Just hold me close, my darling... @prqltothesql - Tumblr Blog

Chase Infiniti should have gotten multiple nominations and probably wins for One Battle After Another, and the fact she got not even an Oscar nom is crazy.

Btw I also saw Hoppers today. Great movie. Go see it

The Ending of Marty Supreme

Someone posted the end of Marty Supreme on Twitter again earlier, highlighting the "Everybody Wants To Rule The World" needledrop. And some of my Discord friends talked about the ending and I got a completely different interpretation of the ending that I think elevates the movie a lot.

At the beginning of the movie, Marty presumably gets Rachel pregnant. He then leaves and goes to England to compete in a table tennis tournament. He competes and then loses in the finals to the Japanese competitor Endo. He then goes on a months-long tour with his buddy as the halftime act for the Harlem Globetrotters, doing various table tennis stunts and trick performances.

When he returns, he finds himself in a world of problems, owing money that he took before he left for Europe, owing money or he can't compete in the World Championships, and also finds Rachel many months pregnant. He endeavors to fix all of his problems by continuing to swindle, hustle, lie, cheat, do whatever he can to try and solve his problems, but nothing works.

Near the end, he has a moment with Rachel, who insists the baby is his, although he insists it isn't. And he tells her very plainly and bluntly that his life has a purpose and hers does not. Everything he does is in support of his one goal and focus in life and that is to be the best table tennis player of all time. All the lying, cheating, swindling, hustling, stealing, all the bad things he's done is all in pursuit of that one dream for himself. He says that Rachel just does things with no purpose or focus and he doesn't know what she's doing and she doesn't know what she's doing, and he can't focus on her because he has his dreams. She dejectedly agrees with him, but he says he will try and do what he can to help her.

So he winds up going to Japan to do this event with Endo where he challenges Endo to a fixed game of ping-pong where Marty intentionally will lose and put over the Japanese guy in his home country. Marty ingratiates and humiliates himself to even get the opportunity to do this, especially after learning he won't be able to compete in the World Championships anyway. In the course of the event, Marty loses of course, but then is subject to further humiliation by having to kiss a pig, so he asserts that his loss was fake and he wants to challenge Endo to a real match. He winds up beating Endo and gaining personal redemption, knowing he was better than the guy who beat him.

When he returns to the states after winning, he finds his family with Rachel in the hospital after she gave birth. He kisses her and tells her he's not gonna leave her and he's gonna stay with her. And then he goes to the nursery and asks to see the child and he finally has the realization it's his, and he starts openly weeping and crying.

My friends took that as "he realizes his life is over and his dreams are over because he has to take care of Rachel and his child now." But I got a completely different interpretation of that.

Like I said above, everything he did was always for himself. It was never for his family or Rachel or anything... not even his friends who would also stick their necks out for him. He was doing everything for himself to get himself ahead. Now, he has the girl he loves who he's loved his whole life, and he has a child, and now he has something more to live for. Now he can be the greatest table tennis player in the world not only for himself... but for them too. It's a beautiful ending.

One time years ago, I went camping and took one of my friends. The campground we were in, we stayed at everytime we went camping. At night, me, my dad and my friend walked up near the entrance of the campground because there were apple trees, and we loaded up bags full of apples to bring back and take home with us.

While we were silently doing that, I turn and look and there's a deer like, 5 feet from me. I remember we tossed some apples near him and he ate some and then we tried to get closer and he scampered off. One of those random interactions with nature I'll never forget.

Watched Sentimental Value today. Fantastic movie.

Random thought about Pluribus

Just had a random thought about Pluribus as I wait for the season finale. So in episode 6, Carol reveals the whole secret with the HDP, Diabate says they were aware of it already, and knew that the lifespan of the hive mind people was only about 10 years at the rate things were going. We don't yet know if the hive is able to procreate, so we have to assume population growth is going to exponentially fall off.

In episode 8, Zosia remarks on the number of people who were born and died in the last 10 minutes, and there were a number born, but I'm assuming only a month and a half after the Joining, these were babies already in process. I also wonder if these babies came out Joined already or if they had to quickly be added to the hivemind and how that all works.

So let's fast forward 9 years. The 7 billion population has most likely dwindled down to a few hundred thousand maybe, let's just assume. The hive would probably prioritize key infrastructure, power, water, sanitation, as well as food production and distribution. Most food they had would have been expired or consumed by now. No fresh meat, no fresh fruits or vegetables.

I then wonder, would they prioritize the companions of the 13 people that weren't Joined, assuming they hadn't joined themselves yet. So what you'd have is 13 people spread throughout the globe who essentially all become fiefs, with a group of hive mind people joined, living near them to continue their survival. Will the hive mind weaken or strengthen with less people?

Would the hive request or require or even... force the un-Joined people to keep them alive? Plant/harvest food for them, cook for them, etc. Would they allow the un-Joined people to procreate with them? Like the Japanese dude whose wife is Joined, what if he gets her pregnant. Is the kid Joined if he's half-Joined half-not? Is he like Neo from the Matrix? I think a fascinating thing the show may or may not ever show is the long term progression of this. They kind of plainly said that they'd all die out in 10 years, but what does "late stage hive mind" look like? How would that progress, especially with the 13 un-Joined?

Pluribus is slow for a reason

People are complaining online that Pluribus is so slow. "NOTHINGS HAPPENING!" Yes, that's kind of the point of the show. There's SO many questions I have. But the show doesn't have to answer those questions right away because that's not the point of the show!

The show was crafted from an idea Vince Gilligan had, where "what if everyone in the world had to be nice to one singular person?" And then eventually it molded into a sci-fi concept, but with the twist of, "What if the most miserable person on earth had to save the world from kindness and happiness?" We are focused on Carol.

Carol is incredibly miserable. She's crafted an entire life for herself writing garbage adult romance fiction slop that she hates, but it paid for a super nice house in a super nice neighborhood in Albuquerque and pays for her to travel all around the world staying in nice places, receiving adulation. And she's miserable.

When the hive mind takes over, she's mortified by it, given that the love of her life was also taken over and suffers a severe brain hemorrhage and dies immediately. The other 12 people all around the world are the total opposite. They love it, they've been taken in right away and made friends with the hive mind and were in a position to ask questions and learn more and help it while it cares for them. Carol is adversarial and wants to stop it cause it's already hurt her.

When she goes and visits Koumba, and Carol thinks she's cracked some kind of grand mystery about their food source being dehydrated dead people, he tells her they already know. When they all meet at that summit and are eating dinner, Laxmi says that they all immediately asked their hive-minded friends how it feels, and is incredulous that Carol never asked them about it or asked them any basic questions.

They have told her little things here and there; their plans to consolidate food sources, conserve the power grid to help the environment, talking about throwing people a life preserver if they're drowning being how they justify assimilating people to the hive mind. But there's so many things that they haven't told Carol cause she's been too aggressive and confrontational to ask.

Most of the questions people have like, what is the ultimate plan, what are the rest of the 7 BILLION PEOPLE on Earth who are assimilated doing, what about infrastructure, do they know where the signal came from, etc. I bet the 12 people know that already cause they asked. Carol doesn't, and they're not gonna just offer that information up, but they'd do it if she asked.

But furthermore, to the people saying the show moves slow, yes. It's the end of the world. It's a pacifist hive mind. They're not aggressive, they're not trying to attack. It's a very calculated and planned out takeover, they seem to be operating with an omnipotent efficiency. She even said they targeted incredibly hard-to-get people first, like astronauts and deep-sea submarine people, and then when the military got involved, they decided they needed to rapidly increase the takeover (this is another thing... can we see what happened when they broke containment? what did this military showdown look like?)

And not only that, we're focused on Carol. A super boring miserable person. I'm sure following Koumba in his James Bond escapades would be very fun but that's not the story. We got a little bit of that in episode 7, showing Carol golfing, lighting fireworks, going to museums and taking paintings to decorate her house. But largely, it's going to be Carol stubbornly trying to capture her independence.

Manousos. He's the most interesting character so far, cause he's gone about this a similar way but WAY less luxurious. Carol is using the hive mind reluctantly but also manipulatively, like "Alright if you're willing to help, I'm gonna put you fuckers to work." Manousos is rejecting every single offer to help, even willing to cross the Darian Gap by himself with no help and bring himself to the point of death before he's rescued. He resorts to eating dog food before he'll accept a meal from the hive mind.

And honestly, Manousos is a storage facility owner. Carol is an author. Neither of them are soldiers or scientists. What can they do? How can they fight back? Maybe together, they'll have the ability to do something, but they aren't able to individually, so we've had to see them try and exist in this unique world, isolated from everyone and everything. It's an interesting story. Nothing exciting has to happen.

I think the fact that several times, a big thing has been built up as a "HAHA! GOTCHA!" only to be handwaved away as like "Yeah we already knew that, no big deal" shows that this show is not meant to be one of those save-the-world shows. It's a character study in what it means to be human, which I've found fascinating.

Movies I've Seen And Where Since 2019

In 2018, I met and became friends with my now-best friend Drew. Drew is a big movie guy, and I'll never forget we were at band rehearsal one night, and after rehearsal, we were all talking about what we were gonna do when we got home, and Drew said, "I'm probably gonna go see Mission Impossible Fallout for the 3rd time."

We saw Avengers Endgame together, that was our first movie. And since then we've probably seen almost 50 movies together. I've always loved going to the movies, and it's one experience my dad always shied me away from because of the cost. "How much is popcorn and a soda? You're gonna pay that much on top of the ticket??" But I love the intimacy of a theater. I love how you can shut the world out and sit in a dark (hopefully) quiet place and enjoy a piece of art for a few hours. Going and seeing movies with Drew has reawakened a deep love in me.

All of the matches in the 2025 C2

Gold League:

Darby Allin VS Pac - proven banger

Darby Allin VS Kevin Knight - fun cruiserweight match

Darby Allin VS Mike Bailey - fun clash of styles, probably will be reminiscent of the Ospreay match

Darby Allin VS Kyle Fletcher - potential to be excellent

Darby Allin VS Kazuchika Okada - will be interesting to see how these two work together

Pac VS Kevin Knight - will be very good

Pac VS Mike Bailey - will probably be excellent

Pac VS Kyle Fletcher - interesting match between two heels, will be interesting to see how they work

Pac VS Kazuchika Okada - proven good match

Kevin Knight VS Mike Bailey - I saw this before, it's a banger

Kevin Knight VS Kyle Fletcher - will be fantastic

Kevin Knight VS Kazuchika Okada - will be good, battle of dropkicks

Mike Bailey VS Kyle Fletcher - will be a banger

Mike Bailey VS Kazuchika Okada - proven banger

Kyle Fletcher VS Kazuchika Okada - proven banger but now has added story behind it

Blue League:

Konosuke Takeshita VS Jon Moxley - will be really good

Konosuke Takeshita VS Claudio Castagnoli - hoss battle

Konosuke Takeshita VS Orange Cassidy - proven banger

Konosuke Takeshita VS Roderick Strong - will be really good

Konosuke Takeshita VS Mascara Dorada - teased on Twitter a year ago with a fake graphic, we finally get it, will be awesome

Jon Moxley VS Claudio Castagnoli - UH OH

Jon Moxley VS Orange Cassidy - proven banger

Jon Moxley VS Roderick Strong - proven good match

Jon Moxley VS Mascara Dorada - fascinating clash of styles, but Jon works well against luchadores

Claudio Castagnoli VS Orange Cassidy - proven good match

Claudio Castagnoli VS Roderick Strong - ROH baby

Claudio Castagnoli VS Mascara Dorada - Claudio is one of the best bases in all of wrestling, this should be fantastic

Orange Cassidy VS Roderick Strong - will be good

Orange Cassidy VS Mascara Dorada - will most likely be really good, especially if we get Chikara Orange

Roderick Strong VS Mascara Dorada - will probably be really good

I think in a tournament without Hangman, Mark Briscoe, Swerve, Ospreay, Bandido (he's the ROH World champ, he shouldn't be taking losses OR running the table until he's not ROH champ and is ready for big AEW things), this is really good and will tell some great stories. Let's not forget, we get the post-match promos as well telling tournament-long stories. We're about to be eatin good in the neighborhood baby

I know I posted about this a year or so ago. But it pops up all the time.

The PTSD of experiencing death first hand gets to me so much.

When my uncle died in 2003, I was a room away and heard my Aunt scream and cry. He had cancer and was in the spare room they had in a very small one-story house. They went to move him and he couldn't do it and he died.

In 2006, I went to visit my mom who had cancer. Two weeks before, I had left something at her house and was sent to go pick it up. Her husband Mike told me "When it happens, you need to be here." When me and my sister were dropped off for visitation, he told me, "She is not good." A few minutes later, she stumbled out of the bedroom and sat on the couch, in severe pain and borderline unresponsive. We sat there with her for a few minutes and then I went to my room with my cousin to distract him. A few minutes later, Mike screams, "She's gone!" from the living room and me and my cousin just stopped and stared at each other. I instantly started re-packing all the stuff I'd unpacked just a few minutes before. Luckily, from the hallway to the kitchen to the back door of the house, my sister's room was connected and I was able to go through there to leave without seeing my mom's dead body.

In 2019, I had to take my dog Ty to the vet. He was in severe pain and needed to be put down, my dad was a hysterical mess because that was his dog. So the combination of having to leave work early to come home and get him, and then drive him to the vet and take him in and have him put down, and then sitting in the room as they injected him and seeing the nurse check his pulse and sadly nod.

In 2022, I came downstairs to see my dad I'm pretty sure laying dead on the floor. He'd had a heart attack and my sister sat with him and waited too long to come get me. His eyes were sunken, his tongue was blue. I called 911 and they came rather quickly. Cops showed up, firefighters and paramedics were there but there was nothing they could do to get his pulse back. I took my sister out to the back room to be out of the way. I still remember the chief guy pulling me aside and telling me there was nothing they could do, they tried everything, they couldn't get his heart started again and he had passed away. I remember calling the funeral home to arrange pickup. I remember them telling me that they'd prepped him and we could say goodbye if we wanted. He was laying there on the gurney, his hands covered as I held his hands and sobbed, apologizing over and over. I remember calling my friends out back as I paced on the patio, I remember calling my therapist and telling her. I remember finally when everyone left a few hours later, and I was just alone with my sister, I showered, and then came upstairs and told her, "You understand our dad is dead right, and he's never coming back. Everything in our life is different now."

Later that year, I had to take my dog Angel to get put down and it was the same thing. I remember vividly. And it was Christmas Eve. We took her in, we were both sobbing crying, so upset, I was incoherent talking to the vet arranging paperwork and stuff. And afterwards me and my sister went to the mall just to walk around and clear our heads cause both of us were so upset.

I have so much PTSD from this stuff. Particularly my dad and my dog Ty. The Angel thing felt like such a blur because it was Christmas Eve, it was first thing in the morning, Rachel was sad but not hysterical, we went somewhere to clear our heads right after, and then two days later I went to GMU for a camp. But being there for an animal being put down for the first time, and then my best friend for 31 years dying and I didn't even get a chance to say goodbye. It's crushing. And these memories constantly force their way into my head and I don't know what to do about it and how to get it to stop.

prqltothesql

Concerts I’ve Been To

1997 - Rush - Test For Echo Tour - The Spectrum, Philadelphia, PA 2002 - Rush - Vapor Trails Tour - Giant Center, Hershey, PA 2007 - Rush - Snakes and Arrows Tour - Hersheypark Stadium, Hershey, PA 2011 - Rush - Time Machine Tour - Giant Center, Hershey, PA 2011 - Childish Gambino - Sign Up Tour - House of Blues, Atlantic City, NJ 2014 - Childish Gambino - Deep Web Tour - Electric Factory, Philadelphia, PA 2017 - Poppy - The Computer Tour - Foundry, Philadelphia, PA 2017 - Dream Theater - Images, Words & Beyond Tour - Merriam Theatre, Philadelphia, PA 2018 - Snarky Puppy - The Fillmore, Philadelphia, PA 2019 - Poppy - Am I A Girl Tour - TLA, Philadelphia, PA 2019 - Dream Theater - Distance Over Time Tour - Tower Theater, Philadelphia, PA 2019 - Snarky Puppy - Immigrance Tour - The Fillmore, Philadelphia, PA 2019 - Tool - Fear Inoculum Tour - Boardwalk Hall, Atlantic City, NJ Upcoming: 2020 - Poppy - I Disagree Tour - TLA, Philadelphia, PA

prqltothesql

Updated

prqltothesql

Updated again

Hey if you happen to see this, reply to this post and tell me how you're doing!

Summer Movie Gauntlet

Me and my best friend and platonic life partner Drew, he's a big movie buff and so we always go see movies together. We splurged and got the Cinemark Movie Club for the summer because there was a new movie we wanted to see every two weeks. And we just wrapped up what I believe is our last hurrah yesterday, so I wanted to go through them.

FAST X

This was awesome, although I didn't like Jason Momoa's performance, way too over the top and cartoonish. The F&F series is over-the-top and requires you to suspend your disbelief, but this was too much. Regardless, I had a blast, the movie was super fun, the cast was great. We had seen F9 in theaters and marathoned all the F&F movies before that after I'd literally only seen 1 and 2. So seeing this was very cool.

Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse

I think we were both prepared for this to be great, not as great as it actually was. The first 20 minutes of the movie with Gwen was movie of the year, and then the title card played and it only got better. Hilarious, heart-wrenching, mind-bending, great twist, great cliffhanger, animation was outrageous, score was incredible. One of the top films of the year by far.

The Flash

I really enjoyed this movie. I had a giant smile on my face the entire time and just absolutely loved it. I got past the CGI and some of the goofy comedy like Flash putting babies in the microwave. This is the DCEU's portrayal of the Flash, which probably is different than the upcoming DCU and different than the Arrowverse. Michael Keaton was alright, Sasha Calle was amazing as Supergirl. I had a blast watching it, despite it doing awful at the box office.

Mission Impossible: Dead Reckoning Part One

Another one that I'd never seen, he made me watch all the MI movies (I'd never seen any of them), and we did Ghost Protocol, Rogue Nation and Fallout in one sitting and each one was better than the one before it. This one was fabulous and I keep thinking about it, even now 2 weeks later. Amazing action, great cast, fun plot, great stunts, great cinematography, and a nice bookend to this chapter setting up the next movie. It's in a bad spot release date wise, more people should be talking about it because it was fantastic.

Oppenheimer

I'm 24 hours removed and I'm still thinking about it. What Christopher Nolan was able to do with no action scenes, practical special effects. Doing a biopic like it was Tenet or Inception and it totally worked. Ensemble cast, great actor after great actor, all of them seemed to be in competition with each other to try and steal the movie. Great twists and turns again for a movie with no action. Trinity test scene was awesome. Last third of the movie was incredibly gripping despite all of the exciting stuff being over.

Barbie

I wanna see this one again cause I don't feel like I fully appreciated it, although I had an absolute blast. Absolutely a fever dream of a movie, everyone committed 1000% to the bit. Super fun, I laughed my ass off at so many scenes. And someone else said it best, this movie really tackles what it means to be a female in the world today, something I cannot appreciate or experience. And it does it in a way that doesn't put down men, which would have muddied the message. And at the same time, it has a message for men too that isn't derogatory. And at the same time as all of that, it has great commentary on the human condition and what it means to be alive. Totally not the movie anyone expected, but an amazing spectacle and one that will stand the test of time.

Sadly, our movie adventures are over until the double whammy of Dune Part Two and The Marvels in November, although if this strike continues, both have been talked about being pushed back. Regardless, this was a string of 9 weeks and 6 movies that were quite incredible and I'm grateful to have done this and done it with my best friend.

animusrox

We have a guy on our staff named Jordan Schlansky, he’s an associate producer. This guy has built a religion around the Indiana Jones movies he knows everything about them if you don’t mind we thought it’d be interesting if he tested you on your Indiana Jones trivia right now… Late Night with Conan O’Brien (airdate: 5/21/08)

membraneshock

rip to all the “fuckyeah___” blogs that carried our society at one point </3

fuckyeahcoelacanths

Anyways

Things have been aight. Sorry I stopped updating from Dayton week. It was a pretty amazing and crazy experience. Sadly, I'm not going back next year but it is what it is. I've been teaching at Bucs and it's been pretty great. Been really lazy around the house other than that. Therapist suggests doing little bits at a time, but it's just so hard. Part of me wishes me and Rachel could just cut and run. But I can't do that. So idk.

rebeccafergusonfan

Rebecca Ferguson | Mission: Impossible - Fallout | Premiere | Los Angeles, CA | 2018

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Just hold me close, my darling...