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Perhaps I’ve misunderstood the message of Easter.
Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to watch the Life of Brian.
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Happy #Easter
Author: Frylock
Robert E. Bodine, Esq. is an attorney in Virginia focusing his practice on real estate and intellectual property law. He is one of the founding members of the Gamers’ Syndicate, a Washington, DC-based gaming club. He was the author of the Loremaster.org article series, Protection from Chaos, dealing with intellectual property law matters as they relate to the gaming industry, and has represented several game designers on intellectual property matters. You can follow him on Twitter @RobertEBodine for politics, @PropertyAtty for legal matters, @GSLLC for gaming matters, and if you’re a sports fan, @MMADork.
YouTube Music Is Great @youtubemusic #music #YouTube
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I have an android phone, and the native music application went the way of the dinosaur at the end of the year in favor of YouTube Music. Some of the announcements had me worried about privacy, so I was reluctant to make the switch. Instead, I installed an ad-infused third-party music application. Eventually, I decided that I might as well give it a try, so I upgraded.
YouTube Music is great.
I pay for the premium, so maybe that has something to do with it, but when I search for a song and play it, the application creates a playlist of 49 additional songs that are related by artist or genre. As I move from one song to the other, a new song is appended to the list. I suspect, but can’t prove, that the appended song takes into account the songs I skip, because as I get beyond the original list, there’s less of an incentive to skip songs. As a result, every day I hear good to great songs I never knew existed, even for artists I thought I knew well. Sure, there are some stinkers in there, but I’m discovering a lot of hidden gems. I’m also rediscovering music I’ve previously forgotten. Who can’t get behind seemingly unlimited, new music, all legal to download?
I’m still concerned about a potential bait-and-switch on their policies, which may relate to privacy.
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Follow YouTube Music @youtubemusic
Vampires Have Their Ways #undead #vampire
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I saw this rather irresponsible meme on social media.
I know this is tempting — who wouldn’t want to draw a dick on a dick? — but you should know the consequences. Vampires can’t see their reflections in mirrors made with silver, but not all are. Some are made with aluminum, chromium, nickel, or tin. Besides, a vampire could certainly see his reflection in a pool of water. What happens when vampires come to running water and pause because they can’t cross it? They’ll have far too much time to reflect. They’re going to notice the ink on their faces.
Don’t tempt fate. They will find out and murder you.
First. They’ll murder you first. Eventually, vampires will murder everyone, but do you want to be first?
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WandaVision Sets up Mutantkind and the X-Men #MCU #WandaVision #mutants
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We all know the rumor: WandaVision was supposed to set up mutantkind and the X-Men in the MCU. However, other than the one annoying thing in the show, the misdirect of Evan Peters, not even a meta-connection exists. Instead, we’ll have to wait until Dr. Strange in the Multiverse of Madness for that connection.
Or will we?
Someone over on Facebook stated that he wanted the X-Men to remain a separate cinematic universe from the MCU even though Disney has taken it over. HIs thought is that the MCU heroes are people the common folk look up to, but the X-Men are feared. The two don’t go together in terms of tone. Though we occasionally see heroes portrayed as “bad guys” in the MCU (especially in Captain America: Civil War), overall that’s not a bad point. We never saw someone actually fear, for example, Paul Rudd 🙂 after he was established as a reasonably well-known hero.
However, as far as I’m concerned, Wanda Maximoff is now an anti-hero, and one the average person fears. Perhaps this is the direct connection to the introduction of mutants that we were positing. It represents an important shift in tone, which Marvel has stated is going to occur in a big way in Multiverse. WandaVision was the way to ease us into that shift. We may look back and see WandaVision is the first few steps on that bridge over the tonal gap.
Yeah, that metaphor could have been stated better.
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Mythology and Fiction Explained @MythsExplained #MythologyMonday
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As I said last week, I’m going to start doing mythology posts on Mondays for Mythology Monday, which is a new thing to me. Or at least, I’m going to try. Today, I’m pointing you to a YouTube channel I like, Mythology & Fiction Explained. This guy does his research right down to justifying his pronunciations. As the name suggests, he also goes beyond folklore and mythology, covering literature such as the Cthulhu stories of H.P. Lovecraft. If you’re into any of that, you’ll probably find some of what you want at that channel.
One word of warning. I have YouTube premium, so I don’t get commercials when I watch it. However, it appears that the channel was demonetized. That wouldn’t surprise me because the speaker will occasionally (though rarely) make a gratuitous political statement. You may not agree with his statement, and I know political disagreement often turns people away from speakers regardless of the actual topic of conversation.
I had no idea that the Harpies were feminists.
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Follow Mythology & Fiction Explained @MythsExplained
A Wizard’s Near Death Experience #DnD #RPG
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Going forward, Sundays are lazy days for me. I either post something silly or other people’s work. Usually both. Today, I provide one wizard’s near death experience.
Never believe the nerdy bookworm.
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Dungeons & Dragons is a trademark of Wizards of the Coast, LLC, who neither contributed to nor endorsed the contents of this post. (Okay, jackasses?)
Just How “Strongest Avenger” Is Thor? @chrishemsworth #Thor #Avenger #MCU
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Almost a year ago, I made the argument for why Thor is the strongest Avenger. I stand by that argument but must admit I didn’t complete it. I needed to quantify exactly how much more powerful he is. I think this does it.
Honestly, that’s being a bit generous to the other Avengers. In any case, you must admit he had the most powerful individual entrance.
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Follow Chris Hemsworth @chrishemsworth
My TV Viewing Habits #TV #movie #streaming
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The pandemic has completely changed the way I watch TV. Before we were all quarantined, I watched one or two shows at any given time regularly, but otherwise used TV as nothing more than background nosie. As a result, there are many mainstream and classic movies I’ve never seen despite their repeated small screen runs. All that’s changed in the past year. Right now, I have Purple Rain, Heat, Scanners, season 2 of Solar Opposites, and a re-watch of Avengers: Endgame planned for this weekend. There’s no way I’m going to accomplish all of that, but that’s the plan.
The thing is, I now have a much greater appreciation for the small screen than I ever had since I was a kid. The only time as an adult that I watched TV to any significant degree was the mid-90s when I got HBO (which means it was still about movies rather than TV shows). I guess it shouldn’t be surprising that the pandemic would have this impact, but I don’t think it would have been so severe if streaming services hadn’t proliferated.
I’d write more about this, but I have a schedule to keep.
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Poseidon or Neptune? #MythologyMonday
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I didn’t know that #MythologyMonday was a thing until I started typing the hashtag, #mythology. I feel stupid. I love mythology. Now I’m going to start doing mythology posts on Mondays.
I think this also counts as #LanguageLundi. Sacre bleu!
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A Scotsman in Hell @StarTrek @StarTrek #comic #StarTrek
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Going forward, Sundays are lazy days for me. I either post something silly or other people’s work. Usually both. Today, it’s a mash up of one of my favorite comics and my favorite intellectual property.
It’s just another day at the office for a Scotsman.
