That is stuff Tolkien actually talked about at more length in the LotR appendices and in material published after his death. It seems reasonable to include it, since this is really intended as an LotR prequel rather than just The Hobbit on its own. I'm not entirely crazy about the way they wrote it, but it's not something they invented out of whole cloth.

I'd have liked to have seen more of Saruman, in fact, but that was limited by Christopher Lee's health. It ties in to the continuation of the Gandalf plot line from the second film.

The solution is "get a specialized lawyer." A buddy of mine has been in training in the law since 9 years old (dad is the Constitutional variety) and then added an Accounting Degree (+CPA+[like 30 other sets of letters) and is not a fraud analyst. A doctor stuck a stethoscope in his wife's ear and billed a "surgery" to her insurance, BIG mistake...now they get free ear care.

Samuel Gompers would like to have a word with you.

You know, I'm going to give you a little good spiritual advice. Go out, get drunk, and get laid. Smoke some pot.

Worse, it was fucking boring. The Hobbit would have made a fine two hour movie, maybe two 1.5 hour movies. But there is not enough plot for seven and a half hours.

And by the time the last film is released, will be about 4.5 hours too long.

socialism stepped in as the american dream eroded.

And now fascism is coming up fast along the rail.

Is Madden still a good game year after year? I stopped playing them back in the '70s (I think), so I really don't know.

Is it like fantasy football, or is it more of a twitch controller game where you have to learn combinations and everything and there's quick time events?

I think EA and Microsoft should do their best to charge customers whatever their customers voluntarily agreed to

"Do their best"? That assumes any overcharges are accidental. You're giving those companies way too much credit.

What was the last time you heard of EA or Microsoft undercharging someone by accident?

Well, it's still your money going into EA coffers.

If you really see them as a company that sees its customers as the enemy, you won't want to be enriching them in any way.

Yes. I've set up alarms on all of my accounts, so that if it sees any payment to "EA", it knows that someone has hacked my accounts, because I will not knowingly give that company my money.

When I was with a startup during the dot com era, it seemed to me that the worker bees were on speed, while the executives were on coke. I could see what the worker bees were doing, but nothing else could explain the decisions made at the upper levels. The incentives were pretty obvious--long hours without sleep, and demand to be 'on' regardless of circumstance, and the arrogance that comes with mastering a small domain and thinking you've mastered everything (see Dunning-Kruger.)

Personally, when I was tired, what I craved was sleep. But that was frowned upon. You can see why so many did drugs.

Arrogance, though, is a major consideration. Notice the parent comment: If you take drugs and get addicted... but no one plans to get addicted. Oh, take drugs by all means, just don't get addicted. They take drugs to cope, and as they are masters of the universe, they could not possibly get addicted. Besides, it's just to meet this deadline... and the next... and the next...

The entire culture is a massive fuck-up. Tired people make mistakes, and mistakes cost money. In the 1850's they discovered that 40 hours a week was the sweet spot for productivity, and every generation since has had to discover the same thing the hard way. I cannot count the number of projects I have seen crash and burn because of this bullshit.

But fuck it. We're John Galt. We can do anything. Just another bump to get me through...

How's that working out?

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Fuck Everything. We're doing five blades.

I'd argue that they also cross the line when the spend valuable tax dollars on very low level risks, and when certain foreign governments have volutarily cooperated with needful investigations and are now being treated as though that doesn't matter, as we can get the info whether they work with us or not, so screw international cooperation. American agencies that don't really see any difference between Australia and Afghanistan probably should concern you. Contributing to international accords and then ignoring them probably should concern you. Spending tax dollars that could go to rebuilding much needed infrastructure on building up the threats before we spend more to take them down definitely should concern you.
          Recently declassified documents have revealed that there were years in the 1950s, 60s and 70s when the whole funding for the National Endowment for the Arts was being spent on CIA disinformation campaigns. That''s never been officially investigated by Congress or in any way restricted, and could still be going on now, seventy years after it started.With that as their history, the only thing that concerns you is crossing the domestic line? Doesn't that even suggest they are spending way too much of your taxes on nothing?

I've known people who became alcoholics through normal social drinking. I don't know anybody who set out to become an alcoholic, and darn few who deliberately decided to drink to excess.

And, by "alcoholic", I mean somebody who more or less trashes his or her life because he or she can't stop drinking.