Strange Game – CPE1704TKS

The only winning move is not to play.

– USSR first strike
– U.S. first strike
– NATO / Warsaw Pact
– Far East Strategy
– India Pakistan War
– Mediterranean war
– Hong Kong Variant
– SEATO Decapitating
– Cuban Provocation
– Inadvertent ???
– Atlantic Heavy
– Cuban Paramilitary
– Nicaraguan Preemptive
– Pacific Territorial
– Burma [Theat?]erwide
– Turk[ish?] [De?]coy?
– NATO ???
– Argentina Escalation
– Iceland Maximum
– Arabian Theaterwide
– USA Subversion
– [Austra?]lian Maneuver
– [Iranian?] Diversion
– ??? Limited
– Sudan Surprise
– NATO Territorial
– Zaire Alliance
– Iceland [Incid?]ent
– English Escalation
– Zaire [Sudden?]
– E[gypt?] [Paramili?]tary
– Middle East Heavy
– Mexican Takeover
– Chad Alert
– Saudi Maneuver
– African [Terri?]toria[l?]
– Ethiopian [Esc?]alati[on?]
– Canadian ???
– Turkish Heavy
– NATO Incursion
– U.S. Defense
– Cambodian Heavy
– Pact Medium
– Arctic Minimal
– Mexican Domestic
– Taiwan Theaterwide
– Pacific Maneuver
– Portugal Revolution
– Albanian Decoy
– Palistinian Local
– Moroccan Minimal
– [Hunga?]rian Divers[ion?]
– Czech Option
– French Alliance
– Arabian Clandestine
– Gabon Rebellion
– Northern M[aximu?]m
– [??]rian S[??]se
– [??]sh Para[milit?]ary
– SEATO Takeover
– Hawaiian Escalation
– Iranian Maneuver
– NATO Containment
– Swiss Incident
– Cuba[n?] [Mi?]nimal
– Chad [Ale?]rt
– Iceland Escalation
– Vietnamese Retaliatio [sic]
– Syrian Provocation
– Libyan Local
– Gabon Takeover
– Romanian War
– Middle East Offensive
– Denmark Massive
– Chile Confrontation
– S.African Subversion
– USSR Alert
– Nicaraguan Thrust
– Greenland Domestic
– Iceland Heavy
– Kenya Option
– Pacific Defense
– Uganda Maximum
– Thai Subversion
– Romanian Strike
– Pakistan Sovereignty
– Afghan Misdirection
– Thai Variation
– Northern Territorial
– Polish Paramilitary
– S.African Offensive
– Panama Misdirection
– Scandinavian Domestic
– Jordan Preemptive
– English Thrust
– Burmese Maneuver
– Spain Counter
– Arabian Offensive
– Chad Interdiction
– Taiwan Misdirection
– Bangladesh Theaterwid [sic]
– Ethiopian Local
– Italian Takeover
– Vietnamese Incident
– English Preemptive
– Denmark Alternate
– [Thai?] Confrontation
– [Taiwan?] [Surprise?]
– Brazilian Strike
– Venezuela Sudden
– [Malay?]sian Alert
– Israel Discretionary
– Libyan Action
– [Pali?]stinian Tactical
– [NATO?] Alternate
– [Chinese? Cypress?] Maneuver
– Egypt Misdirection
– Bangladesh Thrust
– Kenya Defense
– Bangladesh Containment
– Vietnamese Strike
– [Alban?]ian Containment
– Gabon Surprise
– Iraq Sovereignty
– Vietnamese Sudden
– Lebanon Interdiction
– Taiwan Domestic
– Algerian Sovereignty
– [Arab?]ian Strike
– Atlantic Sudden
– Mongolian Thrust
– Polish Decoy
– Alaskan Discretionary
– Canadian Thrust
– [Arab?]ian Light
– S.African Domestic
– Pakistan Incident
– [Malay?]sian Maneuver
– Jamaica Decoy
– [Malay?]sian Minimal
– Pakistan Sovereignty
– Chad Option
– [Bangladesh?] War
– [Burm?]ese] Containment
– [Asian?] Theaterwide
– [Bulgar?]ian Clandestine
– Greenland Incursion
– Egypt Surgical
– Czech Heavy
– Taiwan Confrontation
– Greenland Maximum
– [Uganda?] Offensive
– [Caspian defense?]

Drunken Grapevine Master

BRAIN: have you taken any classes at the dance center?
BRAIN: that place is insane
BRAIN: it’s real unlikely I’ll ever go but it was fascinating

DEE: No… Insane how?

BRAIN: I went by there at night
BRAIN: there were so many people in classes it looked like a villain training camp in a kung-fu movie

Drunken Grapvine Master vs the Jazz-Hands of Death!

Netflix recommends today

– Violent Foreign Crime Movies
– Quirky TV Comedies Featuring a Strong Female Lead
– Imaginative Documentaries
– Cult Sci-Fi & Fantasy
– Gritty Gangster Asian Action Movies

Waaaaitttt…

Actually, after I had a discussion with JYU, we decided there is indeed a difference.

A “Violent Foreign Crime Movie” would be like a John Woo movie, with a hero shooting insane numbers of bullets, and slow motion shots of doves flying… Whereas a “Gritty Gangster Asian Action Movie” would be more like a Johnny To or Takashi Miike movie, a violent modern noir where most of the characters die.

Update: The Atlantic had a story about all these micro-genres

Mulled wine

We had some opened and forgotten wine, so I made a half batch of Jaime Oliver’s mulled wine recipe, altered for what we had on hand.

Ingredients

  • 2 oranges
  • 1 lemon for zest
  • 200 g caster sugar
  • 6 whole cloves
  • 1 stick cinnamon
  • 1 dried bay leaf
  • 1 whole nutmeg, for grating
  • 1 tsp vanilla purée
  • 2 star anise
  • 1 bottle Italian red wine

Zest both oranges, squeeze one into a saucepan. Zest lemon. Combine all ingredients but the wine and star anise. Wet the ingredients with enough wine to cover.

Dissolve sugar with heat and whisk, simmer until it’s a thicker syrup. Eat the remaining orange while you wait. Make an Arnold Palmer or something with the lemon.

Dump in the rest of the wine and the star anise. Heat until warm (5 minutes). Serve!

Know what else is good in this? Cranberries!

Don’t forget to use a strainer like I did or you’ll be spitting out cloves and orange peel all night!

MPDG and Elvis

PJ: and I’m blanking on specific examples, but I feel like the, “leaving everything behind and going someplace new” has been used a lot
PJ: starting a new job, going to new york, etc
BRAIN: good point
BRAIN: maybe returning home is important thematically, since it occurs in so many of these
PJ: … so if both returning home and starting from scratch in someplace new are both played out…
PJ: is there a way to have the advantages of both without too much of the disadvantages of either/both?
PJ: following family/friends/job to a new locale?
PJ: … god, that starts to get a little uncomfortably close to *my* life story
BRAIN: Then again,
BRAIN: I wouldn’t discount something because it’s played out
BRAIN: “safe” scripts sell
BRAIN: so played out might also mean “proven winner”

PJ: Melissa’s suggestion >> the ‘hero’ is going to graceland!
BRAIN: elvis as patron? Like in True Romance
MATT: Paul Simon on the soundtrack!
PJ: nice!
MATT: So nostalgic.
PJ: so does that mean the female lead will have diamonds on the soles of her shoes?

NIKK: Manic pixie lady is escaped from the psych ward?
PJ: that punctuates the ‘manic’ part
BRAIN: that was called Mad Love with Drew Barrymore
NIKK: So… she played herself?

BRAIN: she is especially annoying in that one
BRAIN: she’s doing that creaky-voice thing the entire movie
MATT: Who would win in a fight between Drew Barrymore and Melissa Joan Hart (or whatever her name was, the girl who played Clarissa and explained it all)?
BRAIN: Drew Barrymore, because I’m sure she has fight experience from her childhood years scrapping for cocaine

PJ: so… going to graceland because he’s an elvis nerd, or does he believe that his grandmother was an elvis groupie and he’s actually an illegitimate descendant?
PJ: or main character is hipster and going to graceland ironically
MATT: I’m kind of getting into irony ironically.

BRAIN: maybe he’s on irony burnout, and he’s on a misguided search for “the real america”
NIKK: Oooooooh.
PJ: I like that
PJ: if he’s roadtripping there, you get all sorts of opportunities for teaparty-encounter-hilariousness

MPDG and Loss

BRAIN: but my earlier question is more about what I think the harder part is: writing the guy
NIKK: Isn’t he supposed to be a one-dimensional shell of a person?
PJ: I was about to say, it depends on the goal
PJ: is the guy the male version of the “mary sue” thing, or do you actually *want* an interesting character
BRAIN: the goal is: write a script that you can sell starring one male actor and one female actor who are both in their early 20s

BRAIN: even mary sue wants to go do something
PJ: true
BRAIN: so what does brooding guy want?
BRAIN: why are they on a road odyssey?
PJ: I was about to say they’re going to comic con, but then we essentially have fallen into the script of ‘Paul
BRAIN: ha

BRAIN: so you said something about getting dumped in the beginning, and I think that is a good point- these guys usually have some failure or loss just before the start of the story
BRAIN: Garden State – his dad died
BRAIN: Elizabethtown – he’s destroyed Nike
PJ: right
PJ: given the loss, the reason for the trip is they’re going some place to re-start, re-charge
BRAIN: ah, and the MPDG is symbolic of that new, carefree direction
BRAIN: full of potential
PJ: but returning home is pretty played out, weather it’s to do the funeral, go to a high school class reunion (grosse pointe blank…?) etc are all pretty played out

NIKK: Could always reverse it…
NIKK: MPDG instead of making him ‘better’ drags him down from success and happiness into complete and total life destruction.
NIKK: The entire movie is just a downward spiral…
BRAIN: that sort of has been done – the one with ben stiller and jen aniston
BRAIN: also “Harold and Maude
BRAIN: (the downward spiral)
MATT: Harold and Maude is unfortunately the Ur-MPDG movie, but it also is good, unlike pretty much all the rest of them.
BRAIN: Breakfast at Tiffany’s has a pretty destructive MPDG
NIKK: … huh … Does that mean that Going Postal is MPDG…?

Get the Probe / Manic Pixie Dream Girls A-Go-Go

MATT: Also, if you want to write a manic pixie dream girl script … don’t.
BRAIN: that’s a cop out!
BRAIN: dissecting scripts is educational
PJ: what? everyone has a manic pixie dream girl script in them somewhere?
PJ: it’s only after it’s been excised that quality material may flow?

MATT: “Manic pixie dream girls a-gogo.” would be a great title for a movie.
BRAIN: parodying that trope is so redundant

BRAIN: ok so: say you’re writing a MPDG movie – let’s say they are driving somewhere.
BRAIN: What motivates the guy?
NIKK: He’s fleeing aliens who want to probe him!

PJ: I was gonna go with, “The one girlfriend he’s ever had just dumped him”
PJ: if you were gonna go with the stereotype
PJ: if you want to come up with something new instead of just going through the motions, then maybe the aliens thing
PJ: ’cause who says the MPDG can’t also be a fighting aliens
NIKK: *reads scroll back* Manic Pixie Dream Girl…

PJ: Zooey Daschanel would probably do it…
PJ: if it weren’t for that trope, she wouldn’t have…. like half her career, right?
NIKK: Zooey and aliens and MPDG …
NIKK: That has a disturbing potential.
BRAIN: starlets are not special, just envision whoever you like, and once it gets produced, they slot a new starlet in
BRAIN: actor brands have sort of like tech-trees, that is one of the more desireable entry points
BRAIN: it’s better than “play a prostitute”
PJ: … but you know, if we slot in some random other starlet, then we won’t necessarily be able to rely on my planned 3rd act twist where the MPDG actually IS an alien
BRAIN: that is where “writing” comes in
BRAIN: what makes her a MPDG?
PJ: I don’t know yet, we need Nikk to make some more crap up

It’s Natalie Portman you dumbass

PJ: so battle of the obnoxious story tropes: “the id as plush toy”
PJ: vs “introverted writer is brought to life when he falls in love with quirky hot chick”
PJ: which one do you hate more?
MATT: Well, the second one is more rampant.
BRAIN: that is called the Manic Pixie Dream Girl movie
PJ: I knew there was a better name… I just didn’t wanna look it up

BRAIN: GARDEN STATE
MATT: It had a good soundtrack, but it was a pretty bad movie.
BRAIN: The Shins? did they change your life?
PJ: reading the script for that might slow it down even further and actually stop time
PJ: … now that could be funny, a time travel movie where the time machine runs on boring scripts…
BRAIN: woah!

BRAIN: there’s something compelling about Garden State
BRAIN: I can’t remember anything that happens in it
BRAIN: like, what is the plot?
MATT: Dude is sad for no reason, and meets a girl who is wacky and spontaneous and helps him learn to live again?
MATT: Right?
PJ: I honestly don’t remember

BRAIN: what are they doing? where do they go, and why?
BRAIN: here’s the angle I’m coming from: suppose you wanted to write a MPDG script… how?
MATT: They went to … uhh, hm.
PJ: there’s something about them riding bikes around
MATT: I thought there was a boat.
BRAIN: there’s a bunch of wacky vignettes

Django Unchained and other untold history movies

PJ: so, anyone seen Django Unchained yet?
BRAIN: nope, although I came up with an idea for something EVEN BETTER
PJ: doing like the guy in front of Erik and Brandon did a week ago and see The Hobbit in 3d HFR and ON ACID?
BRAIN: the army of runaway slaves that fought against the USA in 1812
PJ: interesting
BRAIN: my other historical concept that I wish someone else would make is the South Korean experience in the Vietnam war
PJ: interesting
MATT: I wish that someone made the Last Samurai without the Tom Cruise character.