Yeah, you have basically generational wealth from TV shows and you’re burning your bridges over $100.
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Having been in involved in or in the immediate vicinity of a few of these seemingly petty major problems over the years I can tell you… the straw that breaks the camels back is not the reason the camels back is broken. It’s because the other party isn’t happy with the deal they are getting and are looking for an excuse to get mad subconsciously. This is why being a good negotiator isn’t about getting the absolute most money out of the other person you can. You push that shit too far and they’ll figure out how to get what they feel like they should have gotten plus a bit more for pain and suffering on the way out the door… and they’ll use something as trivial as a 100 dollar credit card swipe to justify it.
Obviously if you’re a car salesman you should get as much money as you can, but even when I was a car salesman I saw a few deals that made a bit too much money fall apart. Cars were left on the lots with keys in them. All kinds of nonsense the details of which are getting away from me as the years pass and they get less relevant to my day to day… but even in the most one off transactional business you can think of this remains at least somewhat true even if the numbers still favor stuffing the deal with as much profit as it can hold.
Shonda Rhimes showrunner deal was not a used car sale. If she was unhappy about her deal they should have figured out what it was going to take to keep her happy and made that happen. It’s possible that they couldn’t hope to match Netflix, in which case any excuse would have done if she was going to jump ship no matter what.
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And she’s gonna fire her own lawyer or agent or whatever he is if he can’t get her a deal with Netflix!
Yeah the whole story just reeks of bullshit to me. She went to Netflix for an absolutely massive check, and she decided to ruin some corporate suit who irritated her over some petty bullshits career on the way out.
Which is an excellent parable for working at a modern corporation. They are going to tell you to follow the rules and that if you don’t you’ll be punished. But there will come a time when you will need to make a meaningful and slightly risky exception to prevent a catastrophe. It does not go well for the rules followers when these things happen. Follow the spirit of the rules not the letter of the rules and everything will most likely be fine. If Shonda Rhimes asks you for something your job is to give her the total star treatment. She’s trying to impress her sister and you’re embarrassing her probably. This is not going to end well.
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For fans of The Vow/NXIVM, excellent interview from Michael Rosenbaum with Sarah Edmondson.
At 30:00 or so, she discusses how deceptively compelling the program is and why cults in general are so attractive to intelligent, successful people struggling to manage their identity and lives. Her example is where she identifies one of Michael’s triggers and how in NXIVM, she would have taught Michael that the triggered feeling is pathological and must be resolved, whereas now she says holy shit, she recognizes that the way he feels is normal and healthy. It isn’t something to be identified and removed.
Then around 1:07 they talk more about Allison Mack and how she transformed as she continued in the program.
Such a sad ongoing story.
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You can use my Netflix password, it’s maga2020!
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Dave Letterman’s new season filmed post COVID has a good interview with Chapelle. He is opening up a bit more about details of the dark years.
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Didn’t he just stay home and get really high?
I play Europa Universalis a lot, which got me interested in the Ottoman conquest of Constantinople since the game’s timeline begins around the time that happened irl. I’ve been doing a little light reading on that and on Mehmed II who was the Ottoman sultan at the time the Ottomans conquered what was left of the Byzantine (Roman) Empire. I got to thinking, “This would make a good Rome/GoT-ish period drama series in capable hands, I wish someone would pursue it.” Then lo and behold I ran across this:
It’s a Turkish production it looks like, with some American writer and producer heading it up. It dropped back in January, just six episodes so far. I’ve heard pretty much nothing about it but obviously find the subject matter interesting. Has anyone seen it? Is it worth six hours of my time? Or is there a good reason that I’ve never heard of this before now?
I had this game as a teenager, since it came free in an issue of Strategy & Tactics.
Although, I enjoyed the article in S&T about the siege, I never played the game.
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If this is a joke, I don’t understand the punchline
This must be why it didn’t get much hype then. I’ll just put it on as background noise while I play EU4 I guess
Not any kind of expert on either period but the Last Czar commentary was abysmal, just like tabloid level sensationalism and oversimplified characterizations. Assume the Ottaman one was equally as bad, but I know even less about that so I can’t really judge. I feel like docudramas have potential as a format but I can’t name any good ones. I saw one on Charlemagne on Prime I believe that was 'eh fine, maybe because it had some German scholars on it.
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What I don’t get is why they needed actual Turks to play the Ottomans in this spot if it’s just a documentary? Reading up on it, it seems like they either went out of their way to cast actors from Turkey in the name of authenticity, or because it was a Turkish production which would have made sense. This could have all been filmed in Georgia it seems based on goofy’s description. (I still haven’t watched it fwiw)
I think they have real Turkish scholars speaking throughout, so it could be a joint venture of some sort with a Turkish production co.
I’d say check it out if you’re interested in that event, you’ll know pretty quickly if it’s worth your time. I dropped it halfway through I think, memory is shot.
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missed the watch party here, but starting the new Borat movie now. will report back later.
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So I’m watching this Twilight Zone episode about a world where awkward teenage girls are coerced by their parents and doctors into undergoing plastic surgery that transforms them into hot conformist Fox News babes. In 2020 it feels totally like a spot-on metaphor for gay conversion therapy even though that certainly wasn’t what the writers were thinking about at the time. Anyway, it’s interesting how good sci-fi can be reinterpreted and repurposed.
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So now I’m watching a TZ episode where a gang of motorcycle-riding, leather-wearing toughguys move into the suburbs and set up a ham radio rig and the middle aged dude next door is totally freaked out not because they are a biker gang but because they are ham radio guys who might be also fucking with the electrical grid. It’s straight-up cyberpunk shit 40 years ahead of its time.
“Now you boys don’t happen to be ham radio operators, do you?” is an actual line from this show. I think we will eventually find out that the bikers are space aliens or some shit. This is basically one of the best shows ever, right up there with Breaking Bad and Dicktown.
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