Big Blue Huddle

Max Cady (the DeNiro version) in "Cape Fear."

1. Unforgiven: Just a superb movie on every level. Western genre but has a real human side and just elite acting, cinematography, etc. Just an all-around top notch movie.

2. Gran Torino: Incredible movie. One of those movies genuinely worthy of laughter and crying throughout. Even though this was late in his career I genuinely think it is one of his best.

3. Million Dollar Baby: A real downer, but unquestionably a phenomenal movie.

It's not top three, but I really enjoyed "In the Line of Fire" as well. Malkovich was so good in that. It had a lot of corny, cheap one-liner jokes though that I thought dragged it down a little.

I was never as big on the early western stuff. Out of all of those, I probably liked "Fistful of Dollars" the most.

Quote from: umassgrad on May 21, 2021, 04:21:37 PM
Nowhere in the article does it say Hamas fired first. It does say," families facing eviction from their homes, their plight triggering protests in Sheikh Jarrah and beyond. But what the Israeli government initially called a real estate dispute between private parties has now spiraled toward outright war. On Monday, Israeli police escalated its crackdown on protesters by entering the Al-Haram Al-Sharif, site of the revered Al-Aqsa mosque, during the last days of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan. They fired teargas and stun grenades at worshippers, and were met by rocks hurled by Palestinians."
Translation: During the holy month of Ramadan the Israeli government evicted Palestinian families from their homes which caused protests. The police fired teargas and stun grenades at the protesters. If anyone doesn't understand the situation it's you.

Hamas fired rockets first on May 10th. They hit multiple residences and a school. This took place after the clashes at the Al Aqsa mosque. If you want to try to say Israel started the conflict because they shut down the prayers at the mosque for the Netanyahu speech at the Wailing Wall, or because of the evictions before that, then that's your prerogative, but when you're talking about the damage done on either side by rockets, to me it matters greatly who opened fire first. And that was Hamas, not Israel. Israel took military action in response. I'm not sure why this is such a struggle to accept.

Quote from: umassgrad on May 21, 2021, 06:42:02 AM
Could you have at least taken 5 minutes to read the post Rich shared? The one where he mentions learning what's going on.

I read the article. Which part of "Hamas fired first'" do you disagree with?

In this conflict, Hamas fired first, and Israel retalliated. Period.

And yet Israel is taking a ton of heat from the US mainstream media and far left politicians like AOC and Ilhan Omar for retalliating and defending themselves? Seems totally unfair to me.

I don't have a strong objection to the legalization of pot. It seems like the natural sequence of things.

The one comment I would make though is that the handful of times I have tried it in my life, I was always blown away by how strong it was. Maybe it is just the way I am personally wired, but to me, that is not some drug that just makes you feel chilled out. It is quite powerful in my experience. So if you're for the legalization of it and your rationale is that it's "no big deal", I personally don't agree with the latter part of that reasoning based on my own personal experience. I think it's an incredibly powerful drug. That does not necessarily mean legalizing it is wrong, but let's not kid ourselves about the nature of this drug. It's not just some very mild, uneventful, relaxing drug. It's more than that.

We have Prime, Netflix, HBO Max, and Apple TV.

Everyone loves Netflix, and we certainly get our use out of it. My one knock on Netflix though is that they put out a TON of low-level content. I'm sure they have done all the work on this and decided that it's in their best interest, but so many of their own movies and shows are total crap. I wish the minimum standard were a little higher. That said, with IMDB I find I can do my own quality control and filtering, so I rarely find myself even beginning to watch something that's really poor.

I think for too long women have had to put up with BS in the workplace and other settings, and a clamping down on this was long overdue. It goes without saying that there have been examples when men have been either falsely accused or where the phrase "sexual harrassment" has been somewhat stretched, but overall I think being more sensitive around this subject has been overdue. I also don't think that if a woman is dressed a certain way, that that entitles men to grab her or make lewd comments towards her. If you start going down the road of that line of reasoning that invariably gets you to a bad place.

As the father of a teenage daughter, I am glad that she will eventually be entering a work force that is less tolerant of crass behavior and inappropriate advances than it was a generation ago.

I personally find Cali the most appealing, but the tax situation and cost of real estate in the nice areas there are both huge considerations. If money were no object I would definitely retire there though. Amazing lifestyle and epic scenery up and down the state. But try going on Zillow and doing a house search in your price range in an appealing area. It's mind-blowing. The nice parts of Southern Cali make the Hamptons look cheap. And then the second and third tier type places by extension are still uber expensive.

Quote from: MightyGiants on May 16, 2021, 10:25:51 AM
I was curious how this particular crisis got started.  I had to look it up.   In case you're like me, here is a good primer


https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/explainer-how-did-latest-israeli-palestinian-crisis-emerge-n1267399

Yep. Seems to have been both the mosque confrontation as well as the evictions of the families. Given the intensity level that is already in place though, the bar for an outbreak of violence is sadly not very high.

Apologies - I meant to put this in the front porch. It won't let me move it or remove it.

I am not really looking to start any sort of heated debate here or make this a political thread. So please don't turn this into that. It is more just that I felt compelled to express my dismay about this event on a purely human level. There is major tragedy and human suffering on both sides here. I don't know what the solution is or if there ever will be one, but this latest flare-up has been particularly ugly, with many civilian deaths. It is truly tragic, and I wish it would stop.

Quote from: NapoleonBlownapart on May 08, 2021, 09:44:01 PM
Folks - I just want to take a moment and say "thank you" for allowing me to post here.

I will not talk politics with anyone here, yet I will talk sports/entertainment/science and other fun subjects all day.  I learned 20 or so years ago on Giants.com that politics and these sports boards do not make good bedfellows. it skewed the way I conversed with certain posters when trying to talk about the NYG's.

Admittedly I probably was not part of this forum when the major problems with talking politics supposedly occurred, but I honestly don't see why it is such a big deal. Anyone who doesn't want to do it can just avoid the threads. Seems simple enough to me. I definitely don't think overtly political threads should be in Big Blue Huddle, the same way I don't think a thread about favorite restaurants or movies should be in BBH, but in the Front Porch it seems fine to me. Again, if it bothers anyone, just don't participate. I don't get why that is so problematic myself.

In any event, it seems like there have been multiple political threads in the Front Porch over the past month or so, and I personally have not seen any big problem.

Quote from: NapoleonBlownapart on May 06, 2021, 03:10:28 PM
Hey Dave besides bones/carcass/pieces my late Dad always said in the 1970's when Bigfoot mania literally exploded "if he is as big as they say he is then they would find huge craps somewhere" almost 50 years later and still waiting LOL


one of the other Giants boards posted a video from 2015 Sassquatchucettes group searching western MASS thinking they were close to finding the elusive Boston Bigfoot.  Really? hahahah

Yup. It's an absolutely ludicrous legend, and I put the odds of it having any truth to it at zero. I think things like alien abduction are more credible.

Quote from: MightyGiants on May 05, 2021, 01:38:29 PM
Bill and Melinda were in love and got married.  Bill and Linda had all the money two people could ever want.  Apparently, Bill and Linda became unhappy and fell out of love with oneanother.

I guess it's true what they say, money can't buy happiness. 

Then again, I have often wondered how long-term relationships manage to last.  If you look back at what you liked, wanted, valued, and respected 20 or 30 years ago and how you were like back then and compare it with today I would expect we all see major differences.   So you take two people who are changing over the decades what are the odds of both people changing in a way where they not only love each other (long after the excitement and novelty has worn off) but are even still compatible

Certainly a fair point. I guess the thinking is that, ideally at least, you're both developing over that 20-30 years, but not on separate paths necessarily. You have common life interests and might evolve on similar paths by virtue of being so intertwined in your lives. Clearly it works for some people. For others not so much. And as we both know, plenty of people don't get divorced whose marriages are far from perfect.