The Value of Stories

Just stories.

Just stories.

The world begins and ends with stories.

Ragnar Lodbrok recruiting his crew. In Vikings S01E02

Kal El's Prayer

Hail Superman, wearing tights

Clark Kent be thy name

One nation under Zod

Homer Simpson in Simpsons S24E15 

The problem with this is General Zod is an enemy of Superman so this makes little sense.

Humble Pride

What you have to understand about my people [Scotch Irish] is that they are a noble people. Humility is their form of pride, it is their strength, it is their weakness. And if you humble yourself before them they well do anything you ask. 

Frank Underwood, House of Cards (US) S01E03

Bond at a Backyard BBQ

..you probably wouldn't be able to find out about his politics. He'd want to look at the meat cooking.

James Bond at a BBQ as imagined by Izzie Susie

 on Charlie Brooker Weekly Wipe S01E04

The Difference Between Fantasy and Economics

There are two novels that can change a bookish 14-year old’s life: The Lord of the Rings and Atlas Shrugged. One is a childish fantasy that often engenders a lifelong obsession with its unbelievable heroes, leading to an emotionally stunted, socially crippled adulthood, unable to deal with the real world. The other, of course, involves orcs.

SergeantHeretic in the thread,

The I.S.O.T.ed house: One Woman goes from 2012 to 1952,

at AH.com

It Isn't Easy Being a Cop

For me, the worse job in policing is looking through the possessions of a murder victum. A lot of the time when a murders an open-and-shut case, which mostly they are, it's not necessary to do it,  but sometimes there's no choice, and it's a painful process, the reason being that it puts flesh and bones on people, gives you insigts into what made them tick, this only serves to make them more human. When you've trying to rational and objective, this is something you really could do without.

Bent cop DS Dennis Milne

in Simon Kernick's

The Business of Dying

Lawyers - The Scum of the Professional Classes

In general, for many the law has become a “safety” career or fallback position for those who are intelligent but not gifted enough to go into other, more substantive learned professions, like medicine, science, architecture, engineering, etc. People see law as a chance to use their verbal skills and validate their intelligence and self worth, in lieu of actually having a talent (or developing) a talent for something real.

Joe T, Recovering Lawyer,

 on the post What A Girl’s Job Tells You.

Historical Learning

Those who fail to learn from history are doomed to learn about it from

Oliver Stone films.

Mr I. L. in a private conversation

Understanding The Drinking Writer

I think that anyone who writes and likes a drink creates an romantic relationship between alcohol consumption and creativity.

Pete Brown, Beer Writer.

 in BBC Timeshift: The Rules of Drinking

When a beer writer says something like that you have to take it as given.

The Internet - a Definition

“A most ingenious innovation, like…the greatest library in the world, yet accessible from your desk, yet also current matters, a newspaper, a gazette, a…”

Christopher Nuttall 

in There'll Always Be An England Part II

A Good General

I never saw generals so beloved of their men. 

Quintus Dias, Centurion

In training he is our scholar. At a feast he is our father. In the ranks he is our brother. And in battle he is the god pray to save our souls.

Centurion of the 9th Legion

Conversation in Centurion

Definition of the Term "Minor Celebrity"

I can't ask Wil Wheaton to leave, he's a minor celebrity. Once you explain who he is many people recognize him.

Dr Sheldon Cooper

 defining "minor celebrity",

 Big Bang Theory S06E07

How To Be a Good Guest

...I would really like to avoid killing anyone in here. It would get in the way of me being released.

Victor Sirko,

 trying to make stay at a Florida resort

 as trouble free as possible,

Dexter S07E06

How to Get Along with Teenagers and Others Weridos

My husband was a great traveler and I spent many nights without understanding a word. The thing is to keep smiling and never look as if you disapprove.

The Rt. Hon. Violet,

 Dowager Countess of Grantham,

 Downton Abbey S03E08

Don't Ask Don't Tell - Downton Abbey

I cannot lie that I find your situation revolting. Whether or not you believe I am not entirely unsympathetic. You have been twisted by nature into something foul. Even I can see you did not ask for it. 

Mr. Carson sacking Mr. Barrow

 for things that will not be named

 and giving him a good reference, 

Downton Abbey S03E08

Cats, the Internet and K-Pop

The entire Internet is losing its hive mind for K-Pop genius Psy and his breakout hit, "Gangnam Style."

Noisey, Music Column for Vice Magazine, 

introducing a video of cats

 listening to Gangnam Style,

 Do Cute Cats Like Gangnam Style? - You Review.

Computers Without GUI

"...inscrutable machines used only by engineers and insurance statisticians"

Anonymous (or Timbo?)

 describing computers  before GUI in a comment at

 The Killer Within - At Microsoft.

The Addict Doctor in Reality and Fiction

...his remoteness, severity, and mordant sarcasm were the products of a daily struggle with addiction.

Frederick Crews, in the review

 Physician Heal Thy Self: Part 1 about the book

 Genius on Edge: the Bizarre Double life of Dr. William Stewart Halsted
 in the New York Review of Books Volume LVIII, Number 14

That sentence fragment could also describe a certain fictional doctor.

Reality Undramatic

"Generally speaking", Lobsang  pronounced, "reality having little sense of narrative, ancient sites are not heavy with swinging blades that decapitate, or rock panels that fold back to fire darts."

Lobsang, after discovering the enigmatic ruins

 of  a dead civilization in

The Long Earth

Ad for Mayan trap merchants from luvthecubs

 posted at Crack's 16 Unseen Jobs That Must Exist in Movie Universes.

A Kind of Respect/Fear

...the politeness you might observe when dealing with a politician belonging to a country that had nuclear weapons and a carefree approach to their deployment.

How Joshua Valienté

is treated after joining a powerful mega-corporation

 In The Long Earth