Beerus is a cosmic demigod not native to Earth. Idk if he counts as an “Animal Person” in the same way as Oolong or the Pilaf Gang’s Shu. That said, both continue to exist in Z, GT, and Super as minor supporters/antagonists.

Incidentally, in interviews, Toriyama admits he forgot about the animal people between DB and DBZ for the most part. But mainline characters still show up from time to time.

Technically, he only tried to sterilize it and sell it off to settler colonial aliens. So I think that makes hating on Vegeta anti-Semitic.

Cattle herds went through a pretty nasty culling just a year or two ago. And that’s been part of a 40 year long term downward trend, as cost to raise by head has grown with drought and feedstock price increases. 2014 and 2024 being particularly rough years for the industry as a whole.

Like, I guess it’s good that we’re seeing research into herd emissions. But I have to wonder whether it’ll even matter relative to the continuing slide in overall herd populations.

“Pspspspsps”

“Sorry, sir, we can’t do that here. But if you join me in the milk tea room…”

I think one of the reasons the critics came at it so harshly was that it was sort of this meme-movie. Lots of quotable lines. Lots of memorable scenes. But the overarching story kinda sucked. The villains were silly and lame. The heroes were uninspired. The movie parked itself on Irish Dude-Bro demographics and just kinda catapulted itself into cult classic material by casting Willem Dafoe a bit before he went mainstream.

I think it’s better than a 26%. But not all that much better.

Do people really trust ratings for things?

It’s generally in the ballpark. Universally panned films rank lower than universally loved films. Cult classics tend to score better than average but rarely break into the 8-9 out of 10 range. It’s good to check the “Critics Score” against the “Popular Score”, as a big spread tends to say something about the nature of the film (High C:P suggests Oscar Bait, low C:P suggests it’s either very niche or very crass or very ideological).

The scores contain useful information about the nature and quality of the film. They just don’t tell you whether you will like the film.

I’ll also throw in that I’ve heard more than a few movie reviews that have changed my opinion on a movie I’ve already seen (typically one I’ve seen forever ago that I just remember fondly or disparagingly). Return of the Jedi was my favorite Star Wars movie for years, but I’ve definitely come around on it being the worst of the OT. At the same time, my opinion of The Transformers Movie came up quite a bit after hearing a few reviews raving about the art design, the musical score, and the voice acting. Same with Princess Bride, which I’d mentally written off as some stupid low-budget made-for-TV schlock until I got into college and had friends screening it enthusiastically.

If you’re just cruising for “decent movie to end the weekend” on, surfing through the Criterion Collection will yield a bunch of gems.

My only grip is that it should be a private company death ray.

Nothing particularly private about ICE. Nevermind the bloated municipal police forces or the $1.5T military. The current Trump government has been more interested in nationalizing companies or integrating them into government administrations than any government in living memory. Intel is a state owned enterprise. Palantir might as well be a department of the NSA. SpaceX is a subsidiary of NASA and the Pentagon. Amazon’s out there producing movies for the First Lady just to stay in Donald’s good graces.

We’ve privatized the profits, but the chief executive’s minions are firmly in control of the policies.

“Wow, that’s an ugly wound from the government’s death ray.”

“Yeah, I feel really bad about not getting out of the way. I think I’ve learned my lesson for next time.”

She’s been “produced” by Americans since her 2007 Maxim bikini photo shoot. Gadot is an American celebrity, having been in far more Hollywood pictures for English language audiences than Tel Aviv pictures for Hewbrew speaking ones.

Gal Gadot is Israeli

You can be from a country and not like it’s national leadership.

Robert Redford is dead.

So is Fidel Castro.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_airline_mergers_and_acquisitions

Oops! All cartels and monopolies!

Incidentally, choosing an airline might be even less of a problem when so many are on the edge of bankruptcy

Waters is far more anti-Ukrainian Nationalist than pro-Putin. But yes, another great example.

Although Ukraine is another great candidate to watch for “Country that ages like milk, but social media dead-enders keep hanging on to” in ten or fifteen years.

This joke gets funnier the more badly blurred the text becomes.

The US has a long and storied history of producing high profile weirdos that get trapped in a moment of international policy, like a mosquito in amber, and just keep hanging out with a foreign government we re-designated as The Enemy decades ago.

Seagal has Putin. Dennis Rodman was tight with Kim Jung il. Johnny Depp is good friends with Mohammad bin Salman. Gal Gadot is a perennial Netanyahu gadfly. Rob Schneider campaigned for Victor Orban. Oliver Stone and Robert Redford still rep Fidel Castro.

If you go into the back pages of US History, you’ll find moments when US officials attempted a thaw or brokered some kind of cooperative pact with a modern enemy nation. And typically, the State Department would send along an affable oaf or enthusiastic wanna-be celeb ambassador to make nice with the foreign head of state.

And then US policy changes, but the celebs don’t get the memo.

The bar is high, but he’s definitely in the running.

Anyone who thinks doctors don’t fly Spirit, but can explain why they haven’t updated any of the magazines in the waiting room in twenty years, please speak up.

You’ve obviously never been an addict.

Obviously.

You can absolutely hate a thing you’re using and feel like quitting isn’t possible.

I’ve been told I’m not an addict. I’ve been told social media is addictive. I’ve been told I’m on social media. I’m rattling around the contradictions.

Addicts can also love the thing and not feel like quitting, because the thing they’re addicted to gives them a feeling of empowerment or a release from anxiety.

Social media fulfills a craving for socializing that humans naturally desire. It offers to fulfill this natural desire through a low-cost, easy-access interface. And it feeds this craving continuously, often artificially through synthetic interactions with no real counterparty. And it does so with the goal of influencing the audience’s understanding of the world and consumption habits, two things humans also natively seek.

Talking about social media like an addiction misses the core drive towards its adoptions and proliferation. You might as well say you’re addicted to food and air as to say you’re addicted to text and video. These are sensory stimulations everyone is always pining for, whether or not a phone screen is the delivery mechanism.

The challenge people face isn’t the social media, it is the absence of non-social media as an alternative. We’re caged animals looking out the window and you’re complaining about “window addiction”.

I haven’t read a word of it, or even seen a preview, but after the opening tomorrow I’m going to turn in the worst review anybody has ever read. And I’m going to close your play. Would you like to know why? Because I hate you. And everyone you represent. Entitled. Spoiled. Selfish. Children. Blissfully untrained, unversed and unprepared to even attempt real art. Handing each other awards for cartoons and pornography. Measuring your worth in weekends Well, this is the theater, and you don’t get to come in here and pretend you can write, direct and act in your own propaganda piece without going through me first. So, break a leg.