Re: Uh oh.

1

I could easily make a long list of his great traits...

Clearly nothing to do with me.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 05-12-15 11:50 AM
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while what he says about me is all positive (from what I saw)
Just wait until our correspondent figures out the presidential anonymity system.


Posted by: SP | Link to this comment | 05-12-15 11:55 AM
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I immediately thought of here when I read that yesterday!

I love that column, it's even worth to endure looking at the other headlines as you scroll down.

Past - just in case it was you better half I ADORE you! And you truly loved the "Mi Kado Es Su Kado" joke!


Posted by: dairy queen | Link to this comment | 05-12-15 11:57 AM
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4

Mine only reads eclectic web magazAAARRRGH


Posted by: Alex | Link to this comment | 05-12-15 12:02 PM
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5

Yep, what Heebie said. And ask him not to do it anymore.


Posted by: togolosh | Link to this comment | 05-12-15 12:02 PM
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6

Surely no Unfogged spouse would be so hidebound as to be threatened by an online forum. But there are about a million forums with little communities on any conceivable topic.


Posted by: ogged | Link to this comment | 05-12-15 12:03 PM
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7

Prudence responds:

I don't see how you don't talk about this with your husband.

I, on the other hand, could totally see how she might choose not to discuss it with her husband.


Posted by: politicalfootball | Link to this comment | 05-12-15 12:06 PM
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8

hidebound


Posted by: lw | Link to this comment | 05-12-15 12:09 PM
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9

Yeah, I was making a joke, with that in mind.


Posted by: ogged | Link to this comment | 05-12-15 12:10 PM
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10

So THANKS FOR MAKING THAT EXPLICIT, lw.


Posted by: ogged | Link to this comment | 05-12-15 12:11 PM
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11

Some people.


Posted by: nosflow | Link to this comment | 05-12-15 12:13 PM
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12

No humorous rejoinder available here, sorry, and maybe unnecessarily obnoxious. No insult or buzzkill intended.

Also, to continue with the spelling out, writing to a stranger in a newspaper about a personal problem is apparently a category difference in the mind of the OP letter writer from talking to strangers, I guess because of the possibility of leaked identity details and online broadcast.


Posted by: lw | Link to this comment | 05-12-15 12:23 PM
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13

There's also the possibility of ongoing relationships with the interlocutors in the chat, which isn't really likely with Yoffe.


Posted by: nosflow | Link to this comment | 05-12-15 12:26 PM
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14

his includes even personal information about our sex life, my looks, etc.

I wouldn't have thought anybody here does that, exactly. I feel I can talk about myself but that personals involving her would be off limits.


Posted by: idp | Link to this comment | 05-12-15 12:35 PM
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Let's all post our SAT scores, incomes, and a frank assessment of our sex lives and our partners' looks.


Posted by: nosflow | Link to this comment | 05-12-15 12:41 PM
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Just not our partners' SAT scores, because she did better than me.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 05-12-15 12:48 PM
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I, for one, appreciated the link in 8.


Posted by: Todd | Link to this comment | 05-12-15 12:49 PM
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18

But how much control do people imagine they have with face to face interactions? "Don't complain about me to your friends" for instance. This could be a reasonable thing to say, maybe to an SO who is a chronic complainer or to a relative who has trouble distinguishing reality from fantasy and reports a mixture to mutual acquaintances. Or it could be a delusional request originating in paranoia, whether it's reasonable depends on the relationship between relater and the person being talked about more than on the particular sounding board.

Which I guess is the upshot of Yoffe's response also.



Posted by: lw | Link to this comment | 05-12-15 12:51 PM
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Couldn't the person in the OP go to the same chat rooms and start posting under a screen name? Imagine husband when the other poster says something like "you sound a lot like my husband but ..." (i) he wouldn't do something like post her about our private life, or (ii) but sex with my boyfriend is so much better, or whatever. Mess with him a little.


Posted by: No longer Middle Aged Man | Link to this comment | 05-12-15 12:52 PM
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20

19- She should ask if he likes piña coladas.


Posted by: SP | Link to this comment | 05-12-15 1:04 PM
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AB's known about this place for a long time, and she's not hidebound, but I would certainly not want her to RTFA. Not because I think I've said anything truly inappropriate (under this pseud anyway), but because there's certainly a level of candor that would be discomforting, I suspect.


Posted by: JRoth | Link to this comment | 05-12-15 1:05 PM
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a frank assessment of our sex lives and our partners' looks.

Wearing a giant fake head?


Posted by: will | Link to this comment | 05-12-15 1:09 PM
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I feel like maybe somebody should cut out the link in 8. (not bc of my comments, but the rehashing of someone's tough time.)


Posted by: will | Link to this comment | 05-12-15 1:10 PM
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I guess I should clarify that I appreciated the link for the picture of gswift.


Posted by: Todd | Link to this comment | 05-12-15 1:18 PM
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frank assessment of our sex lives and our partners' looks

Mid-divorce. Emotional compatibility seems more important than looks both retrospectively and prospectively, for both light and serious partners. Maybe this is because the ones that were remarkably good looking and light were not great, and for all others looks are inextricably entwined with personality and with interaction style and temperature.

I'm concerned that I'm really going to miss the cat.

I'm also puzzled about why partners looks rather than own looks-- probably that's the more revealing thing to write about, but I'm hard-pressed to say why.


Posted by: lw | Link to this comment | 05-12-15 1:22 PM
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I'm also puzzled about why partners looks rather than own looks

"This includes even personal information about our sex life, my looks, etc."


Posted by: nosflow | Link to this comment | 05-12-15 1:24 PM
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27

Isn't the idea "Things for which you would get in trouble if your partner read them?"


Posted by: LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 05-12-15 1:24 PM
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So as long as you keep mum about your side piece, you should be fine.


Posted by: JRoth | Link to this comment | 05-12-15 1:27 PM
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Or I guess, as long as you don't say anything positive about the side piece.


Posted by: JRoth | Link to this comment | 05-12-15 1:28 PM
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30

a) so I am batting 0 today, SAT score and income UNLIKE the rest of the list, got it.

b) 25.emotional stands, I think-- the OP would have cause for concern if the chats were a search for empathy rather than an assessment of how much cowgirl. Really, she could have cleared up a lot of questions by just posting a link to the chats that she's uncertain of, or screenshots or something.


Posted by: lw | Link to this comment | 05-12-15 1:30 PM
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31

It's all fine and good up until the point where you make your spouse wear a skin mask of the face of another commenter while you have sex.


Posted by: TRO | Link to this comment | 05-12-15 1:39 PM
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32

Celebrity masks are still good, right?


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 05-12-15 1:42 PM
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33

Presidential masks would be most appropriate.


Posted by: dalriata | Link to this comment | 05-12-15 1:46 PM
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34

Latex celebrity masks are fine. If you had to skin the celebrity to make the mask, it's still creepy.

(Also, if you're asking a spouse to wear a presidential mask, it's only courteous to make it clear whether you're fantasizing about the actual president in question, an anonymized Unfogged commenter, or a bank robber from a caper movie.)


Posted by: LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 05-12-15 1:48 PM
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35

Pwned, but I added value.


Posted by: LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 05-12-15 1:48 PM
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36

masks may not be the best idea.


Posted by: lw | Link to this comment | 05-12-15 1:50 PM
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37

Is it a caper movie or a heist movie? Is a caper a kind of heist (or vice-versa)?


Posted by: nosflow | Link to this comment | 05-12-15 2:19 PM
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38

What about a pigeon mask?


Posted by: essear | Link to this comment | 05-12-15 2:34 PM
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39

Further to 34: what's the ruling on masturbation if the fantasies are either commentariat or caper based, but the president whose mask it is is dead?


Posted by: Awl | Link to this comment | 05-12-15 4:20 PM
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Is it a caper movie or a heist movie? Is a caper a kind of heist (or vice-versa)?

A heist is a kind of caper. For example, "The Sting" is a caper movie but not a heist movie, as the caper in question is a con, not a heist; "The Italian Job" is both a caper movie and a heist movie.


Posted by: ajay | Link to this comment | 05-13-15 1:34 AM
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It's an interestingly retro ethical stance that "one does not bandy a lady's name", but I am willing to bet that it isn't one that the letter writer abides by herself. Is it better to discuss one's wife anonymously, positively, to strangers, or to discuss one's husband, negatively, in person, to friends?


Posted by: ajay | Link to this comment | 05-13-15 1:39 AM
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A movie with a heist but no con element would still be a caper movie, right? Trying to think of a good example to round out my Venn diagram.


Posted by: Minivet | Link to this comment | 05-13-15 7:49 AM
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43

I would just say that it was poor planning for the spouse to bitchily comment from, and then leave the tabs open on, her brother's his wife's ipad. GOD I STILL FEEL SO BAD. WHY?@?11?


Posted by: alameida | Link to this comment | 05-13-15 8:05 AM
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44

strikethough meant to end after "her brother's," obviously, but I don't feel like logging in to fix it.


Posted by: alameida | Link to this comment | 05-13-15 8:06 AM
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45

||

Argh. You know how I'm always cooing smugly over my kids' delightful inner-city public school? Both of their schedules for next year are royally fucked up in a really inexcusable way (combination of internal school requirements and some classes not being offered next year has left both of them assigned to literally retake a class each of them has already taken (and passed, in both cases with high marks, the Regents (NY State external exam) in) and I'm going to have to go throw a hissy fit about it. I do not understand how the school can have thought this was acceptable.

|>


Posted by: LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 05-13-15 9:22 AM
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A movie with a heist but no con element would still be a caper movie, right?

Yes - "The Italian Job" doesn't have a con element, it's just a straightforward bit of robbery.


Posted by: ajay | Link to this comment | 05-13-15 9:29 AM
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||
Recent decisions by the new UK government regarding the Human Rights Act strongly supported by the Daily Express and Daily Mail in on of the most revealing ways possible?
|>


Posted by: MHPH | Link to this comment | 05-13-15 9:36 AM
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most revealing ways possible

Well, sure, if it wasn't revealing, it wouldn't be no-cleavage cleavage.


Posted by: dalriata | Link to this comment | 05-13-15 9:38 AM
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49

45: ugh. The rubber room, only for kids.


Posted by: Turgid Jacobian | Link to this comment | 05-13-15 9:46 AM
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and J,Robot: that sucks--I hope things develop in the right direction for you!


Posted by: Turgid Jacobian | Link to this comment | 05-13-15 10:04 AM
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46: Oh, right. So, heist but no con = Italian Job. Con but no heist = The Sting. Both con and heist: Ocean's Eleven (remake, haven't seen original). All three are caper films, so either element is sufficient for the definition.


Posted by: Minivet | Link to this comment | 05-13-15 11:10 AM
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52

So what the hell are capers, anyway?


Posted by: My Alter Ego | Link to this comment | 05-13-15 11:13 AM
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There's a line in Heartburn where the narrator, a food writer, talks about having been hired by the Caper Board to develop appealing caper recipes. After a while, she came to the conclusion that anything that tasted good with capers in it, tasted slightly better if you left the capers out.


Posted by: LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 05-13-15 11:17 AM
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I like them with lox and bagels.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 05-13-15 11:23 AM
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Ages ago, but, you know, not long enough ago to make it make sense, I saw CA was studiously avoiding the capers on a bagel tray. He likes pickles and pimientos and thing of that nature so I had no idea why he would be actively digging out things that weren't touching the capers. The answer? He had thought, for 30+ years, that they were a kind of fish.


Posted by: oudemia | Link to this comment | 05-13-15 11:28 AM
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Back when Sally was a vegetarian a couple of years back, she stopped eating felafel from the cart near her school. She was outraged months later when I told her it wasn't meat.


Posted by: LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 05-13-15 11:29 AM
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He had thought, for 30+ years, that they were a kind of fish.

That's amazing. Like a kind of fish egg, maybe? Or ... fully-formed fish?


Posted by: nosflow | Link to this comment | 05-13-15 11:34 AM
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I had always thought felafel was a type of meat, but I had it confused with that spinning-meat-stick stuff.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 05-13-15 11:34 AM
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But, yes, capers don't look very much like fish at all.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 05-13-15 11:38 AM
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I see a marketing opportunity: meat-free falafels.

Would you like a bottle of organic, no-trans-fats, zero-calorie water with that?


Posted by: My Alter Ego | Link to this comment | 05-13-15 11:38 AM
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Lots of fish don't really look like fish at the end of the (whatever) process - I can see someone associating capers with anchovies* and assuming that they were basically the same kind of briny thing, anyway.


*When I was a kid there was a local pizza place that had a pizza with capers on it. It was magnificent. I've tried to replicate it but they clearly used some totally non-standard combination of cheese so it never turns out the same.


Posted by: MHPH | Link to this comment | 05-13-15 11:46 AM
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Capers are awesome. Since this has become a food thread, what, if anything, do people make of a recent-ish trend toward eating bugs? This seems to be mostly in the form of mealworms rendered into a tofu-like, or tempeh-like, patty thing.

I watched that pbsnewshour segment, and while the young gentleman food scientist explaining the whole thing was clearly on top of his game, I couldn't get over my Yuck factor.


Posted by: parsimon | Link to this comment | 05-13-15 12:17 PM
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If something that looked like a shrimp or a crawfish lived on land, I'd likely be grossed out at the thought of eating it, but since they're aquatic, bon appetit. So clearly the solution to the Yuck factor is to genetically engineer bugs to live under water.


Posted by: My Alter Ego | Link to this comment | 05-13-15 12:28 PM
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64

Or rechristen them. Land shrimp à la Toby from Year of the Flood.


Posted by: Ume | Link to this comment | 05-13-15 12:32 PM
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she stopped eating felafel

LB is secretly B/ill O'Re/illy?


Posted by: Josh | Link to this comment | 05-13-15 12:42 PM
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51: yeah, I would say any film involving a complex, multi-person, light hearted crime is a caper film. "Heat" is not a caper film. Nor is "The Day of the Jackal".


Posted by: ajay | Link to this comment | 05-13-15 12:42 PM
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Falafel? That does look better. But I know it's not a loofah.


Posted by: LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 05-13-15 12:44 PM
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68

Arabs and their inscrutable vowels.


Posted by: F | Link to this comment | 05-13-15 12:54 PM
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69

Every heist is a caper, but not every caper is a heist.


Posted by: CharleyCarp | Link to this comment | 05-13-15 12:57 PM
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Schindler's List was an excellent caper movie.


Posted by: TRO | Link to this comment | 05-13-15 1:12 PM
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I thought the little girl who capered in Schndler's List
was {appropriate emoticon} shot


Posted by: | Link to this comment | 05-13-15 2:44 PM
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62 - My guess is that it will make some news articles, some adventurous people will have a good time trying them out, and then it will sink back into obscurity until maybe ten years from now when we'll do the whole thing over again. (I'm pretty sure I've read articles about a new thing - eating insects! more than a few times and it always seems to stick at "new thing" and never progress onwards to "actual thing".)


Posted by: MHPH | Link to this comment | 05-13-15 3:15 PM
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62: I got a minicomic at one APE about trying this out. Not mashed or anything - mealworm tacos, I think the recipe was. It looked intriguing.


Posted by: Minivet | Link to this comment | 05-13-15 3:39 PM
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69: surely a heist by force majeur rather than cunning isn't a caper.


Posted by: clew | Link to this comment | 05-13-15 4:10 PM
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74: Is it even a heist if it's by pure force? I don't think, for example, leading a tank squadron into the casino would count.


Posted by: Minivet | Link to this comment | 05-13-15 4:24 PM
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76

It's probably a misdemeanor of some kind, at least.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 05-13-15 4:34 PM
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77

What if the tank is driven by Donald Sutherland?


Posted by: Todd | Link to this comment | 05-13-15 4:50 PM
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So is San Andreas going to be a heist movie or a caper movie?


Posted by: Bave | Link to this comment | 05-13-15 4:56 PM
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Is it even a heist if it's by pure force? I don't think, for example, leading a tank squadron into the casino would count.

Oh, definitely. A heist is just a large-scale robbery. A heist by means of tank is still a heist but probably not a caper. A heist by means of cunning and deception might be a caper but might not be, depending on the general tone.


Posted by: ajay | Link to this comment | 05-14-15 3:29 AM
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It could definitely be a caper, if "by means of tank" were liberally interpreted to include the tank as diversion.


Posted by: Turgid Jacobian | Link to this comment | 05-14-15 5:22 AM
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I think "Kelly's Heroes" is a caper movie and a heist movie despite involving tanks being used not as diversions but as actual tanks.


Posted by: ajay | Link to this comment | 05-14-15 5:25 AM
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I would agree, because Telly Savalas is driving the tank.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 05-14-15 5:28 AM
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83

77 to 82.


Posted by: Todd | Link to this comment | 05-14-15 6:36 AM
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84

That's right. Telly was the crooked Sergeant.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 05-14-15 6:41 AM
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85

It's not a caper movie.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 05-14-15 6:41 AM
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I can see a tank being somehow made to fit, even without deception involved, but I think ajay's "lighthearted" is important, so to clew, I guess my point is force majeure is hard, if not impossible, to balance with lightheartedness.


Posted by: Minivet | Link to this comment | 05-14-15 7:30 AM
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I can't quite come up with a specific caper movie moment I'm thinking of, but there's a lighthearted role for overwhelming force as an unexpected rescue. Think of the moment in Firefly when two of the characters are cornered against a cliff edge by an angry mob, and then the spaceship slowly rises behind them to pick them up and frighten the mob away.


Posted by: LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 05-14-15 7:36 AM
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88

I have a rule about never watching a snow until the 4th season, so I've never seen Firefly.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 05-14-15 7:50 AM
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If you count spring as the first season, that's a fairly common rule.


Posted by: LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 05-14-15 7:51 AM
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87: That's true, that works.


Posted by: Minivet | Link to this comment | 05-14-15 12:31 PM
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