I could go either way without wider context, I was basing my comments pretty much entirely on my past experience with such people.

However going only off the vid, the couple filming make it clear they hadn't actually paid for the sauces yet, suggesting that the way they asked had caused the conflict if you see what I mean.

i.e. it wasn't withholding already paid for services

When I said entitlement, I really just meant that it seemed like they couldn't handle the idea that they didn't get exactly what they demanded regardless of how they asked or behaved. But it was purely intuition from past experience. Without wider context I couldn't say with any conviction.

I don't have a lot of time for people who conveniently forget you are still a human being just because you work somewhere. I'd always put basic human respect first and never had much time for "the customer is always right" thing if you know what I mean. (I'm not the best guy to hire for such a job as a result)

I think it would be a more civil society if customers were also held responsible for their actions by more companies, but I recognise this is probably hopelessly wishful thinking.

I do recognise that much of our culture is not set up that way, that's why I consider him a braver man than I in some sense. I would just pussy out in favour of economic stability and whatnot.

I would be foolish if I expected things to not work as you have described. But I did feel a little swelling of pride to see the guy appearing to put his dignity before economics. (or just me projecting)

Probably not a smart move, but laudable perhaps in its own little way.
If the job actually matters that much to him, then yes that was clearly self destructive. Though I felt there was a healthy dose of sarcasm when he referred to it as his nestegg. Perhaps I just misread that.

And again, I may just be projecting all of this.

As for the last part, I really just meant that in the grand scheme of things this probably shouldn't matter that much to them. Either they were being assholes, or this guy had bigger problems than they did with his life.

If it had been a habitual problem that could be another matter, but I see no suggestion of that.

Could so easily go the other way, just that the couple instantly set off my "entitled asshole alarm" for whatever reason. It's usually right, but I don't for a moment think it forms the basis of a valid argument. That's why I went to great pains to use only ambiguous language.

I reserve the right to be wrong at all times in life.

Hands down, the most epic Super Bowl half-time show of all time. What an amazing performer. Still can't believe he's gone.

My favorite all time AS show was probably Lucy Daughter of the Devil although Rick and Morty is right there too. Space Ghost and Home Movies was also quite good.

One of my all time favorite movies.

American Cops are trained to "keep control of the situation at all times!", which I can understand, however the only tool they're given to do that with is a fascist attitude. Imagine if they were given training for negotiation and communication psychology?

*promote what is considered by many to be the greatest April Fools joke of all time.

http://hoaxes.org/aprilfool/P90

Every problem she mentions stems from her pathological NEED to show off as much of her boobs as possible in the tightest clothing they'll squeeze into. Absolutely zero sympathy for her, because she causes all these problems, all of which are easily solved by NOT needing to show off as much cleavage as possible at all times. Note, her problem with sports bras are they don't show off her cleavage.

I think she also intentionally ignored the other enormous 'up side' of big boobs, she never has to pay for anything.

So for those who might know, will this movie go down as the worst batman film ever and or the worst portrayal of batman? I don't watch superhero films, just curious if affleck will be saddled with being in or being the worst batman of all time.

"Automatically ok"? Not necessarily. But in cases where it makes sense, at a stretch even "plot sense" for the character to be there; yeah, I think that is OK.

The Last Samurai isn't a documentary. But, the general historical justification for Tom Cruise's character being in Japan is pretty much valid. Meiji was interested in the West -- clothes, technology, weapons, and military. He actually did hire Westerners to train his army, although from what I read it sounds like they were German, French, and Italian rather than American. Still, the movie portrays the general situation/setting with at least *decent* broad-strokes historical accuracy. LOADS of movies deviate from even this degree of historical accuracy *way* more without drawing complaints; particularly if their main purpose is entertainment and not education / documentary.


Your hypothetical reverse movie makes some valid criticisms. Even though it would have been historically possible for a Westerner to be in Japan at the time -- even to be involved with training a Western-style military -- it would be unlikely for such a person to get captured, run into a Shogun that speaks English, become a badass (or at least passable) samurai warrior, and end up playing a major role in politics and significantly influencing Emperor Meiji.

My defense against those criticisms is that, for me at least, the movie is entertaining; which is kinda the point. Your "Union Samurai" movie might be equally entertaining and therefore given an equal pass on historical inaccuracies by me.

The whole characters as a "lens through which the audience can appreciate a culture/history outside their own" issue is (slightly) more weighty to me. I don't think those are often necessary, but I don't feel like my intelligence is being insulted if the movie maker feels that they are in order to sell tickets.

I love the Chinese historical novel "Three Kingdoms". A few years ago, John Wu made the movie "Red Cliff", mostly about one particular battle in the historical period portrayed in that book. For the Chinese audience, Wu made the movie in two parts, summed up about four and a half hours long. For the US / West, he made a version trimmed to just over two hours. Why? Because he (and a team of market researchers, I'm sure) knew that very few Westerners would go to see a 4+ hour long movie, entirely in Mandarin Chinese (with subtitles), about a piece of Chinese history from ~1800 years ago that very few in the West have ever heard of or know anything about.

I think the full 4+ hour long movie is great. In my personal top 10 favorite movies of all time, ahead of most Hollywood stuff. But I also understand that there's no way that movie would appeal to all but a tiny, tiny fraction of Western viewers in that full-on 4+ hour format. But, even though I personally think the cut-down 2 hour "US" version is drastically inferior to the full cut, I am glad that he made it because it gives a suitably accurate introduction to the subject matter to more people in the West (just like the "Romance of the Three Kingdoms" and "Dynasty Warriors" videogames do), and makes that tiny, tiny fraction of Western people that know anything about it a little less tiny. While being entertaining along the way.

For other movies, sometimes the best way that a filmmaker can sell a movie to an audience that otherwise might not accept it (at least in large enough numbers to justify the production costs) may be to insert one of these "lens" characters for the audience to identify with. I don't think there is inherently anything wrong with that. It might not work for movies that are taking a more hardline approach to historical / contextual accuracy (ie., if Tom Cruise showed up in "Red Cliff" in circa 200AD China), but outside of those situations, if that is what the studio thinks it will take to sell tickets... Cool.

The Last Samurai is, like @ChaosEngine said, a movie primarily about an outsider learning a new culture (and accepting his own past). He serves as that lens character, but actually the hows and whys of his character arc are the main points of interest in the movie, at least to me.

I'm sure that an awesome, historically accurate movie could be made dealing with young Emperor Meiji, Takamori (who Katsumoto seems to be based on in The Last Samurai), and the influence of modernization on Japanese culture at the time. It could be made with no Western "lens" character, no overt influence by any particular individual Westerner, and be entirely in Japanese. But that movie wouldn't be The Last Samurai, wouldn't be attempting to serve the same purpose as The Last Samurai, and very likely wouldn't sell as many tickets (in the US) as The Last Samurai (starring Tom Cruise!) did. That wouldn't make it a worse movie, just an apple instead of an orange.

Wow. We downvoted that into oblivion. Tied for #25 most comments on video of all time.

Your video, Top 10 Opening Shots of All Time, has made it into the Top 15 New Videos listing. Congratulations on your achievement. For your contribution you have been awarded 1 Power Point.

Bunch of cheaters

Not a fan of the Patriots or Brady, but definitely one of the best of all time at his position.

I am however an Edelman fan after i watched this the other day.
http://www.tubechop.com/watch/7620082

Also been a fan of the TE position my whole life (I wanted to be Dave Casper) no matter who's playing it. Gronk is pretty amazing.

Technically, the constitution allows the "United States" to own land. It does not name the government as an owner.

The government of the United States is not the United States. Being a republic, the United States is its citizens.

The government is a manager/caretaker of state's (people's) property, not an owner of property in and of itself.

Technically, the government doesn't even have any authority of its own. It's strictly a body that executes the state's (people's) will, and it does so by the state's (people's) authority - not its own authority (hence the Democracy part). (Officially, the government does nothing of its own accord - hence why in court it's 'the state vs whoever', not 'the government vs whoever').

So, technically, there is no 'government property' - there is only state (people's) property.

Actually, the reason that 'eminent domain' is 'eminent' (i.e. obvious - aka 'obvious domain') - is because the land has always belonged to the state - because the state is the only authority. You never actually own your personal land, you're simply entitled to be the sole occupant. You can buy/sell that right, but the land always has, does, and always will, belong to the state. So under eminent domain, the land is not actually taken from you, because it never belonged to you, hence why the state's domain is eminent (obvious).

In any case, land has this weirdness to it, where all land is state land, and everyone is the state, and no land is private, and all that ever happens is people are bestowed an authority to exclusively manage/reside on a given plot that they never really own. In any case, that authority ends up being functionally equivalent to actual ownership. The phrase 'if it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck' comes to mind, because when you have a body of case law that treats property as if private property actually exists, then in a sense, it does exist for all practical purposes - so there is a disconnect between the practical nature of 'land ownership' and the official/ideological nature of 'the state (the people) having authority over all at all times'.

Also, this is why you can't have an allodial land title in the U.S.. So long as it's still U.S. land, it can never truly be privately owned. It's simply incompatible.

Interestingly, way back when before the U.S. was founded, private ownership of land was associated with monarchy - where some royal(s) individual(ly) literally owned the country. The path of events that eroded royal authority and empowered lower levels of society, was the same path that eroded [true] private land ownership, because it introduced the concept of inherent ownership/rights of some other groups (e.g. the people).

-scheherazade

That's not unexpected, because they took the best parts of A New Hope and rehashed it for this movie. What worked for ANH back in the day still works now with a new coat of paint.

It was disappointing movie for me because after you strip away the nostalgia, there wasn't much left. It's still a good movie, but I would not put it in my top 10 list, even though the original trilogy was one of my favorite movies of all time.