Cas Stark

6 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

It's commonly said of Charles that he would have been a failure if he had to live a normal life. And he's king. They're all pretty unimpressive people. And they're mostly jerks. The royal family is the perfect example of why we shouldn't have royal families based on blood (which in and of itself is fucking weird to still defend). If you want a ceremonial figurehead, elect one every few years and give them no power of any kind. Don't give it to one family to abuse for generations. I do not get this constant need to hold Meghan to a higher standard than the Queen who fucking raised a sex offender she protected while being an even bigger asshole than Meghan is. Think about that. It makes no sense.

You're projecting.  You don't like the royal family and you think the hereditary aristocracy is bad, fine.  Ask yourself, why Meghan continues to call herself the Duchess of Sussex and was so hot to ensure her chileren got the Prince/Princess titles.  Maybe she doesn't actually share your view there, when the title affords her all kinds of privilege. 

2 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

I think you can say that about most of the royals.

The Queen was probably far worse than her. She just didn't say anything publicly and also privately used the press to her advantage. 

Maybe.  Prince Phillip is on record saying that royals need to remember people don't come to see the individual but the 'role' which seems pretty self aware to me.  The Queen's father was also humble about his own lack of capabilities.  I'd imagine being at the pinacle of your country's social system, living the life of an oligarch, you'd need to actively work not to be an arogant jerk though.

Meghan, in her short few years as a super famous person has done many, many things that show me she is manifestly not a nice or sincere person.  I can't say the same for the queen.  Maybe she was a cruel bitch, but I doubt it.  Too many people from across the world including the Obamas spoke too fondly of her.  At the very least, QEII kept any bad deeds behind closed doors and that served her very very well.  Her grand daughter in law would have been wise to take a lesson there.

Instead of a mural you could look into wall paper, they have the stick ons in a lot of mural like almost full wall patterns that,while not cheap, are not crazy expensive either.

39 minutes ago, maarsen said:

Why single out Harry as not being too bright? The apple did not fall far from the tree.

He's the only one who doesn't seem to understand that everything he has is due to his parents.  The idea that Vladimir Putin and Zuckerberg and the Pope would talk to Harry shows exactly what an entitled prat he actually is, and that all of his progressive talk is fully performative.  When he looks in the mirror he sees His Royal Highness Prince Harry, Duke of Sussex, a Blood Royal and Very Important Person.  When he says 'just call me Harry' its the equivalent of the Lord of the Manor throwing out coin on his birthday to the peasants.

At least Meghan, while I don't think she is a nice person, has a list of accomplishments that pre date her involvement with Harry.

9 hours ago, Deadlines? What Deadlines? said:

Why would this be interesting? One way or the other, why the hell do you even care? Would you even approve one way or the other? 

And why is it “a problem” if they don’t address this? Something that I guarantee you is baseless speculation. And have you not been paying attention? The sheer volume of shit that gets published about them in the British tabloids and they’re supposed to answer all of it? Touch grass.

How can you guarantee its baseless speculation?  Indeed, one of Harry's chief complaints about the palace staff was that they would not answer 'all of it' and he was again and again advised that it was both foolish and impossible to address every single dumb story.  Harry's MO is to threaten to sue over stories he considers false, exactly what he did over the stupid Lilibet kerfluffle.  It is a reasonable conclusion that if they don't deny something there is a reason for it. 

It would be interesting that anyone who is almost 40 would be considering a name change as part of a rebranding effort.  I have no idea why anyone at this point defends either of these two strange and unkind people.  Prince Harry, he who barely graduated from UK version of high school and has never had a job thinks his peer group is Putin, Zuckerberg and the Pope.  That is beyond laughable.  

News about the royals is entertaining for some people, some many millions of people, including me.  I don't need to 'touch grass' but thanks for the concern.  Bless your heart.

Talk to me like I'm stupid: 

If they were going to view the titanic, which is in a specific place, why is it taking so long to find the sub?  Is it because its so small? or too deep?  

From what I understand, she only did the celebrity interviews herself.  The riff raff eperts were interviewed by staff.  That's fine I guess, but not really 'on brand' with Archetypes which was supposed to showcase stories of the marginalized and shine a light on ?something? new.  If the podcast had aired in 1982 instead of 2022, it might have been fresh and illuminating. This is their chief problem with anything outside of the royal family, their views/ideas are totally Basic 101, points that anyone can pick up googling for 10 minutes.

It will be interesting if they deny the stories that they have/are considering changing their last name to Spencer.

**This is another downside of suing everyone all the time.  When you decline to sue or demand a retraction it leaves the impression that whatever has been said must be true.  

I'm shocked, no one has yet made a joke about how their 'hearts will go on'....

24 minutes ago, Mlle. Zabzie said:

NYC’s trash problem is as epic and constant as its rat problem.  

I think the plants did ok from the smoke.  So much of it is that I haven’t really had time when the weather was nice enough to garden/it has not been super warm so far, so everything is about a week behind where it was last year + I got some things in later.  Oh well.

Yeah but the two are intertwined, and if the city focused on the actual problem...trash that is accessible to rodents, the rat issue would diminish.  But, we always seem to prefer to treat the effect and never the cause in the US.  Poisoning animals by the thousands is despicable even if they are rats.

I don't see any effect of the wildfire smoke on the plants so far.

If we would simply control and manage our human garbage, including fines for failure to keep your trash secured, and not allowing people to live in public parks, etc. etc. that would probably eliminate the rat problem.  But I guess it's easier to poison animals.  Sad, but not surprising.

13 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

Since we're talking about a Masshole, let's use Belichick as an example. Greatest NFL coach ever. Not sure many would disagree. Also, kind of an awful GM and shit at evaluating talent. Simmons knows what sells in sports media even if a lot of it is due to others and his personal opinions are lazy and uninteresting. There's no reason to assume he'd be good at producing and marketing a podcast about two former royals who as I've always said are not very interesting. I'm sure they're both a pain in the ass, but he probably is too. 

I wonder how BB would be as a podcaster?  Probably no middle ground, either fantastic or terrible.  Yes, he is terrible at evaluating talent, I could never understand how that was possible.

The salient point for me here is that he calls them, not lazy, untalented, boring, rambling, but grifters.  There has to be a lot that went on behind the scenes for him to use that particular word.  

2 hours ago, Zorral said:

How did the garden react to those awful smoke days?  And your birds and bees?

Our community garden seems to have gotten enough rain since then to help from at least immediately visible effects on all of the above.  I saw a cardinal this weekend -- and never have seen one there before.  And bees were swarming the hollyhocks.  But the robins, which had been more than I'd ever seen together at one time in any previous spring -- I haven't seen any since. 

BTW, the poison action on the rats -- killed all the squirrels.  As squirrelly as they are, I miss their liveliness.  Saw a big fat contented sleek rat merely ambling about, in the daylight, open space, not in the least cautious or concerned.  

Those things always backfire.  Nature's way of telling us that ya know, poisoning animals en masse is not the answer.  But, we never learn.

Isn't he the spotify executive who is in charge of monetizing podcasts? 

Wouldn't that mean that his opinion on Meg and Harry's podcast career is something more than 'meaningless'?  

ETA...the capacity to recognize and nurture talent IS a talent.

Chaos, drama and recriminations follow them wherever they go, whatever they do. 

There have long been industry rumors that Spotify was unhappy with the delay in getting any product out of them.  It's on record the insane number of producers and staff who worked on her podcast and that the Archewell person who had been in charge no longer works for them.  There are also rumors of, dare I say, grifter like demands, such as trying to bill Spotify for building a studio at their house.

No one would care about any of this if her podcast was really a hit and was bringing in millions in audience.  I would suggest that despite the PR about 'number 1' that was either a seriously massaged number 1 or there was a massive fall off after the first couple of episodes.  Even if the podcast wasn't generating a huge audience, it was still getting a huge amount of free media....which suggests that perhaps they are difficult to work with behind the scenes.

Part of the blame certainly rests with Spotify in giving $20M to two people with not much discernable talent or creativity.

10 minutes ago, Heartofice said:

This is just word salad isn't it. 
 

Well exactly, it's not like Harry has been undercover recently, he was everywhere. I do think that they might be slowly learning from their mistakes however. I think the assumption was if they just got 'their truth' out there then the public would love them again (I mean isn't this really what it's all about), but really almost every strategy for improving their image by getting in front of a camera has massively backfired, because they mostly come across as whiney babies.. even to American audiences. 

I doubt it.  The 'near catastrophic car chase' fiasco was only a few weeks ago.  Harry seems still fully tilting at the windmill of changing the media, although granted they haven't sued anyone in a while.

You could certainly read the last six months as Meg making a conscious effort to uncouple herself from Harry's agenda, what that might mean in the long run, I guess we will find out.

Being called grifters by a Spotify exec, after it was revealed they didn't get their full pay out for lack of productivity can't be very good for their ability to create new multi million deals.  

Meg and Harry use the exact same strategy of 'friends and sources close to the couple say XX' to maintain control of the story without being directly quoted that they have criticized the royal family for using.

It was very recent that 'friends and sources' said that Harry and Meg intend to stop bashing the RF, and that Meg is in the midst of undergoing a 'rebranding' that will be more positive, and 'sources say' right now she is allegedly in negotiations for a Dior deal.  Also worth remembering that Harry's book came out 5 months ago, the 6 hour reality series was 6 months ago, and their award/car 'chase' event was only 1 month ago, Harry's testimony in court only a couple of weeks ago.  Not what I would really call a low profile.

You could also try ebay.  I've never had much luck with it for home goods, but I have an acquantance who has bought several big items...large bed frame, chairs, cabinets, etc. and has gotten incredible deals.  She lives in London.

23 minutes ago, Datepalm said:

This is interesting - I'm suddenly facing the ominous prospect of probably needing to find a place to live and put furniture in it. I'm well over roommates and I've lived in more quirky spots with spaces full of character and over-present eccentric landlords than a full young adult library section over the past few years and a boring small apartment managed by a boring leasing company sounds like heaven. So, actual furniture, probably.

I'm trying to basically no longer buy new clothes and thrift/poshmark just about everything practicable, and I'm wondering if it's possible to take the same approach with home stuff. Estate sales sound intriguing, but aren't a thing in Israel (I think?). Can I just go check one out to get a sense of it? I'm in Boston for a couple of weeks...

Yes.  You can look on craigslist in the US, it lists items as well as has a section for estate/garage sales.  There must be some kind of antique/vintage shops and or flea markets in Israel that you could check out also.  I think that FB marketplace is probably everywhere so you could look there as well.  

I don't know about mattresses, but I wouldn't think any bugs would be living in solid wood furniture.  The pressboard crap, absolutely, anything, moths, ants, bed bugs.

I've gotten amazing things from craiglist, less so FB marketplace, also flea markets.  Gorgeous vintage solid wood pieces, original art, china sets,  you name it.

As a contrast to you minimalists with nothing on the walls.... my bathroom has 3 prints, 1 painting, 1 large mirror, 1 homeade shadow box full of shells, and a concrete green man thing.  #maximalist  

28 minutes ago, Heartofice said:

Royals don’t need to be ‘talented’, that’s the whole point. Their role is sit and be figureheads, say the right things and not create a fuss. Where they go wrong is thinking that they have some sort of talent and try and actually go and do stuff! Look at Prince Edward for a true lack of talent. 
 

That’s why leaving the Royals is such a bad idea, it exposes just how useless they are at everything other than speeches and waving at crowds. 
 

Meghan and Harry seem to have caught the idea that somehow they were talented and had special purpose , but it turns out all they are good for is selling their story and doing the dirty on the Royal Family. Meghan seems to think she has some gift for tv or is a big thinker, but reality is hitting her hard unfortunately for her.

I guess I can see where you would think there is nothing to being an 'entertainment mogul' beyond hiring the right staff. "Anyone can do it" if they have the $$. 

But it appears that at the very least there has to be something else, otherwise Meg and Harry's various non royal gossip initiatives wouldn't have failed.  Of course, they still have a hard time keeping staff, which isn't ever reported by the US media, so that may play into it.

6 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

What have I been saying for years here? The royals are largely empty, talentless people who are cruel to one another. I get the idea that having a ceremonial royal has benefits, but pick another person/family. The House of Windsor sucks ass. 

Any other family would be the same.  There would be a mix of hard workers, grifters, smart/dumb, rebels, and once in a while a real talent, etc.  Has anyone anywhere ever lauded the Windsors for being 'talented'?  I don't think so.

It's almost as if when you pull back the curtain of performative 'humanitarian' speak, what you have are two not very nice, not very talented people who can't get along with anyone, behind or in front of the camera for any length of time.  

I tried again to get through Del Toro's cabinet of curiousities.  This is another instance where I can't exactly put my finger on what is wrong with the show.  It looks so gorgeous, the sest design is incredible, and  must have cost barrels of money, but the episodes are meh.  Oh and when did Del Toro morph into Orson Welles?  Yikes. 

Even though Tom is/was a feckless kiss ass, he's also, of the Roy and Roy adjacent family members the only person with any claim to merit.  He was already a senior executive before he married Shiv,so presumably, he has some talent aside from being a lackey.  The actual Roy children, not so much.