yakko

No blame, miscommunication. I don't get much practise being polite, it's not the first time someone thought I was doing a bit

OP has a pension and works in the judiciary. This whole thread is about their situation. Your comment about other jobs appeared to be a non-sequitur, and I was trying to politely ask in what way it might not be.

I am originally from the US, and I know how rare pensions are. I just don't see how it's relevant to the question OP was asking? Sorry.

Where can they take away your pension if you resign though?

If I was in your shoes, I'd wait for some important issue to come up, and then retire in protest. Make it meaningful enough and you might create something of a legacy.

Touch it. It's quite cool.

I hadn't thought about sports in that way before. That's interesting. And you're right that serialised shows didn't work so well in broadcast, which is probably partially why I'm so prejudiced against them - they slightly remind me of the daytime soaps I suffered through when I was home sick as a kid. I'll cop to that.

But as an adult, the reason I still go to bat so hard for episodic as a format is because it imposes a creative constraint on the writer that makes it immediately clear whether the script has succeeded in telling a compelling story. And if it's a short episode, say ten minutes like with Adventure Time, and it still manages to tell an emotionally compelling episodic story in that time, that's amazingly impressive.

I liken serialisation to gravity. It sets in eventually no matter how hard you try. But for me, it's more fun to watch the plane actually fly than to watch it taxi around on the runway. Just a series of events. When everyone's clapping for that, I'm the one sitting with my arms crossed muttering "no, fuck this pilot, spill the passengers' drinks! Do a back flip in the sky!"

Another malformed rant. Thank you for being so tolerant.

Respectfully, THIS is the conversation I want to respond to - instead of what you actually said to me earlier. I have to bang on about it, the medium is the message and streaming is not the same medium as network television. You're not meant to watch it all in one go, of course it feels like a slog if you consume it that way.

The TV binge is a newer phenomenon (that only exists because of DVR and now streaming) and the point I'm really trying to make here is that this is a medium that structurally doesn't treat you the same way.

Netflix doesn't need you to like all their shows, they want you to obsess over a few of their shows, ideally one at a time, and they're going to cancel anything that doesn't get them the metrics they're looking for. The carrots and sticks all line up to have an effect on the creative side and on the viewer that I'm not at ease with.

That's a long rant you didn't ask for, sorry. It's just that I don't see these changes as healthy even though some new good shows are still getting made. Hollywood is dying and I feel sorry for anyone who dreamed of going into that business.

I think the main thing holding me back in my attempts to learn languages is not having anyone to talk to. I've tried to learn Spanish, Mandarin, German, French, and Japanese. Never got that far in any of them, but I did best with Spanish and French. The former when I worked with Mexicans who don't speak much English, and the latter when I vacationed in France and didn't want to seem like one of those Americans, and studied like crazy ahead of time.

I can't think of many Russians I'd want to talk to. Maybe if I was in contact with dissidents I'd be able to put in the effort.

Get a load of this guy thinking serialisation is so great. The medium is still the message, and a serial is saying "we don't value your time".

Hey what's your new favourite show? Is it Disney's new "Trust Us It Gets Good In Two Hours"?

Laudable of you. I've heard it opined but I haven't seen the proof, that it would have been impossible to carry on as a society without allowing former party members to hold certain offices, such as judges and other positions. I don't know if I credit that version of events personally, but it's the one on the table that I know of.

As an American I've been living in the UK for almost 5 years now, and I can safely say I've never met anyone who hates America as much as me. 💪🏻

Correction: I have met other Americans who might.