Stuff we're reading / watching / listening to

[Digit]

Good point, SmurfBlueSnuggie. When I read that dollar figure, I only accounted for cash. I wonder what the standard legal mechanism in place is when someone dies with a partially paid mortgage. Do the heirs usually have the option of inheriting the mortgage, or does the house fall into the bank's hands and the equity is lost to the little people?

[Whistler]

I'm watching an old episode of Law & Order and it has Emily Deschanel (of Bones fame) as a rape victim, which is really odd because she's playing a meek victim instead of an unemotional scientist.

whoa, strange. She is definitely forever typecast in my mind as Bones.

[Katya]

I'm watching an old episode of Law & Order and it has Emily Deschanel (of Bones fame) as a rape victim, which is really odd because she's playing a meek victim instead of an unemotional scientist.

whoa, strange. She is definitely forever typecast in my mind as Bones.

Yeah, it was seriously freaking me out. And I guess it's only normal that she would have had a number of smaller roles before her Bones breakout, but this is the first time I've seen her not in that role.

[Digit]

Another good example of the same actor in almost polar opposite roles is John Hurt. He played Winston Smith in the 1984 remake Nineteen Eighty-Four, and the dictatorial Adam Sutler in V for Vendetta.

[Whistler]

Yeah, it was seriously freaking me out. And I guess it's only normal that she would have had a number of smaller roles before her Bones breakout, but this is the first time I've seen her not in that role.

Speaking of Bones, I'm so happy that they kept going after the characters had babies. People with babies are people too?? I just love that show anyway, and I watched a lot of it last month.

[Dragon Lady]

Another good example of the same actor in almost polar opposite roles is John Hurt. He played Winston Smith in the 1984 remake Nineteen Eighty-Four, and the dictatorial Adam Sutler in V for Vendetta.

Or Alan Rickman in Sense and Sensibility.

[UffishThought]

Hugh Laurie: Bertie Wooster vs Gregory House.

[Digit]

Hugh Laurie: Bertie Wooster vs Gregory House.

Very good one I haven't seen Sense and Sensibility.

[UffishThought]

Hugh Laurie: Bertie Wooster vs Gregory House.

Very good one I haven't seen Sense and Sensibility.

Hugh Laurie's in that, too! (Briefly, but he's still there and funny.)

[thatonemom]

Also Imelda Staunton in that same movie vs. the Harry Potter ones. I really like that version of Sense & Sensibility, which is extra funny to watch now. It's got House, Trelawny, Snape, Umbridge, Rose from Titanic. And also Hugh Grant. Remember when he was a thing?

[Dragon Lady]

Oh my goodness. I need to find a copy of this movie and watch it again. It's on my wish list. Too bad Christmas is past...

[Digit]

Pssh. Stage hypnotists. My first hypothesis is that the subjects "randomly" picked from the audience or who happen to be with the guy, as in this case, no matter what they say, are accomplices, paid or not, and "in" on the performance. If that's not the case, then my distant second hypothesis would be that the thing that gets them to play along is a sense of stress that if they didn't play along, standing there on the stage not acting like your shoe was your phone or whatever like the guy said you would when he does exactly what he said he would to make you, then it would get really awkward with all eyes on them, and so to just avoid that situation, they play along.

[Whistler]

I've been hypnotized twice, and it's simply a very suggestible state of consciousness. We had a stage hypnotist at my high school's senior breakfast, and some of my classmates who had been hypnotized didn't even remember it, which I found most bizarre. Hypnotism is fascinating!

There's also research on "suggestibility" as a personality trait, since some people are more susceptible to hypnotism than others. I'm quite susceptible, and I've often wondered if my gullibility has made me into more of a skeptic.

[Digit]

Physicist Richard Feynman seems to describe in his memoirs feelings similar to my second hypothesis.

I said to myself, "I bet I could open my eyes, but I don't want to disturb the situation: Let's see how much further it goes." It was an interesting situation: You're only slightly fogged out, and although you've lost a little bit, you're pretty sure you could open your eyes. But of course, you're not opening your eyes, so in a sense you can't do it.

But a few paragraphs down, he does say that after the hypnotist told him not to go straight to his seat, and he tried to go straight to his seat, he felt very uncomfortable, and walked the long way like the hypnotist told him. Interesting.

[Giovanni Schwartz]

Another good example of the same actor in almost polar opposite roles is John Hurt. He played Winston Smith in the 1984 remake Nineteen Eighty-Four, and the dictatorial Adam Sutler in V for Vendetta.

Okay, so I was hanging out with a new group of people tonight, and 1984 was a major topic of conversation. And I loved it. That is all.

[Digit]

I bet Snowden and the NSA came up in that conversation

[Katya]

I finally saw Gravity!

[Yarjka]

I finally saw Gravity!

You can only defy it for so long.

[Digit]

Sounds like Tiger Mom Amy Chua has written another book, this one about which eight cultures are better than all the rest. Incendiary ideas sell books, you know. I like the last sentence of the article

[Portia]

LOL I wonder if this will get airtime next General Conference.