mousedroid

And then you're just going to throw it away before you get back on the plane to go home? Not judging, just curious.

I haven't flown in a while, but... they won't let you take even the 3 oz or less travel size bottles on a plane anymore?

Also, don't they have complimentary soap and shampoo at the hotel?

Well, I'm always going to look at them as free rewards, but if you guys choose to look at it as the sole reason you spent your 52 Euros, or $60 or whatever, then there is no arguing with you. And this discussion is probably over anyway since it would be silly for anyone who paid all that moeny for those rewards to continue paying when there are no further rewards to gain from it.

Not to belabor the point, but no, both analogies aren't good. I'm not dismissing any opinion you may have about the loyalty rewards, but having an opinion doesn't make a flawed analogy valid.

The loyalty rewards were a free bonus you received for buying play time. The TV in your analogy is the item you are buying, not the free bonus. The only way your analogy works, is if you take the loyalty rewards out of the equation and NCSoft offers someone the ability to pay one tenth the price you paid for a three month subscription.

Yes, I would, but that's because they would be getting the same thing I'm getting for one tenth the price I'm paying. That's not what is happening with these loyalty rewards - hypothetically speaking, anyone who would be able to buy them in the future would be paying for something that I am getting for free as a result of my paying for something else.

Let me try an analogy. Your favorite sandwich shop starts a "Buy 10, Get One Free" program. You love their sandwiches, so you get one of the cards, and regularly spend your $5 on their sandwiches.

Then the day comes that you take your completed card in and get your free sandwich. After you order, the guy behind you in line orders the same sandwich, and they charge him $5. Would you be upset, and insist that they charge him $50, because that's how much you spent to get your free sandwich?

All I know is that years ago, the general correlation was, the more ads you saw for a movie, the worse the movie was. If a studio had faith in a movie, they ran a few ads on TV and knew word-of-mouth and "buzz" would fill the seats. If they didn't think they'd get good word of mouth, they would advertise the film to within an inch of its life in an attempt to have a blockbuster first weekend before anyone realized what a stinker the movie was.

That's why movies like Raiders of the Lost Arc had far fewer TV spots than movies like Friday the Thirteenth, Part Five - Jason Gets a Zit.

I'm not saying that's the case with Avengers, or even that it's not a theory that's past its time, but believe me, that's the way it used to work.

Statesman is rolling over in his grave.




To hide his shame.

I was going to suggest that, but I didn't want it to be viewed as a "Get your own thread" rant or something.

I don't know if anyone else ever visits Television Without Pity, but they have a forum there for each of the shows they review and spoilers are taken very seriously. Often a single episode of a show like Game of Thrones will generate 15-20 pages of discussion, and spoliers never come into the mix, so it's certainly possible. Of course each show's forum also has a spoliers and speculation section too.

Because...

A) It is a belief, not a statement of fact, and
2) I believe more in Widow's abilities and experience as a highly trained spy who fights highly trained soldiers and super beings than Buffy's abilities and experience as a super-strong, but self-trained slayer who gets into what amounts to street fights, albeit with supernatural beings, most of the time. I doubt Buffy could point out a nerve cluster, let alone know how to strike one in such a way as to paralyze her opponent.

Again, we see "ordinary" heroes (Batman, Capt. America, Nightwing, Daredevil, etc. take on foes far above their own level of power, and often far above Buffy's level of power and triumph due to superior wits, training or conditioning. I am a HUGE Buffy fan, but I honestly think Black Widow would best her.

The character's history?

I'm no expert on Black Widow lore, but I would have to think that she has faced many a foe posessing superhuman strength and/or speed in her nearly 50 year career. And I sincerely doubt that her appearances mainly consisted of her waiting patiently on a rooftop for her foes to appear so she could shoot them.

I am firmly in the Black Widow would win camp. A well-placed strike to a vital nerve cluster or pressure point and Buffy is down for the count.

That said, these are fictional characters, and Joss Whedon is a writer. If a writer writes a story that has one fictional character beating another, who are we to say he is wrong? At least with respect to two fairly evenly-matched characters. I mean we're not talking Dark Phoenix vs. Robin.