Random thing you love right now that doesn't deserve its own thread

I liked Top Gun back then. Now? Probably won't bother. Spent years around stuff much more cool than that.

Higgledy wrote:

The last episode of Taskmaster season 13. One of the best seasons of the show ever and a hilarious/heartwarming last episode. It’s a little sad that I have no continuation of the season to look forward to next week. I guess I’ll have to go back to my extensive rewatch of all the previous seasons.

Oh, hey, lookie here, series 14 cast announced!

And uh...

Spoiler:

OMG OMG OMG DARA AND SARAH

I can't wait.

So glad they’ve shortened the time between seasons. The waits could be pretty unbearable.

That Champion of Champions episode is phenomenal. Watched it this morning. Liza Tarbuck doesn’t disappoint.

Also, 3rd season of Taskmaster New Zealand is supposedly coming out next month.

kuddles wrote:

Also, 3rd season of Taskmaster New Zealand is supposedly coming out next month.

The New Zealand Taskmaster seems to have that Taskmaster magic. The clips I’ve seen are a hoot.

Higgledy wrote:
kuddles wrote:

Also, 3rd season of Taskmaster New Zealand is supposedly coming out next month.

The New Zealand Taskmaster seems to have that Taskmaster magic. The clips I’ve seen are a hoot.

The full NZ episodes are sporadically available on youtube. I consider NZ series 2 to be the equal of anything in the UK run (5, 7, 13 - which I dearly love). Their TM is a bit of a weak link, but the contestants and TMA are stellar.

The NZ taskmaster’s assistant is perfect. Down trodden and a little bewildered.

What's the tl;dr/elevator pitch on Taskmaster??

Celebrities do silly tasks for comedy effect. The ‘Taskmaster’ sets the tasks, there is an assistant who makes sure the contestants do the tasks.

That’s about it to be completely honest with you. It’s absolutely hilarious when it really works. The most joy tends to come when one of the contestants applies a little lateral thinking and runs away with the task because they’ve given it some thought.

That’s it. If something isn’t specifically forbidden in the rules, like moving a target you’re trying to hit closer to you, you can do it.

My favourite example:

Spoiler:

A group of contestants were told to place three big, inflatable balls on a yoga matt on the top of a nearby hill. Most contestants struggled for a good long while as it was a windy day. However one contestant got passers by to help carry the balls and another walked to the top of the hill, brought the yoga matt down to the balls and rolled them onto it.

The show also goes for the maximum comedy in a few situations. There's one with Nish Kumar that I'm thinking of specifically, where editing was put to good use, and another with Joe Wilkinson... Yeah, if you intend to watch, I don't want to spoil, but the show is good.

It's also not just the Taskmaster gives them tasks and they do them - a crucial piece is Greg Davies, the Taskmaster, critiquing and scoring their performances on each task. Some of the tasks are designed with strict rules where someone has to do something and they're ordered on how quickly they do it, which leaves little to no room for interpretation of the rules, but many are somewhat open ended. In those cases, Greg will decide who best, to his satisfaction and entertainment, completed the tasks.

Each episode opens with a "Prize task," where each contestant brings in an item which will end up as a prize for the winner of the episode that meets the criteria set out by Alex. Greg then judges those. The episode proceeds with multiple tasks filmed beforehand, usually at the Taskmaster house in London, but they also occasionally go on-location somewhere (my favorite task ever was filmed at what looked like a railroad museum). After they do the filmed tasks, they do a task in-studio to close out the episode. Whoever scored the most points that episode wins the prizes from the prize task at the beginning of the episode (not really - unless they're something the people genuinely don't care about giving up, they end up back with their original owners).

I know someone above complained about one of the contestants mostly disobeying the rules, but honestly, I relish when they find some kind of loophole, poor word choice, or otherwise, that lets them finish the task in an unintended way.

There are lots of other fun Easter eggs in Taskmaster that are best discovered yourself - ways they subvert expectations, things they do to contestants, etc.

They experimented with a task that interacts with the public in season 1, but Alex, the Assistant to the Taskmaster (actual creator of the show), said that the task was so uncomfortable to watch and participate in that they'd never do anything like that again.

This is beyond elevator pitch now, but I love the show. I am putting off rewatching old seasons as much as possible because I want to forget them as much as possible before I come back. I just recently started watching the New Zealand version.

I use the r/Taskmaster and r/Panelshow subreddits to uh... "keep up" with the show, if you know what I mean. Actually r/Taskmaster is 100% above board, it's mostly just news and clips. But the Official Taskmaster YouTube channel actually has several full seasons that are not region locked.

Oh, and there is a US version that was tried a number of years ago. Don't watch it. As usual, US TV execs don't know what they're doing. They butchered the format, shortened the show to a half hour, and completely miscast the role of Taskmaster. They also basically completely reused tasks from the UK version. Waste of time.

I'm typing this while naked.

Max typed that post while naked.

Noted.

MaxShrek wrote:

I'm typing this while naked.

Film at 11.

Mixolyde wrote:
MaxShrek wrote:

I'm typing this while naked.

Film at 11.

Check out my webcam shows on onlyfrags.

I told my brothers I made audio recordings of the fireworks on July 3, and sent them 20 messages containing recordings of farts. Immature, yes, but.. well..

I had another short story published by Clarkesworld Magazine! Technically a ‘novelette’ actually, as it’s over 7.5k words. You can read it here if you fancy. It’s about a self-aware combat robot, so I suspect a few Goodjers may enjoy it.

There’ll be an audio version later in the month too!

Yes yes yes! Thank you Dave and glad you kept at it! Soon you'll have Irvine Welsh calling you for advice and a pint!

Robear wrote:

Yes yes yes! Thank you Dave and glad you kept at it! Soon you'll have Irvine Welsh calling you for advice and a pint!

Oh no fear of me giving up, I’ve been writing since I was a teenager. Still can’t quite believe I’ve sold twice to Clarkesworld in seven months though.

Your work is paying off.

I just went ahead and subscribed to Clarkesworld. Didn't know Gardner Dozois was involved! He's always had an ethic of supporting new writers. Probably the editorial staff has adopted that as well. Good for you!

Anybody in or near the Orange County, NY area, and enjoys wings.. there's a place called Clarke's in Blooming Grove that has the best wings I've ever eaten. Lots of meat, I ordered the garlic parmesan wings and.. good grief. Amazing. They make the wings at Buffalo Wild Wings seem like they are pigeon wings.

Robear wrote:

I just went ahead and subscribed to Clarkesworld. Didn't know Gardner Dozois was involved! He's always had an ethic of supporting new writers. Probably the editorial staff has adopted that as well. Good for you!

I’ll tell Neil I’m responsible for at least one new subscription!

Yes, he was the reprints editor for a few years in the 2010s until he passed away.

MaxShrek wrote:

I told my brothers I made audio recordings of the fireworks on July 3, and sent them 20 messages containing recordings of farts. Immature, yes, but.. well..

Were they your farts?

beanman101283 wrote:
MaxShrek wrote:

I told my brothers I made audio recordings of the fireworks on July 3, and sent them 20 messages containing recordings of farts. Immature, yes, but.. well..

Were they your farts?

Modesty forbids.

Happy Dave wrote:

I had another short story published by Clarkesworld Magazine! Technically a ‘novelette’ actually, as it’s over 7.5k words. You can read it here if you fancy. It’s about a self-aware combat robot, so I suspect a few Goodjers may enjoy it.

There’ll be an audio version later in the month too!

Lovely story, David! Really enjoyed it. It also reminded me that I need to read more Murderbot books.

Robear wrote:

I liked Top Gun back then. Now? Probably won't bother. Spent years around stuff much more cool than that. :-)

It's funny, I watched Top Gun again recently for the first time since the 80s. Now, it reminds me of a 50s movie with Tom Cruise playing a knock-off Elvis or James Dean. It's the gooey sentimentality and romance that stands out far more than the fighter jet stuff I thought was so cool back in the day.

Mixolyde wrote:

It also reminded me that I need to read more ALL THE Murderbot books.

Geez, even experienced posters have massive typos...

Robear wrote:
Mixolyde wrote:

It also reminded me that I need to read more ALL THE Murderbot books.

Geez, even experienced posters have massive typos...

Stupid auto-carrot!