You can be thankful for these links on Thanksgiving

Things that will survive nuclear war: Cockroaches, Nokia phones, and RadioShack.

Of course Norway had to flex on the world with their newly redesigned passports.

Book dust jackets have had a long, winding history.

Some dude was driving around Toronto, Canada with 30 year old expired tags.

Let's take a look at how New Mutants did at the box office

I totally forgot about this movie until I saw it trending on Twitter today. Then I remembered a post I wrote on here where I pondered how well or bad the movie would do once it was released. So with that in mind, I decided to see how much money it made versus how much it cost to make and well, it did better than I expected? According to several sources, New Mutants cost $80 million on the high-end and made $45 million, falling around $35 million short of breaking even.

I'll be honest, I thought the box office was nothing to be much lower by at least $15 million. The movie was in limbo forever; so long in fact that they couldn't do the standard reshoots that all movies normally do because the actors had visibly aged enough to be noticeable. Of course any money made is a profit for Disney, who didn't bankroll the movie save for possibly the cost of finishing the editing and adding the special effects. Even more money is bound to be made now that New Mutants is out on disc and streaming services. Who knows, maybe the movie will break even after all?

Well, that's real lovely

Evidently I can't make any changes to my blog's tabs, which is real lovely. I wanted to remove some blogs from a blogroll while adding a new one and the popup just won't save the changes. Anyone else having similar troubles?

I finished two books on Thursday and it felt good

 

Even before the pandemic hit, the number of books I was clearing through was on the decline, so as you can imagine, finishing two books one right after the other felt really nice. I finally wrapped up reading Victory Conditions, the fifth and final book in Elizabeth Moon's Vatta's War series. I recommend it if you're interested in military SF that isn't hardcore. The series won't blow your socks off, but you definitely will not have felt like you wasted time reading them. Not long after putting that book down, I grabbed my tablet and decided to read some more of All Systems Red by Martha Wells. I love The Murderbot Diaries, so I've enjoyed re-reading the first book in the series. It wasn't long until I was finishing that one as well. This is another recommendation too. The first four books in the series are novellas, so there's no huge time commitment. At least on the surface there isn't, but I can guarantee you from personal experience that you'll tear through each one in rapid order! The fifth book is a full length novel and the upcoming sixth is another novella.

I have no clue if I'll add any more books to my tally before the end of the year, but I started to realize last year that it doesn't matter how many books I read in a year, so long as I'm reading.

Late night bus riding

Because I keep forgetting that it gets dark early, I'm riding a bus and it is dark as a dungeon on here. But I always enjoy being out at night, seeing everything lit up. There's just a different feel, a different atmosphere.

I think we could all use a snuggle buddy right now

Via Wikipedia.

Well, not me, because human contact is just not my cup of tea. Fortunately for the people of Belgium, who went into another lockdown, they are not me, and so they are allowed to have a snuggle buddy, as a treat.

But even De Croo’s plea to avoid physical contact has some exceptions. Under the new national measures, people in need of some physical intimacy are entitled to one “knuffelcontact” (literally “cuddle contact”), with people living alone allowed one extra cuddle buddy. Unfortunately for polyamorous “knuffelaars” however, only one cuddle contact is allowed to visit at a time.

If you're in the Netherlands, then things are even better because you can have a "seksbuddy" instead. I don't think we need a universal translator for that word.

Have fun with your snuggle fests, Belgians. Please wrap it before you tap it, Dutch people.

It's occurred to me that The Hulk has been an Avenger in the movies longer than in the comics

I had that realization pop in my head last week and while it's a minor thing at best, I thought it was interesting enough to post. So Hulk was a founding member of The Avengers when the comic debuted in September 1963. However, he left the team by the *checks notes* second issue in November.

Or to use an American sports idiom, he was an Avenger for a cup of coffee. I'm actually kind of astounded because while I knew Hulk wasn't on the team for very long and was gone before Captain America joined, I didn't realize that he'd left by issue #2.

Even Hulk is shocked by how short that was.

Now contrast this with the Hulk of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Like his comic book counterpart, he was a founding member of Earth's Mightiest Heroes, but unlike his counterpart, he stuck around for the long haul, appearing in every Avengers movie. So just on that front alone, he's got the comic book green behemoth beat in appearances. If we were to count actual time spent as a member of the Avengers, he would win there too. The first movie came out in 2012 and the most recent in 2019, so a solid seven years. I have no clue if he was still a member during that five-year span in Endgame between "The Snap" and the time heist. I'm also not counting Civil War because while it did feature the Avengers, it wasn't billed as one.

So clearly, the Hulk of the MCU had the staying power (and marketability *cough*) to be an Avenger, while the comic book original was fated to be a loner, at least for that period of time. I suspect that if they were making comic book movies back then, it would have been a different story altogether.

At this point, I think America would accept Voltan as president

 Just call the freaking election already.

I guess you could say that's...one whale of a tail

A giant sculpture of a whale's tale saved a Dutch metro train from crashing 30 feet after derailing.

Credit: Robin Utrecht ANP/AFP

 The best part is that the installation is called "Saved by the Whale's Tail." You can't convince me that a time traveler didn't come back and put that there specifically for this moment.

"Okay, before we begin construction, I want to make sure that this tail will be built strong enough to hold up a metro train."

"What? Why?"

"I have my reasons."

My new hobby: journaling [Updated]

Hi, thought I'd talk a bit about my newfound and surprising hobby that I've taken up: journal writing. I say surprising because quite frankly, I don't really stick with hobbies once I start them. It's the same old song and dance that I imagine a lot of people go through where they come upon a hobby, think "Oh wow, I'll try this out!" and then give up after a short while. Going into this, I figured much the same would happen once I started journaling and boy oh boy, was I ever wrong! Instead, it's been well over a month since I started and I'm still going strong. I'll admit that I've missed a day or two where I forgot to write, but aside from that I've been writing entries almost daily.

The genesis of the project was just boredom. I live with my mom and act as her caregiver because of her health and back in September, she had to go into a facility to rehab one of her legs. Well, this left me with some time on my hands. At the same time, I stumbled upon a subreddit on Reddit dedicated to journal writing and more specifically a post where someone had shown off their collection of journals stretching all the way back to like 1985. This fascinated me and so I decided to give it a go myself. The other thing that helped is that a local dollar store was selling these small composition notebooks 2 for a $1, so right there the level of entry was low - if the endeavor had flopped, then all I would be out was a buck and even then, one can always use a notebook for jotting down notes and such.

My first journal.

 

My first entry was September 19th and the last entry in that particular notebook was November 1st. I'm astounded that I'm still going with a full head of steam.

In terms of what I'm writing, it's pretty much a hodge-podge of different things: what I'm thinking about at the moment, a review of the day's events, current affairs, etc. It's just nice to be able to get my thoughts down on paper and out of my headspace.

Here's journal #2:

Which is lovely inside.

I really like the faint diagrams and equations on the inside covers and end papers.

The months and days that run along the top of each page is a nice alternative to writing them down for each entry. In my first journal, I was including the time for each entry as well, but I haven't decided whether I'll continue on with it in the new one. I'm already two entries in, so probably not?

So, do any of you keep a journal? Ever thought about it? Let me know down in the comments.

[Edited to replace one of the photos with a better one.]

A Programming Note

Howdy, howdy, I thought I'd chime in and give a heads up on what I'm planning to do with Nerd Trash. I want to start posting here more and on Tumblr less, but at the same time I no longer feel "nerdy" so the plan is to shift the blog away from "nerdy" content and towards stuff that I think is interesting and worth posting.

The reason why I don't feel nerdy anymore is because 1. There's not a whole lot that interests me that doesn't require a subscription to a streaming service or otherwise laying out a fair chunk of money that I don't have. 2. Being nerdy is honestly just too expensive nowadays for those just stated reasons. It's just gotten to be too consumerist for my tastes. There's more emphasis to own things for the "nerd cred" than there is for actually being nerdy and enjoying the aspects of the subculture that made being a nerd fun.

Now, that doesn't mean that I won't ever post nerd content on here, because I will from time to time, but only when it strikes my interest.

In terms of actual changes, I might fool around with the blog's layout and theme, but otherwise there won't be much difference beyond what I post.

Toodles.