Posts by Nicole Martinez9

Keith Jones36 said:The film isn't actually a parody... it’s just so poorly executed that it becomes impossible to watch.
While the core concept and the narrative premise are actually quite strong, the visual effects are on par with low-budget YouTube videos made by children playing with toys. This technical failure renders the entire production unwatchable, even if one were attempting to view it as a parody.

Honestly, I can't even tell what's worse—the premise or the effects. The idea that some massive tornado picks up tons of bulldogs and they're just flying through the air and bouncing across the ground is absolutely insane...

I still can't wrap my head around this... is this supposed to be some kind of parody? Or maybe just a really bad attempt at one? I seriously cannot believe a screenwriter actually thought they could scare anyone with this garbage. That scene where sharks are just flying out of the clouds one after another, and the guy is basically swatting them away with a gun like he's playing some cheap video game? That's pure parody territory right there. And don't even get me started on the rest of the scenes... Honestly, my gut tells me the writer wasn't even trying to make a comedy. They were dead serious... which makes it even worse.

Or whatever name they gave it: "windy with sharks."
Believe it or not, I actually sat through it.
I’m honestly just trying to figure out if this movie was intended to be a parody, or if the writers and director actually thought they were making a legitimate horror flick.
I powered through from start to finish, mostly just to see how far human stupidity could actually go. I was basically screaming with laughter at certain parts...
Maybe that was the whole point, though—again, I didn't catch any actual parody vibes.
In my personal ranking of the absolute dumbest movies ever made, shark-themed films pretty much dominate the top spots. (think Megalodon, Megashark vs Crocosaurus, Sharktopus) and somehow some random low-budget flick called "The Bogeymen" managed to wander its way into that list too.

Spot on.
If you ask me, the World Cup would actually be worth watching if they ran three downs, three slaloms, and so on... Right now, the only reason the World Cup matters is because it gives a shot to athletes from countries that wouldn't stand a chance at the World Cup.
The Champions League is definitely a higher level than the World Cup. I mean, all the absolute best players on the planet are right there.
And don't even get me started on those so-called Super Cup matches where the Champions League winner takes on the UEFA Cup winner just to fight for some meaningless trophy. It’s total nonsense. The whole structure of the UEFA competition already puts those Cup winners in a second-tier European bracket anyway.
Way back in the day, it might have made sense because, hey, maybe the UEFA Cup was actually tougher than the modern Champions League.

Look, I don’t have anything against the Alpine World Cup, but doesn't it all feel kind of pointless to you guys?
I mean, what’s the point of calling someone a "World Champion" just because they nailed one single slalom run? It feels totally bogus... just a massive hype job.
If people are arguing it's about the money or sponsors or whatever, I don't see any justification there either.
The World Cup is the real deal. To me, the person who wins the World Cup is the actual world champion, not some lucky amateur who caught a break once.
It’s just a cheap way to hijack a prestigious title and devalue the real World Cup races.

So, a few days back I posted here asking where the hell I could find all the World Cup skiing results. A bunch of nice people pointed me to the right spot. Found exactly what I was looking for... every single World Cup result dating all the way back to 1967.
The top thirty spots from every year are included.
Seriously impressive database.
I went ahead and dumped those tables into Excel to crunch the numbers and calculate the total points possible. The results are actually pretty wild. Here’s how it breaks down:
(Note: 2005 results aren't included)

women:
1. AUT 65.299
2. GER 43.878
3. SUI 38.039
4. FRA 30.227
5. ITA 23.120
6. SWE 19.402
7. USA 19.052
8. SLO 9.169
9. NOR 7.805
10. CAN 7.157
11. cro 4.419 12. 4.419
12. Russ 2.970
13. LIE 2.850
14. FIN 2.082
15. SPA 1.880
16. NZE 1.518
17. CZE 1.057
18. GBR 168
19. LUX 81

men
1. AUT 93.747
2. SUI 47.782
3. NOR 35.258
4. ITA 26.870
5. FRA 14.469
6. USA 11.788
7. SLO 11.711
8. SWE 10.741
9. GER 6.623
10. LUX 6.615
11. LIE 3.371
12. CAN 3.351
13. FIN 1.967
14. cro 4.419 12. 1.309
15. Russ 439
16. JPN 396
17. POL 291
18. BUL 262
19. CZE 130
20. SPA 125
21. AUS 65

OVERALL RANKING
1. AUT 159.046
2. SUI 85.821
3. GER 64.970
4. ITA 49.990
5. NOR 49.759
6. USA 30.840
7. FRA 30.227
8. SWE 30.143
9. SLO 24.289
10. CAN 10.508
11. FIN 8.098
12. LUX 6.696
13. LIE 6.221
14. cro 4.419 12. 5.728
15. Russ 3.409
16. SPA 2.005
17. NZE 1.518
18. CZE 1.187
19. JPN 396
20. POL 291
21. BUL 262
22. GBR 168
23. AUS 65

A few things caught my eye. Just look at how much stronger German women are compared to their men... crazy.
And man, look at how Austria dominates. Switzerland is chasing them, sure, but they're still miles ahead of everyone else... well, maybe not in the women's division, but in the overall and men's rankings, they're light years ahead.
Check this out—it took almost forty years of World Cup history just to get the gap between Italy and Norway down to about 200 points in the overall standings. And the difference between the USA, France, and Sweden? Basically nothing.
(You gotta mention though, before Atlas Kardal showed up in the early eighties, Norway was barely even a factor in the Cup...)
So yeah, on this all-time list, we might actually see some shifts in the national rankings as soon as this year.

Gotta give it to the Canadians, sitting at 9th is solid. But it's weird seeing Canada trailing behind at 10th.

And hey, in a few years, I'm expecting to see American break into the top ten. Is it actually gonna happen?

And if you actually check your pulse, you can feel that beat just... vanish on the periphery right at that second.

Oh yeah, I'd need to be "lucky" enough to be checking my pulse at that exact millisecond.
I’m talking about that weird subjective feeling in your chest. Is it actually just an extra beat—like an extra systole—that gets compensated for by a longer pause immediately after?

So, heart palpitations... specifically extrasystoles. What does that actually feel like when they hit?
I know everyone's experience is different, but has anyone here actually dealt with this? I'd love to hear what you guys felt like when it happened...

Exactly!

Wrong.
So where did everyone’s conscience go then? Seriously... how is it that right now, at this exact moment—just to give you one "obvious" example—thousands upon thousands of kids all over the country are playing video games that basically turn murder into a hobby, all while feeling perfectly fine about it, and their parents feel fine too...
Some religious people spend their whole lives following hundreds of strict, suffocating rules. But if someone actually considers themselves a true Christian, they shouldn't need a rulebook to guide every single move... they should have principles. One solid principle can replace a hundred rigid laws.
A real Christian doesn't need a law telling them whether they're allowed to smoke or not. If they truly value life as a gift, their own conscience will tell them that smoking isn't right... that God definitely wouldn't approve.
There is a massive difference to them between a doctor saying smoking is bad for you and God’s principles saying it's wrong. So many people claim to have a clear conscience, yet they keep smoking even though they know exactly what medical science says. Are they really honoring the gift of life? No, they aren't. And how much can you actually respect someone else's life if you don't even respect your own? It's debatable, isn't it?
Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying smokers are evil and non-smokers are saints. But these are just some of the tiny, thin threads that a human conscience dances on while walking a tightrope. Conscience snaps way too easily...

For example, you read in the Bible that newborn babies should be mass-slaughtered just because of their parents' sins, and then if you're a "true believer," you'll try to bend your conscience to match that.

Uhrg. What are you even talking about? Where did you get that from?
Look, tons of religions have manufactured their own specific ways of worshiping, and they use those patterns to shape people's consciences. Just like how an SS officer's moral compass was totally warped by Hitler's ideology, religious doctrines can have that exact same kind of psychological grip. Religious wars, the Inquisition, colonial atrocities... religion is lurking behind all of it.
Official religion breeds this spirit of self-righteousness and can basically trigger some mob to go out and start a massacre.
The history of the Jews and the wars fought by ancient Israel is a completely different story.
A truly Christian-trained conscience won't allow for killing—if it’s actually been trained that way. And it's only "trained" if there's actual truth behind it. You can't build a genuine Christian conscience on fake teachings about the Trinity, immortal souls, hellfire, and stuff like that.
Maybe the phrase 'training the conscience' sounds a little silly to you.
If you actually looked at the conscience as God's tool for telling good from evil, you'd see that the tool is totally broken. Basically, the world is showing us a picture of humanity with a massive, global case of a broken conscience...

Nicole Martinez9, conscience doesn't care about what you think. It doesn't matter if you believe the Bible or not...

What I was trying to get at is that conscience is this tool every single person carries around, whether they’re religious or not. But look, you gotta realize people shape their own sense of right and wrong based on whatever random stuff they pick up along the way. Being religious isn't some magic guarantee that someone is actually a good person—just look at how bloody human history has been, that should tell you enough. On the flip side, plenty of hardcore atheists act pretty decent, which makes them pretty damn moral people in my book. Since I personally believe conscience is a gift from God, it just seems logical to align it with His Word... assuming, of course, that we actually believe in it.

Conscience is just one of those universal things about being human. It’s this super sensitive internal compass that Jehovah God built right into everyone's brain...
But look, just like any delicate instrument, it can get totally out of tune. The real trouble starts when someone's moral compass starts syncing up with something that isn't The Holy Bible. Since hardly anyone actually aligns their conscience with the Bible these days, the world looks like a total wreck...

If you want a gut-wrenching example of what happens when a conscience goes completely haywire, just look at an SS officer from WWII working in a concentration camp.
He had his job, right? His whole assignment was basically to find technical ways to make killing and disposing of Jewish bodies even more efficient. Just cold, hard logistics...
After a grueling workday where he’d burned hundreds of bodies, he’d head home, kiss his wife and kids, and sit down for a family dinner after saying a quick prayer. His conscience told him he wasn't doing anything wrong. A perfectly normal guy under any other circumstances would probably lose his mind if he thought about killing just one person for no reason...

(There's actually a perfect depiction of this in what might be the greatest TV show ever made, "wind war," starring Robert Micam and others. The whole series is based on true events and packed with documentary footage.)