone (readers) drive the exact same car.


Okay, a simple misunderstanding. Happens all the time. But the internet wouldn’t be the internet if it couldn’t turn an acknowledged misunderstanding into an instantly over-the-top flamewar.

you two no speaka english…I make interesting comments that add fuel to the fire not this boring politically correct disney sh’t, please! When I said they can afford the 2008 series I mean’t Newsday, Newsweek and village voice execs not the critics that got booted, who gives a sh’t about them! I can watch movies on my own and make my own opinions and not rely on people like Mr. Ansen here. I’m my own man I don’t need this guy telling me what’s good! I’ll be over at Aint It Cool News where the right to free speech is still enforced. You cocksm’kers! Get the duck sauce out of your ears.

Why a person who doesn’t give “a sh’t” about movie critics feels the need to visit and comment on a site like Rotten Tomatoes—and raise a voice in support of critics—is something that goes unasked and unanswered.

Wait, he’s back!

Minderbinder here’s another fagg’t. Did I hurt your feelings? You remind me of my girlfriend when she’s on her period. Wahhhh! I can’t post on RT cause this kid is annoying WAHHHHH!!! Get over it’s a silly bullsh*t forum board. You come here to talk sh”t and say what you want. And Dahluzz i don’t even know you but if you want to be down with these fagg’ts then f’ck you too. You muthaf’ckas can’t be us or see us. East side! Peace bitches

And now you know why I would rather chew my own testicles off than visit Ain’t It Cool News. Imagine an entire board… of that.



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