Andrew C (✔)

This is how I imagine what interplanetary space travel is going to be like. - Victor Ganata

If civilization gets rebuilt, academics will argue endless about what qualifies as apocalyptic vs. postapocalyptic - Victor Ganata

proto-apocalyptic - Meg VMeg

Pre- vs proto- will be decided by what, in retrospect, contained the seeds of our destruction and what did not. - Andrew C (✔)

Summer here is going to be unbearable. - Spidra Webster

I'd originally hoped to take the class starting Jan 10, so this would've probably been my last week in LA instead of my first. - Andrew C (✔)

At what tomorrow? - bentley

Glad to hear it! I look forward to your reports. Taking improv at UCB is one of those long long long range side-goals I have. (I figured I'd need it to continue in VO and it'd probably help get the stick outta my ass.) - Spidra Webster

TRUE - Stephen Mack

"S.E. Hinton (The Outsiders) […] And a few years ago I wrote three Outsiders stories to see what kind of a response I would get. I use a different name, naturally. People would say, “Wow, you really got the characters down right!” And I’d be like, Glad to hear it." - Andrew C (✔)

#NotAllManchego - Spidra Webster

+1 Spidra - John (bird whisperer)

"Fashion icon and actress Emma Watson just got cast as — drumroll please — Belle! She’ll be playing the bookish beauty in an upcoming live-action interpretation of Beauty and the Beast." - Andrew C (✔)

Works for me - Steve C, Team Marina

Yup, that's totally what I would have guessed too. - Zulema ❧ spicy cocoa tart

"Statewide, we've been dropping more than 12 million acre-feet of total water yearly since 2011. Roughly two-thirds of these losses are attributable to groundwater pumping for agricultural irrigation in the Central Valley. Farmers have little choice but to pump more groundwater during droughts, especially when their surface water allocations have been slashed 80% to 100%. But these pumping rates are excessive and unsustainable. Wells are running dry. In some areas of the Central Valley, the land is sinking by one foot or more per year." - Andrew C (✔)

"As difficult as it may be to face, the simple fact is that California is running out of water — and the problem started before our current drought. NASA data reveal that total water storage in California has been in steady decline since at least 2002, when satellite-based monitoring began, although groundwater depletion has been going on since the early 20th century." - Andrew C (✔)

"Right now the state has only about one year of water supply left in its reservoirs, and our strategic backup supply, groundwater, is rapidly disappearing. California has no contingency plan for a persistent drought like this one (let alone a 20-plus-year mega-drought), except, apparently, staying in emergency mode and praying for rain." - Andrew C (✔)

I forgot "costume" holidays, which are mostly Halloween and maybe Mardi Gras. - Andrew C (✔)

^ maybe "watch TV" is a separate category, then. - Andrew C (✔)

"we should SAY". Dammit. - Andrew C (✔)

Andrew, it's FF, you can edit! Just change it. :) - Stephen Mack

I had to delete and repost the tweet. - Andrew C (✔)

Yeah, but our usual MO is to pick a holiday and celebrate it in a strange way (like the people who think Cinco de Mayo is Mexican Independance Day) while also simultaneously encouraging awful stereotypes about the culture being "celebrated." - Jennifer Dittrich

Hard to say; there's still tequila and Mexican food. - Steven Perez

"The Chris rumor du jour is that Chris Pine (Star Trek) is in the running to play Green Lantern in DC's Justice League franchise. If he winds up being cast, Hollywood will have exhausted the last of its Chris stocks. The trend began with Christopher Reeve as Superman. Then it was Chris O'Donnell as Robin in the ‘90s Batman movies and Christian Bale as Batman in the Dark Knight trilogy—directed, incidentally, by yet another Chris. Marvel Studios took things even further, casting Fantastic Four alum Chris Evans as Captain America, Chris Hemsworth as Thor, and Chris Pratt as Star-Lord in Guardians of the Galaxy." - Andrew C (✔)

It drives me nuts that, with the vast majority of kids right now growing up with John Stewart as the Green Lantern they've seen on TV, that we have to keep going back to Hal Jordan. I like both characters, but it isn't like they don't have some fucking amazing options. Knowing why only makes it more maddening. - Jennifer Dittrich

"Of course, "emotional power" was never Adams' goal. […] As a devotee of P.G. Wodehouse, Adams was a master of farce, a believer in finding the most perfectly crafted line in any given situation, the most expertly set up joke. It's that distinction, which widened as Pratchett grew into his strengths as a storyteller, that most clearly puts the lie to the idea that Sir Terry was "the fantasy Douglas Adams." In truth, his work has far more in common with that of some of fiction's great humanists, like G.K. Chesterton and Kurt Vonnegut." - Andrew C (✔)

"And the man's talent at comedy writing just can't be discounted (the one place where the parallels to Douglas Adams are dead-on accurate). It's easy to use "funny" as a dismissive adjective, to give in to the knee-jerk reaction to call the Discworld novels "more" than just funny books. But Discworld is great because it's funny, not in spite of it." - Andrew C (✔)

Good Omens was dedicated to Chesterton. - Pete's Got To Go

Could arguably be funnier with "Tom" for Ozymandias and "MySpace" for "Friendster". - Andrew C (✔)

"“The owls belong to a professional falconry center and are accustomed to being around the public,” write the organizers “They have attended public events such as weddings before and, during the event, a professional falconer will accompany each owl”" - Andrew C (✔)

And here's a report from a real Tokyo owl cafe: http://www.tofugu.com/travel... - Andrew C (✔)

"Noting that their prison system’s supply of lethal injection drugs continues to dwindle as more manufacturers agree to halt sales, sources within the Texas Department of Criminal Justice confirmed Thursday that they now regret wasting doses of pancuronium bromide on innocent prisoners in 1997, 2000, and 2004." - Andrew C (✔)

hehe - Stephen Mack

"In a curious turn, the announcement comes only days after the film's two directors - Jennifer Lee and Chris Buck - told US media there were no plans for a sequel. "Until we find our way into what's next emotionally, it will feel too big," Lee had said. But the studio on Thursday confirmed a sequel was coming, though it has not announced a date. And Disney chief Bob Iger and Pixar boss John Lasseter said Lee and Buck would direct it." - Andrew C (✔)

I guess Disney looked into its heart and said "We need a tentpole flick". After all, didn't they scrap one Star Wars 7 script yet maintain the release date wouldn't change? - Andrew C (✔)

Dude. Does this mean that they (or their kids) end up precipitating The Year Without a Santa Claus? Because I'm good with that. - Jennifer Dittrich

"A metaphor is a word or phrase in a foreign language that poets choose to include simply because they are pretentious." - Andrew C (✔)

"In a work of fiction, prose style is defined solely by the author’s choice of font (e.g., Courier New, Times New Roman, Book Antiqua)." - Andrew C (✔)

"In Stephen Marche’s essay “Is Facebook Making Us Lonely?”, social media-induced loneliness is described as a worldwide epidemic, sparing only a tiny area on the U.S.’s northeastern seaboard known as “Rhode Island.”" - Andrew C (✔)

"But Facebook’s policy is easily exploitable: Any user can potentially cause someone else’s account to be suspended, altered or permanently shut down simply by reporting their name as fake. As we’ve recently reported, Facebook has been questioning authentic Native American names since at least 2009. Since late February when news of its flawed names policy resurfaced on The Last Real Indians blog, we’ve learned that one white supremacist group has bragged about triggering the removal of a high-profile Native user. We’ve also talked to 42 Natives about their past and present experiences with Facebook." - Andrew C (✔)

"Facebook’s spokesperson insists that the company doesn’t proactively search through user handles to root out violators of the names policy. The problem with user-generated reporting is that is that anyone, even white separatists, can report legitimate accounts as fake." - Andrew C (✔)

"Dezbah Bahee is pretty proud of her name, which appears on her birth certificate and all her documents. In Diné Bizaad, or Navajo language, “Dezbah” means “warrior.” But, if you want to find Bahee on Facebook, you’re going to have to look for the nickname “Dezzie.” “I use my real name on all my social media profiles,” explains Bahee, who first signed up to Facebook about six years ago. “However, with Facebook, when I entered my name, the program notified me that I was not allowed to use ‘nicknames.’” […] Bahee is one of several women who told me they weren’t allowed to sign up to Facebook using their real first name, “Dezbah.” The troubling irony, of course, is that although Facebook discourages the use of some nicknames, these women had to use a nickname or an outright fake name in order to obtain an account." - Andrew C (✔)

" “Having to prove [my name] on the biggest social media website where there are tons of people using fake names made me feel like I wasn’t worthy enough to even be considered a person in their standards,” says White Eyes, who points to names such as “Pseu Donym,” a blatantly false handle that many individuals use on the site." - Andrew C (✔)

"Christopher Hitchens, the late essayist and sot, was a man who purposefully cultivated a lot of friends of a certain type—rich, self-important, generally dim-witted and hence easy for a well-spoken Oxbridge debater to impress—and he electrified Washington D.C. society mainly by not being a completely charmless bore. Now those friends are the primary caretakers of his legacy, and, if the newly announced "Hitchens Prize" is any indication, they are going to memorialize him in the least Hitch-like ways possible." - Andrew C (✔)

"But the "Hitchens Prize" and its misinterpretation of the "Hitch" persona are not worth getting worked up about. This may sound ungenerous, but I suspect Christopher Hitchens the writer will be remembered, if at all, for his Kissinger book, a few bon mots, and little else. The fact that his ephemeral political writing will be forgotten, as most ephemeral political writing is, is the best thing that could happen to his reputation. " - Andrew C (✔)

I picked up The Fifth Elephant just for the title while in Jamaica. When we got back, I found another title (I think it was Wyrd Sisters), then I realized it was series. I think Soul Music & Small Gods are my faves. - Anika

If Michael Brown had not been murdered, for how long would Ferguson have continued with its racist stops and fines? Decades? - Stephen Mack

AIUI the DOJ report, they were ratcheting up the fines like crazy in the last four years, so surely things would have boiled over at some point. - Andrew C (✔)