Useless Conversation

[Mandella]

I can't imagine that Blu-Ray improves the terrible special effects of It's ending. I would almost suggest just not watching the last installment. Just figure the clown won or something.

As for the book, well, say what you will about some of his plot decisions, but I thought King was at his Lovecraftian horror height here. It actually disturbed me trying to read it alone late at night, and during that time period I was reading a lot of horror and thought myself too jaded to get real chills just from reading.

[HaemishM]

IT and the Stand are clearly King's best work.

[Paelos]

IT and the Stand are clearly King's best work.

The Dark Tower stuff is pretty damn good too though. Also his fairy tale piece called Eyes of the Dragon is one of my off-the-beat favorites.

[Yegolev]

IT and the Stand are clearly King's best work.

OK, I guess I'm done reading that bastard's shit.

EDIT:
WUBBA LUBBA DUB DUB

[schild]

What I remember about IT the mini-series was the first half with all Pennywise/Tim Curry was pretty brilliant. It only really went downhill in the second half when it followed the adults and became

I'm literally rewatching IT right now, it's not the second half. It's like 10 minutes of the movie. It's just SO bad that it never leaves your mind.

[apocrypha]

True horror is the back spasms that I'm having right now. Trapped at work. Can't drive home because of the spasms, hard to work because of the incredible pain.  

I think this is part of the problem we're having. Real life has proven in recent years to be far more horrifying than anything Hollywood can conjure up.

And sorry to hear about your back pain. Please see a real doctor about it (not a chiropractor!), it's really really fucking bad if you try to ignore it like I did and it goes to a whole other level.

[Khaldun]

Agree on The Stand. I think there's some memorable characters in it, though.

I think Dead Zone is his genuinely best book, and it's not particularly horror.

Sorry about the back, Rasix! I once was holding my 6-month old daughter and suddenly got an absolutely crippling back spasm. I had to sit down right away on the stairs and I couldn't move for fear of falling down with her still in my arms. I got lucky in that I had my cellphone on me, so I called my wife at work and then didn't move an inch until she got home 45 minutes later and took the baby. Terrifying and so painful that I can still viscerally feel it when I think about it.

[Rasix]

Thanks for the concern. I have neck/back issues that I have to manage, mostly due to a juvenile spinal disease and the resulting corrective surgery in my 20s. I do need to be a lot better at doing exercises to strengthen and keep limber (especially during winter). If I was at home, I'd just take a muscle relaxer and chill, but that's not really an option at work. Ended up downing some Aleeve, rolling out the yoga mat, and putting my status to "away" for a while. Took a conference call while lying down.  

Round table my third line manager in like 15 minutes. Nothing quite like sitting around absorbing all of the bullshit while everyone's too afraid to say anything.

[Ironwood]

On the other hand, the doc told me today my liver is on the verge of packing in.

Which is nice.

[Pennilenko]

On the other hand, the doc told me today my liver is on the verge of packing in.

Which is nice.

Do Scottish people even need a liver?

[Paelos]

Agree on The Stand. I think there's some memorable characters in it, though.

Harold and Randall Flag and Trashcan Man stand out to me. And Mother Abigail for entirely different reasons.

But the main characters mostly sucked. Stu and Frannie are the most boring couple ever written. Ever. They have nothing about them that's interesting. King tried to make Stu the strong silent type and failed miserably, creating a character that's a vanilla hero cardboard cutout with nothing interesting to say at all. He has no memorable lines in the entire thing. Frannie is essentially a giant bitchy child carrying a child.

Nick is the deaf guy. Who again has almost nothing to say or do because he's deaf apparently. Tom Cullen is Mentally retarded so of course he has to be the magical kind of retarded which is such a fucking trope with King it's eye-rollingly painful. Larry is basically a millennial before there was a word for it. Everybody else is bland blanderson forgettable at best.

[Sky]

Stephen King had a string of good ideas decades ago that he failed to turn into good books.

In other news. Dear car manufacturers, please stop putting in headlamps 10x stronger than the sun. Blinding everyone in the hurtling death machines in the vicinity of your hurtling death machine is fucking stupid. "But I can see better." We'll put that on your gravestone, with a spotlight. Moron.

[Signe]

Wait. Wait.  Slow down here.  Back to the liver.  What's wrong with your liver??  What do you mean "packing it in"   

[Viin]

I think that means it is bringing its own six pack to the party.

[Selby]

Agree on The Stand. I think there's some memorable characters in it, though.

The first 1/3 of the book I enjoyed, especially watching society fall apart because no matter how much people want to believe otherwise, it'll be messy and ugly like that with chaos all around.  I didn't mind the characters too much even if it did get heavy handed on the biblical side at the last 1/4.  I can suspend some disbelief to be entertained.  The TV miniseries though... god Molly Ringwald made me HATE that character more than I hated her in the book...

And bringing it all around, I have to get liver tests every 3 months because my doctors are worried.  Hopefully it's not packing it in too soon, that's not a good thing.

[Rendakor]

The first 1/3 of The Stand is excellent.

[Ironwood]

Wait. Wait.  Slow down here.  Back to the liver.  What's wrong with your liver??  What do you mean "packing it in"   

It's in the early stages of breaking.  I need to do some corrective action and hope it gets better.  Which is sort of hilarious because despite what you may think I'm not actually a huge drinker anymore and haven't been in quite some time.  So, it's all a bit of a mystery.  Being a West-Coast Scottish guy, though, we have the worst stats on hearts and livers, so who knows.

I wouldn't worry about it.  Worst case, one of my long absences from f13 becomes pretty much eternally long.   

[apocrypha]

That sucks Ironwood.

Something I've wondered about in the past, how do we know that the people we know online aren't dead if/when they go quiet? I've known lots of people over the years via gaming that I have no contact with any more, I've no idea if any of them are dead. We need some kind of 'dead man's switch auto-post' system that if we don't show any online activity for x weeks posts to a pre-determined list of forums etc. saying 'I've probably karked it! Byeeeee!" or something.

[Ironwood]

I would imagine there's sufficient 'backup' in other areas.

I know for a fact that there are about 6 guys here with multiple ways to find out if I'm dead.  Indeed, in my particular case, Samwise will probably be the bearer of the news, plus new and interesting pictures of him escorting some woman around San Fran.

[Teleku]

My new startup idea.  Pay a fee to a company, who, after you die, takes over all your social media and forum accounts, then starts posting what ever you instructed them to.

[HaemishM]

My new startup idea.  Pay a fee to a company, who, after you die, takes over all your social media and forum accounts, then starts posting what ever you instructed them to.

I actually wrote a short story about this for my Bridge Chronicles series, called The Excavators. They were freelancers who could crack your account passwords for your loved ones so that you could hide any incriminating evidence or track money that maybe your dead loved one didn't want you to know about. The freelancers were mainly used so that the official GlobalNet excavators couldn't deactivate those accounts before the good stuff was discovered.

[Paelos]

The first 1/3 of The Stand is excellent.

It really is because it doesn't focus too much on the characters and instead focuses on society at large burning to the ground. Once they arrive in Boulder the thing turns into a stupid soap opera about government. Then in the last stages it becomes a preachy take in the weirdest way with the hugest Deus Ex Machina ending I've literally ever seen. I was so pissed when I read it because there was absolute no point to any of the journey or the story, or anything else. No "good" character's actions mattered at all.

[Rendakor]

The first 1/3 of The Stand is excellent.

It really is because it doesn't focus too much on the characters and instead focuses on society at large burning to the ground. Once they arrive in Boulder the thing turns into a stupid soap opera about government. Then in the last stages it becomes a preachy take in the weirdest way with the hugest Deus Ex Machina ending I've literally ever seen. I was so pissed when I read it because there was absolute no point to any of the journey or the story, or anything else. No "good" character's actions mattered at all.

Agreed. I wish there were more stories like that, about the collapse of society without getting all preachy or having some dumb hero save the day. Most things either end with 'crisis averted, miraculously' or else start after things have fallen apart completely.

[schild]

Wait. Wait.  Slow down here.  Back to the liver.  What's wrong with your liver??  What do you mean "packing it in"   

It's in the early stages of breaking.  I need to do some corrective action and hope it gets better.  Which is sort of hilarious because despite what you may think I'm not actually a huge drinker anymore and haven't been in quite some time.  So, it's all a bit of a mystery.  Being a West-Coast Scottish guy, though, we have the worst stats on hearts and livers, so who knows.

I wouldn't worry about it.  Worst case, one of my long absences from f13 becomes pretty much eternally long.   

I don't know how euro laws work for organs (or brexit laws, lol) - but are you on a list for a new liver? :(

[Samwise]

It's in the early stages of breaking.  I need to do some corrective action and hope it gets better.  

I was in this exact situation about 6 years ago, maybe give or take a couple of levels of severity (my doctor's words were "decreased liver function" rather than "early stages of breaking", but that might be a translation issue).  

Luckily my "corrective action" worked and I'm still alive and drinking. The thought that I'd have to stop drinking heavily if my liver got any worse was terrific motivation for me to make other lifestyle changes.  

[MahrinSkel]

Under ordinary circumstances if your liver is getting screwed by injury or insult (drinking/drugs) it will recover and rebuild. Couple of decades ago I had to give up drinking for a few years after a car accident that fucked up my liver (among other things). Regenerated back to normal function. Only organ you have that can be reduced 80% and grow back.

But if the problem is from a progressive degeneration via disease or genetics, it gets more complicated. Treatments range from drugs through transplants, depending on precisely why it is degenerating.

Not a doctor, just had obvious cause to read up on livers.

--Dave

[Ironwood]

It's more the Sam one than the Transplant one.  Don't worry.  I'm not.  Hugely.

At the mo, it's just painful.  But so's 16 years of marriage.  So, you know.  I'm ok.

[Paelos]

It's more the Sam one than the Transplant one.  Don't worry.  I'm not.  Hugely.

At the mo, it's just painful.  But so's 16 years of marriage.  So, you know.  I'm ok.

Don't die on us.

Ya cunt.

[Ironwood]

Ha.  It's 2016.  What could go wrong ?

 

[Rasix]

I feel like I missed an opportunity by not producing an advent calendar with just the words "Still Alive" behind every opened slot.

[Ironwood]

It has been some fucking shitty year, right enough.

[Sky]

I understand it all now.

Scots drink a lot
livers become larger
evolve into more complex organs
Scots become full regenerative
MacLeod

[MahrinSkel]

I thought Scots were 99% spleen?

--Dave

[NowhereMan]

I thought Scots were 99% spleen?

--Dave

I'm pretty sure they're all bile.

Unless I missed an anatomy joke there.

Must be a bad sense of humours.

[Abagadro]

I'd give you a piece of my liver but, trust me, you don't want it.