Baba was probably the worst contestant they’ve ever had. I was hoping to warm up to him over the course of the series, but he brought precious little to the table. Jack was fine—a bit disappointing in light of how obviously excited Alex was to have finally got him on. Loved the other three, top marks for them!

Wasn’t a huge fan of the pub quiz. Loved the goose, and all of Andy’s prize tasks. Found Alex’s blatant efforts to tilt things Jack’s way kind of off-putting. Ignoring Baba’s obvious running in the maze task was disappointing. Glad Andy won, look forward to seeing him on CoC.

You ain’t the only one! I gotta stop scrolling.

You’re not alone.

Perhaps the Balrog underestimated Gandalf, thinking it could cast him into the abyss, then fly back up to deal with the rest of the Fellowship. Alternatively, maybe it calculated that its best chance of defeating the wizard was to grapple with him at close quarters. Either way, the Balrog falling doesn’t necessarily mean that it wasn’t capable of flight.

I mean, it’s worth a shot.

Yeah, certainly there are many different kinds of bread. I’m sure I was overly broad in designating all dough made with butter as pastry. I was responding to the previous comment , which I interpreted as implying that butter(or bonemeal, in a pinch) is a necessary ingredient in bread.

But… you don’t use butter to make bread. Flour and water, maybe some yeast. If you’re using butter to make dough, then it’s some kind of pastry.

Money can be exchanged for goods and services!

I have a really hard time staying cool and collected when I discuss politics with people who hold right-wing positions. As a result, I never do volunteer work for political campaigns, because it seems like the only positions available are phone-banking and door-knocking. It’s frustrating; I want to help, but I feel strongly that I’d do more harm than good, doing either of those things.

I think you’re right. But it’s also apparently true that there exists a critical mass of uninformed fucking dipshits flibbertigibbets, who could be swayed by this kind of thing. The true believers are unreachable, but so much political theatre is directed at that segment of the population that just can’t be bothered to assemble more than one or two data points at a time.

I’ve never visited Asheville, but I know it by reputation as the Austin of NC—a liberal enclave. Is that inaccurate? If not, that doesn’t seem to signify anything.

You’re much better off not knowing, imo. Influencers are like Tinker Bell, in that they disappear if there aren’t enough people who believe they exist.

How about Anthropogenic Catastrophic Kindling (ACK)? Then we can at least get Cathy on board.

Because the apparently straight lines contradict the labels. As drawn, the unlabeled bottom vertices are clearly 90°, not 80° and 100°. We must either conclude that the labels are incorrect, or that the figure is not drawn to scale. Either way, it’s insoluble.

I heard a really depressing podcast the other day about all the cooperation between Republicans and Orban. They’re well on their way to destroying democracy here as well.

The movie ending struck me as senseless and unearned. The short story ended much better, in my opinion. Still on the run, no apparent end to the mist, no military showing up to save the day. Darker, in my book.

Hey, if we can make a pencil out of leaves, cephalopods can swim through our GI tract like species 8472 through fluidic space.

I’m sure that’ll work, provided there aren’t any meddlesome kids about!

I’m looking forward to the inevitable Flop House episode.

While this is true, people still bear responsibility for the media they choose to consume. People wake up every day and decide to get their information from liars and grifters, because they prefer the way lies feel. It isn’t as if they don’t have options. Now, media literacy is definitely a problem. But the only solution is education, and that’s a silver bullet too slow to save us from all the extant ill-educated mooks.