Be Excellent To Each Other

Sad loss. My favourite author

This. Awesome tweets though.

Todays XKCD

http://xkcd.com/



Alt text "Thank you for teaching us how big our world is by sharing so many of your own."

Bro...

That's beautiful.

I have dust in my eye now.

Strange, me too. Silly dusty offices.

I had never seen Star Wars. Then I did, and it was rubbish.

I had never seen James Bond. Then I did, and it was rubbish.

I have never read anything by Terry Pratchett, so I don't think I ever will, as I know that everyone loves his work and I am worried that I will not 'get' it

Man, I'm going to have a busy day today.

You should, because even if you don't "get" one book you will probably find one that appeals.

My first Pratchett was Jingo and I didn't actually like it - found it difficult to get into and follow - but the way Pratchett wrote about his characters etc was so compelling that I ended up buying/reading his others and I love 99% of the other books.

Jingo is one of his best

I love the Sam Vimes books.

I liked Pyramids.

Anyone looking to find more of the dust floating around their office have a read :

http://www.vulture.com/2015/03/terry-pr ... er_vulture

Or this which includes a short video of a Q&A with Neil Gaiman on Monday where he was asked if he was going to work again with Terry

https://corasteel.wordpress.com/2015/03 ... pratchett/

Gaiman had said he knew time was short and you can see that in his response.

For those asking on books although this looks really complex



Reading order - idea is you start with one of the orange books and if you like the characters and want to find out more about them follow the trail - if you dont then jump to another orange starter book

I'm old enough to have read them from release in order but going back i do find the first few hard going in places

Very much


Also

[/quote][/quote]
Not

The first two are rubbish fairly generic film series. The third is a clever and charmingly written book series.

Has Russell ?

The thing is i bet there is at least one book in there that would be the perfect snare for you , you'd read it and get lost and caught up in it all and although we can all shout our favorites at you and that might work - if Russell has read them then he might have a better idea of what one would click for you.

FYI for anyone else I think Small Gods is a perfect starter book if someone is unsure if they will like it , and if i was picking something for you I'd probably go with "The Amazing Maurice"

You can't call James Bond generic when it invented most of the things that people would class as 'spy movie' tropes.

Well, yes, but is it sci fi?

I've only read the first two Rincewind novels, but I will read more. He reminds me a lot of Dresden, in fact.

Which would be great if I were living in the 60s.

However, I do appear to be half a century hence.

Yeah, fuck old films. They're rubbish.

I should probably go back and re-read it, my tastes have changed a lot since I was 13!

My favourite book is Monstrous Regiment

Fill your boots !

Really hard to pick a favorite but its probably Night Watch

Films tend to hold up better if you saw them at the time.

If you didn't see them at the time/were not a child, some films don't appear to be particularly entertaining.

Some do. (Off the top of my head, famed not-musical the blues brothers, Ghostbusters, Your mums sex tape eyc etc)

The Goonies and Back to the Future can go on that list.

My kids are 6 and 8 and love all the original Star Wars films, Indiana Jones, Back to the Future etc etc. My anecdote wins.

You might have a bit of a point, maybe, but then there are just proper classics.

You did see the "were not a child" part, right?

Indiana Jones and BttF I didn't see as a child*, and held up well later in life. Star wars made me bored and annoyed.

* - I'm actually struggling to think of any films I did see as a child aside from Flight of the Navigator. Every. Sodding. Christmas.

I think Russell has read some. When I said to him yesterday that I had not he said 'you should, they're good' but that was it. It wasn't very illuminating, but I will ask him later.

But he was the one that made me watch Star Wars, James Bond and Indiana Jones, so I don't know if I trust him.

Goonies is awesome, obviously.

I love good old films, but not old rubbish films. I don't think the age of a film dents its appeal unless the fun is ONLY in the nostalgia. A great plot can make up for bad effects. Great characters and dialogue, or fantastic acting can just make you suspend your disbelief, but when there is bad character realisation, wooden acting and poor dialogue (Star Wars) and the effects are now visibly shonky it's difficult to see what once might have looked like magic. The only person I liked in star wars was the old one (was it Alec Guinness?), and he died.

I strongly agree that Star Wars only works if you watch it as a child. You're wrong about Indiana Jones though, Meems. Plain wrong.

My other suggestion would be the audio versions of them - especially if your going on a long car trip

I think I just don't like the character of Indiana Jones. He's a right idiot.

He's the same guy in Star Wars as well, isn't he? He's an idiot in that, too.

Harrison Ford. That's him - I think the two characters just love themselves far too much, and they are horrible towards everyone else, especially women. Just like James Bond.

I love audiobooks. This is a good idea.

From somewhere I forget : "star wars - terrorists team up with religious fanatics to destroy government infrastructure"

See, I have always viewed all three as positive role models

Robocop absolutely stands up when viewed by today's standards.

Robocop 2 don't.

Did I put this in the wrong topic or did I misread something earlier about films? Anyhoo, those are my thoughts on Robocop...

Ah, I misunderstood your post.

But you're wrong, though. Star Wars is great.

Also, Meems, you can't diss Indiana Jones. At all. It's just objectively, factually an awesome three films.

I feel the same way about The Princess Bride.

Didn't watch it as a kid, was a bit dull as an adult.

I have never watched the Princess Bride.

It sounds a bit girly.

YOU ARE WRONG. What about the ROUS?!?

No, I don't think that at all. I can't imagine watching it for the first time now, I love it too much. I don't know how much I'd like it if I saw it for the first time now, but I'm glad that I do have it.

Russell only saw it after we'd met, and he loves it. Or he tells me he does. I'm happy for whichever of these is true. But then he watched it with me. Maybe my love for it just made big lovely bubbles of happy everywhere so that made it awesome. You should have watched it with me, Grim... It would be awesomeness by osmosis.

I first watched it as an adult and loved it. Its a fabulous film, and anyone who disagrees is empirically wrong

Yay! Mr Chris is brill!

Note the two words under my avatar...

Hehe! I've not seen that before (I use the mobile version, and you can't see the user titles on there!).

It is wonderful, isn't it. Still the best sword fight ever. Ever ever ever.*

Also: To the death! No! To the pain....

*The second best is the sword fight in the corn field in The Count Of Monte Cristo.

The Count of Monte Cristo is also ace! Tremendous Guy Pearce.

Case proven, I believe.