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Jamie123 got a reaction from LDSGator in Willy's Chocolate Experience
I suspect the latter. He's a bit of a fantasist. He's self-published about a dozen novels, which are largely believed to be AI-generated. If he was a cynical swindler he'd have run off with the money instead of stopping around to take the abuse, and giving refunds. I wonder how much out of pocket he is. Quite a lot I'm betting!
P.S. I read somewhere the girl who played "The Unknown" has now been hired by London Dungeon to do a regular performance there!
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Jamie123 got a reaction from LDSGator in LDSGator 1:1-2
I love karate. I just wish I was better at it. (Balance was always my biggest problem.)
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Jamie123 reacted to mikbone in Willy's Chocolate Experience
https://getyarn.io/yarn-clip/3fe9eedb-4583-44c4-8f31-361fbe816914#psHkgLaD.copy
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Jamie123 reacted to NeuroTypical in Willy's Chocolate Experience
Yep, Abandoned Wonka Warehouse made it to my tiktok.
Don't forget the Oompa Loompa!
In other news, I really liked DUNE II:
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Jamie123 got a reaction from NeuroTypical in Willy's Chocolate Experience
A while ago I posted about Elizabeth Holmes, the queen of unsuccessful "fake-it-till-you-make-it". The cautionary tale of Billy Coull is not dissimilar. It's probably funnier too - because nothing life-and-death (such as blood testing) was ever at stake - but also quite heart-rending when you think of the poor little kiddywinks expecting to see Wonka's factory in it's glory...
...and actually getting this...
Wonka: The Scandal that Rocked Britain review – a whole hour of TV on the chocolate disaster that went viral | Television | The Guardian
Coull was an idiot of course. He used AI to create a wonderful website, and a lot of people bought into it. (Just as they bought into Elizabeth Holmes' pretty face and Steve Jobs demeanour.) Could he create such a thing in real life? Well I believe he thought he could, and when real life caught up with him, he was the first to admit his own stupidity. He did blame some of it on being "let down by suppliers" (which could be true - who knows?) but at least he didn't skip off to the Bahamas. He was there in the thick of it, taking the flack from enraged parents who called him a "scammer". (And if you don't know what angry Scotsman - or Scotswoman - is like, think Groundskeeper Willie times a hundred!) A true scammer would have been long gone, leaving his hapless employees to pick up the pieces.
It reminds me of this verse (don't know the author, but it's about bricklayers):
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Jamie123 got a reaction from zil2 in Jamie's forum reading habits
Not being a Mormon, General Discussion is my usual go-to, since Current Affairs is mostly about America (though I do check it out sometimes). I do check out the other forums though, so if you make fun of my Owl costume there, I'll cry! 😭
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Jamie123 got a reaction from Vort in Jamie's forum reading habits
Not being a Mormon, General Discussion is my usual go-to, since Current Affairs is mostly about America (though I do check it out sometimes). I do check out the other forums though, so if you make fun of my Owl costume there, I'll cry! 😭
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Jamie123 got a reaction from LDSGator in Jamie's forum reading habits
Not being a Mormon, General Discussion is my usual go-to, since Current Affairs is mostly about America (though I do check it out sometimes). I do check out the other forums though, so if you make fun of my Owl costume there, I'll cry! 😭
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Jamie123 reacted to Vort in Jamie's forum reading habits
Looks like @Jamie123 only reads General Discussion. We should go to the other forums and talk about him. He'll never know.
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Jamie123 got a reaction from Vort in Is this forum dying?
I was talking about the General Discussion forum - not the site as a whole.
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Jamie123 got a reaction from zil2 in Wombats
Interesting. According to this article, https://www.quora.com/Do-humans-actually-rank-high-in-the-animal-kingdom-as-long-distance-runners humans do beat horses for persistence running, but sled dogs, ostriches, camels and pronghorns (yes, I had to look that one up too) do better.
A pronghorn.
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Jamie123 reacted to zil2 in Wombats
Did I ever tell the story of when someone shipped me a computer and 19" CRT monitor to my work and I had to figure out how to get it all home in my little Honda Civic (the boxes were HUGE). One of the guys at work said, "You know, we men have ways of taking care of these things. We'd pull the car under a tree, get a rope and throw it over a branch to lift the box onto the car roof, then use the rope to tie it down .... blah blah blah." When he was done I said, "We women have ways of taking care of these things, too. ... We get men to do it for us."
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Jamie123 reacted to Vort in Wombats
Mmmmm...I think probably not. We aren't nearly the hunters that cats are, we don't have the sense of smell that dogs have, we don't have the visual acuity of an eagle. But we do well at what we're fitted for, just like a whale or a slug or an owl. For instance, there is no distance runner that can match humans. When it comes to "persistence hunting", we're the champions. Dogs and doglike animals (e.g. hyenas) do some persistence hunting, but nothing like humans can do. When it comes to intentionally modifying our external environment, again, we're the champions. So we fill our niche and do a wonderful, perhaps incredible, job at it. But we don't run as fast as horses or cats, that's true, or pull the weight that a bovine can pull. Our particular brilliance is in yoking the oxen to pull things for us.
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Jamie123 got a reaction from mikbone in Wombats
I just discovered that the only wombats in the UK are in Hammerton Zoo in Cambridgeshire. London Zoo is massive, and you'd think they'd have any animal you can think of, but no, they have no wombats. No wombats today. Or any other day.
I've half a mind to go to Hammerton just to see the wombats. I like wombats. Though an adult wombat can do you quite an injury if you annoy it (which apparently is not all that difficult). They are big and heavy and can run fast, and getting hit by one would not be pleasant at all. And the oddest thing about them is that they poo cubes. I remember reading that in Physics World a few years back
This is a good video about wombats:
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Jamie123 got a reaction from zil2 in Wombats
A normal house cat (felis catus) can run at 30mph, considerably faster than a wombat, and faster even than Usain Bolt's record of 27.5mph. It seems to me that athletics is all about humans achieving things as best they can with their limited bodies which are no mean feats at all for animals in general. Human sport is the paralympics of the animal kingdom.
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Jamie123 reacted to askandanswer in Wombats
How interesting! I've never seen a baby wombat in a pouch before. Lots of joey kangaroos in pouches, but never a wombat.
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Jamie123 got a reaction from mordorbund in Wombats
It is illegal to keep wombats as pets, but you can have a virtual one. This is mine. His name is Willie the Wombat.