I think Dana's head hit the keyboard.

Yay msbelle! So glad to hear you have competent bosses.

OMG my kids are watching Goblet of Fire for the 3rd time this week! I forgot about that repeated viewings thing. They haven't done this since Blues Clues. At least I get to see Robert Patinson from before he got all that icky glittery Cullen slime all over him.

Dana, I agree with you, all three times. But my trying to go to bed early didn't take. Just made myself a strong hot toddy, hoping that will do the trick.

Wow, that's interesting. No idea what happened there.

OMG, somebody turned on my heat again!

WTF, people! Don't mess with fuse thingies that aren't for your own apartment!!

Don't mess with fuse thingies that aren't for your own apartment!!

Have you put up a sign? Or covered it with tape?

I think I am going to bed and getting up early to work on refinishing furniture or the yard, or both.

I think I'll cover it with tape. That is a good idea.

Huh. I love The Losers. I saw it twice in the theater and will probably end up owning it, AND I bought the comic books it was based on. The character could have been a guy, sure, but I don't see why it *should* have been a guy. And I don't see that Aisha's any more ridiculous or unbelievable than any other character... actually, the bad guy is just cartoonish. He's much more two-dimensional than she. So is Cougar, much as I love him. Can you tell me anything about Cougar other than he's a taciturn sniper who wears a hat?

I never read the comic. I didn't say the character *should* have been a guy, I said it wouldn't have made any difference if it had been, except I might've liked the movie better without a character that I thought was stereotypical and boring. I'm not surprised she came off better in the comics. And no, she wasn't any *more* unbelievable than any other character: they were all cartoonish and two-dimensional, and they all bored me. I can't tell you anything about Cougar; I didn't even remember his name, or hers, or the hat. I don't remember any of the character's names. Sorry!

Where's Nutty? I feel like she could cogently talk with researched sources about women in the Old West...

I didn't say there were no women, or even no powerful women, in the Old West. Certainly there were.

I'm beginning to feel like a crotchety old woman about sex scenes that do not have anything to do with the action.

Ginger and I are crotchety old women together.

Even though I still love female ass-kickers, I think it's important to remember that that isn't the only way to have a great female character.

I think the dichotomy today isn't as much virgin/whore as warrior/whore. I'm not saying there aren't exceptions, of course there are, but it seems to me that in most contemporary popular fiction, women are either kick-ass warriors or dangerous whores (or helpless damsels; the helpless damsel isn't going away). It's great that women are now allowed to kick ass, but it's not any more realistic a depiction of women. The kick-ass warrior woman exists for the same reason the whore does: for the delighted gaze of men. I suspect the kick-ass warrior woman doesn't exist because the Average Guy has come to recognize women as having power and agency, but because of the generation of men who grew up lusting over Emma Peel in her catsuit. If the warrior woman were fully dressed, wearing combat boots, no jewelry or makeup, with her hair cut short, and she fought the main guy and won and then walked away without fucking him? That would be realistic, and not one man would be interested. I like female ass-kickers too, but they aren't being written for me.