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Jaybird

Jaybird is Birdmojo on Xbox Live and Jaybirdmojo on Playstation's network. He's been playing consoles since the Atari 2600 and it was Zork that taught him how to touch-type. If you've got a song for Wednesday, a commercial for Saturday, a recommendation for Tuesday, an essay for Monday, or, heck, just a handful a questions, fire off an email to AskJaybird-at-gmail.com

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18 Responses

  1. Tod Kelly says:

    Hmmm….

    What to watch… what to watch…Report

  2. KatherineMW says:

    Interesting, because the ending was the only part of the movie I liked.

    Gur “ebznapr” cbegvba bs gur zbivr jrag orlbaq naablvat zr vagb perrcvat zr bhg. Abg fcrpvsvpnyyl orpnhfr Fnznagun vf na NV, ohg orpnhfr bs jung vg zrnaf sbe ure gb or Gurbqber’f NV, naq jung ranoyrf gur eryngvbafuvc.

    Fur’f fcrpvsvpnyyl qrfvtarq gb zrfu jvgu uvf crefbanyvgl. Ur’f gur svefg naq, sbe fbzr gvzr, gur bayl crefba fur zrrgf. Sbe zbfg bs gur svyz, vg nccrnef gung ure yvsr eribyirf nebhaq uvz. Orlbaq guvf, fur qbrfa’g unir znal bs gur ceboyrzf naq fgerffrf snprq ol n uhzna. Fur jba’g unir n onq qnl ng jbex. Fur jba’g or fgerffrq sebz ure pbzzhgr. Fur qbrfa’g unir gb jbeel nobhg jung gb znxr sbe qvaare. Fur unf ab svanapvny gebhoyrf. Bs pbhefr fur’yy or n terng tveysevraq sbe Gurbqber. Bs pbhefr fur’yy nccebnpu gur jbeyq jvgu jbaqre va gehr znavp-cvkvr-qernz-tvey fglyr. Cneg bs gur punyyratrf bs trahvar, uhzna eryngvbafuvcf ner gung lbh obgu unir ceboyrzf gb qrny jvgu gung ner tbvat gb chg fgerff ba lbh, naq lbh arrq gb or noyr gb fhccbeg rnpu bgure. Fbzrbar jub unf abar bs gubfr fgerffrf naq pna chg nyy gurve raretl vagb orvat fhccbegvir naq haqrefgnaqvat bs lbh vf tbvat gb srry terng nf n eryngvbafuvc, orpnhfr lbh qba’g unir gb tvir nalguvat. Ohg gur eryngvbafuvc vf n shaqnzragnyyl frysvfu naq vzzngher bar. Jr’er fhccbfrq gb frr Gurbqber’f rk-jvsr nf jebat jura fur npphfrf uvz bs qngvat uvf pbzchgre orpnhfr ur pna’g unaqyr n erny, uhzna eryngvbafuvc, ohg V gubhtug fur jnf fcbg-ba. Fnznagun vf vqrnyyl fhvgrq gb shysvyy Gurbqber’f rzbgvbany arrqf. Va n jbeyq jurer grpuabybtl unf vapernfrq gur rnfr bs rirelqnl pbbxvat naq ubhfrpyrnavat, fur’f gur Fgrcsbeq Jvsr sbe n arj trarengvba.

    V yvxrq gur eriryngvba fur jnf qngvat 600+ bgure crbcyr orpnhfr vg tbg vagb gur dhrfgvba bs ubj irel qvssreragyl na NV zvtug creprvir naq haqrefgnaq gur jbeyq sebz gur jnl jr qb. V yvxrq gur ‘nfprafvba’ bs gur NVf vagb nabgure ernyz bs pbafpvbhfarff sbe gur fnzr ernfba. Ohg V qvqa’g ohl gur ybir fgbel nf n ybir fgbel.Report

    • Jaybird in reply to KatherineMW says:

      Jr’er fhccbfrq gb frr Gurbqber’f rk-jvsr nf jebat jura fur npphfrf uvz bs qngvat uvf pbzchgre orpnhfr ur pna’g unaqyr n erny, uhzna eryngvbafuvc, ohg V gubhtug fur jnf fcbg-ba.

      Zl bevtvany yvar va gur erivrj jnf gung uvf rk-jvsr vf gur bayl fnar crefba va gur zbivr. V erzbirq vg.

      But that leads me to ask questions about who we should be dating and the extent “compatibility” is just a crutch for people who don’t want to learn to deal with someone even more different than they are. To what extent is “liking” a person important?

      If we agree that compatibility is actually pretty important, and being friends is pretty important… why *NOT* date someone who has been calibrated to be someone who is exceptionally compatible with you? Why *NOT* date someone who has been calibrated to be likable by you to an insane degree?

      Jul abg qngr fbzrbar jub unfa’g unq n onq qnl, qbrfa’g unir svanapvny gebhoyrf, naq unf gur raretl gb fnl “yrg’f qb jung lbh jnag gb qb gbavtug”?

      I mean, if your bestie dated a guy who was like that, wouldn’t you be screaming “FREAKING MARRY HIM”???

      Though, to be honest, I do have a non-zero number of friends who were dating someone as ideal as could possibly be hoped for and she said something to the effect of “that zing just wasn’t there” and she dumped him. To be honest, if the guy started dating an AI after that one, I don’t think that there’d be anybody blaming him. Anyway, he got married. (And she called me up with the announcement that he was getting married and she explained to me that she sort of felt upset about that because she liked the idea of him always being there for her… at which point I knew better than to start screaming THEN YOU SHOULD HAVE FREAKING MARRIED HIM!!!! but, seriously, I wanted to.)

      What were we talking about?Report

      • Reformed Republican in reply to Jaybird says:

        And she called me up with the announcement that he was getting married and she explained to me that she sort of felt upset about that because she liked the idea of him always being there for her

        I have known a few of those. Sorry, you cannot keep a guy in reserve as a backup in case your dream guy never shows up.Report

  3. NewDealer says:

    Not Her related.

    I picked up the novel version of the Last Days of Disco on Friday. It is buy Whit Sitllman who also directed and wrote the film. The novel came out a year after the film and uses an interesting narrative device. The narrator of the novel is one of the main characters from the movie, he acknowledges the movie happened (he tells us the Alice does not really look like Chloe Sveigny) and goes on to expand and make further reference to the movie (Hap was called Extra #3 in the screen play) is a typical aside.Report

    • Will Truman in reply to NewDealer says:

      What did you think of Metropolitan?Report

      • NewDealer in reply to Will Truman says:

        I just rewatched a bit of it on Saturday night.

        I find it kind of charming in an inadvertent way when the title card said that the movie took place “not so long ago”. It seems like a long time ago based on the party dresses and the fact that no one has the Internet. To be fair, I don’t think anyone would have predicted how radically the internet changed society and how quickly we lept from 14 K modems to wi-fi.

        Also those dresses….

        I also have a bit of an uncanny valley response to media about young people that take place between 1980-1993. Everything is just recognizable enough to seem familiar but just different enough to be noticeable and make me view askance. Like people using typewriters and word processors for their papers or payphones and landlines. Though I still have a landline.

        Metropolitan is not my world but I’m familiarish enough with it. I am just a suburban public school kid. When I was in college, some of the southern women talked about their debutante balls or going to debutante balls. My reaction upon hearing those statements was ‘Wait, they still have debutante balls?” I can’t say that this was ever my social scene. I’d probably be more like Tom in the movie than anyone else but I’m barely like Tom as well. The Upper West Side is certainly more economically mixed than the Upper East Side but if you go far enough East you can find affordable and middle class housing. But I’m more upper-west than upper-east side even though my first apartment was at 66th and 1st which is the upper east side. My second apartment was in Brooklyn and I’m more about bourgeois-bohomian Brooklyn than anything else.

        But the world of Metropolitan still exists just largely in its own globe instead of being the center of NY Life. Also it is odd to see actors in their mid to late 20s, play 18-19 year olds.Report

      • NewDealer in reply to Will Truman says:

        According to wikipedia, Whit Stillman sold his apartment for 50,000 dollars to help finance the movie.

        I wonder what he would have gotten now….Report

      • I can’t speak to the high society fashion at the time, but the lack of Internet makes sense. It was released in 1990 so you’d be placing it in the late 80’s. While the Internet was a thing then, it was mostly a thing to people who are interested in such things.

        I have a real soft spot for that movie, for reasons I can’t really describe. I liked the characters and the ambiance. I wasn’t familiar with Stillman or anything. I sort of expected that it would be revealed that all of the rich kids turned out to be morally worthless junk or something. Instead, it was more like they are who they are and this is what they do as torchbearers of a culture in decline. The specifics are kind of alien to me, but it proved to be a great backdrop of an otherwise typical coming-of-age+romantic story.Report

      • NewDealer in reply to Will Truman says:

        @will-truman

        I understand and know that the Internet did not really reach mainstream popularity until around 1994. My observation was meant to be more personal. It is like looking at something that is inherently recognizable but still far enough in the past to be distant and different. I feel the same way about Singles (which I saw when I was 12-13) and Reality Bytes. A few months ago I read Donna Tartt’s The Secret History for the first time. The novel takes place in the early 80s and this makes it feel strange to me for some reason. More strange than if the novel took place in the 50s or 60s.

        The divisions in Metropolitan are there. The Upper West Side is seen as being (and sort of is) more economically mixed, more new money or middle class, less polished, less traditional/more modern, more intellectual/bohemian than the Upper East Side. Though there are plenty of fancy areas and apartments on both the Upper West Side v. Upper East Side. Though these sociological distinctions are probably only interesting to a certain class of well-educated New Yorker like me.

        The world of Metropolitan is still around but it is probably even more marginalized. It just did not keep up with modern society. There is still plenty of money in that world and young(ish) people but they seem trapped in amber and who knows, maybe they downplay that world to their non-WASP friends. There are still clubs in Manhattan where one most wear a jacket and tie and jeans are forbidden. Jeans are also called “denim trousers” in this world.

        The micro-sociology of the upper-middle class or rich in New York (or maybe any city) is very segregated.Report

      • Chris in reply to Will Truman says:

        I understand and know that the Internet did not really reach mainstream popularity until around 1994

        The transition from a thing used almost entirely by geeks and misfits (mostly male) to a thing used by everyone, which occurred later than 1994, was really strange for us misfits and geeks to watch, I think. Within the span of a few years, the internet went from something with a sort of social stigma attached to it to, by the early Aughts, something that was an integral part of mainstream society. I wonder if there are any good books on this.Report

      • Glyph in reply to Will Truman says:

        @will-truman – now you need to rent Stillman’s Barcelona, and some early Noah Baumbach films, and make it an Eigeman-fest.Report

      • NewDealer in reply to Will Truman says:

        @chris

        I was a freshman in high school in 1994 and it felt like everyone was getting their internet accounts for the first time then. Except a handful of people who had Prodigy accounts before thenReport

  4. Maribou says:

    well, I watched Her, of course, and also a lot of Glee and I finished off Downton for the season.

    Readingwise, mostly cataloging textbooks / handbooks and a huge chunk of a book about library instruction. Le sigh. I did make my way through another lovely 100 pages or so of Jo Walton’s What Makes This Book So Great, though. I think when I am done with school I am going to reread it, taking the time to read (or reread) each book mentioned before reading the corresponding essay about the pleasures of rereading that particular book…Report

  5. Will Truman says:

    Finished up the fall season of The Blacklist. Honestly, if it didn’t have Spader in it, I probably would have lost interest. The guy could be in a show describing in detail the actions of a turtle and I would find it interesting. Moving on to the fall episodes of Person of Interest. Might jump over to Revolution.

    I finished a Graphic Audio with Spiderman. I’m really a fish out of water in the Marvel Universe and I find myself surprisingly but persistently indifferent to Peter Parker. Moving on to a Brad Meltzer audiobook.Report

  6. North says:

    I have seen Her but to be frank I spent most of the movie peering past and around Theodore to look at the world he lived in and damn, things were lookin pretty good.

    The panoramic views suggested very large cities with a great deal of vertical buildings (not just in huddled in a downtown but all over the place) punctuated by semi dense but highly walkable buildings and parks. North said to himself niiiiice!

    People were paying Theodore to do a really minor kind of job. Theodore’s friend worked in game development. Almost everyone seemed engaged in a lot of artistic or service oriented work. There didn’t seem to be anyone who looked particularily poor or transient. So I suspected some kind of guaranteed minimum income/semi-post scarcity society (which, if you could write AI’s like Samantha, hell yes you could have them). North said to himself niiiiice!

    And they mentioned in the news that China and India were doing some kind of political merger thing which strongly suggested that the far east was peaceful and developed pretty well and generally speaks to a tranquile international environment. North said to himself niiiice!

    Frankly Theodore seemed to be living in a pretty awesome and also plausibly awesome world. Oh and he had some kind of relationship with an advanced AI. How nice for him. Also the part with the dead cat had me busting out laughing (probably because watching the scene up to that point was squirm inducingly uncomfortable).Report

  7. Reformed Republican says:

    I watched a lot of stuff this weekend. The weather did not really encourage me to get out of the house.

    I watched The Conjuring, which I really enjoyed. I only wish I did not make the decision to watch it while cooking, because my attention was too divided.

    I watched The World’s End (Simon Pegg movie), which I had confused with This is the End (Seth Rogen movie). Later, I corrected my mistake and watched This is the End. Both movies kept me laughing, though I think I preferred the latter.

    I also finished up Season 1 of American Horror Story, which definitely came together after the first couple of episodes. I might have liked a bit more horror, but overall I though the story was interesting. It reminded me of the Nicole Kidman haunted house movie (whose name I forget) that showed the ghosts’ POV. The final episode reminded me of Beetlejuice.Report