Archmonarch

Pretty much. It's rather a European version of American Idol (albeit somewhat more politicized due to nationalism), in which each member nation of the European Broadcasting Union writes and performs a song live and proceeds to vote upon them to decide the 'best.'

Your soul is bound to the Fifth Totem, Homid: The Monkey. Homid appears as a viridian monkey. He embodies intelligence, potential, understanding, and skill. He is associated with the color viridian, the season of spring, and the element of fire. His downfall is pretentiousness. You are most compatible with Owls and Tortoises. 4146 other people got this result! This quiz has been taken 149186 times. 9% of people had this result.

The first one's definitely a pinecone. The third seems to have a leather exterior, so I'm guessing the inside of a sofa or chair? As for the last, the shape somewhat reminds me of a retainer, but the air bubbles seem more reminiscent of those mats you put down for traction in a shower.

Nope, it's been stated elsewhere in this thread that Season 2 follows different characters. What I'm personally wondering is if the second season introduces new characters or instead follows the "Linderman-Petrelli Mom" generation of Heroes in the past.

Heh. What's even more sadistic is that the fear of long words is named Hippopotomonstrosesquippedaliophobia

Deus ex Machina is a literary device whereby things become so convoluted that the only way to settle things is to have something happent that fixes everything with the convenient equivalency of a magic wand. It is derived from the work of bad playwrights, who having no idea how to settle their plotlines for a neat ending used exactly this tactic (a God descending on stage to make everything right). Thus the term. Extensions include devices or other situations that serve a similar purpose.

Honestly, why do I do these things?

Currently working through a few Gene Wolfe series in the spare moments I have between college applications.

I'm not entirely certain this actually happened (I don't eat Chinese much anymore due to the suck in my area), but I seem to recall one where the writer begged to be rescued from a sweat shop. That was...odd to say the least.

Personally, I feel it's more that life tends to get in the way and while I would like to get back to the games, after a certain time away from them, the draw lessens simply due to temporal and emotional distance. My personal list: SMT: Nocturne SMT: DDS 1 (Never got 2 due to not finishing 1) Shadow Hearts 2 Final Fantasy 7-9 + 12 Arcanum (Glitches after transferring to the final hell realm caused me to stop) Deus Ex (Got as far as the Paris Catacombs before my HD crashed) Anachronox LoZ: OoT and Windwaker (Got through Majora's Mask though!, Still working albeit intermittently on the new one) Planescape: Torment (Just before that maze) System Shock 2 (Stopped when getting stuck in a wall at the end lost near 7 hours of progress, I should really save more) Fallout (Never really got into it due to life) Gothic 2 Diablo (I was a kid when I first played it and the devil on the cover scared me, so I didn't get very far) Any Elder Scrolls game I've played Thief (Never got very far to begin with) Most of the older JRPS I occasionally try out (ChronoCross, etc)\ Legacy of Kain (the original and thus none of the others) I'm sure there are many more I've forgotten but those are the ones that come to mind at the moment. For the most part, I only play RPGs/the occasional FPS or Adventure, so my failures are at least limited.

But there's also mermaid! I hope you realize that, before they were Disneyfied, mermaids were traditionally portrayed as devious temptresses who would lure ships into crashing into hidden reefs with their singing and then devour the flesh of the sailors who fell overboard. More along the lines of Dagon than The Little Mermaid. :pirate: --> :mage: (Note: Dragon=mermaid.) Anyway, personally I have a deep rooted fear of falling. Not heights, just falling from them. I have absolutely no problem with tall things so long as their is some guarantee of my safety. In the absence of a guardrail or some such, though, I begin to feel nauseous and my skin tingles. As a kid, I used to have nightmares that I was hanging from a higher story of a parking garage and yelling to my family walking by who were unable to hear me. Inevitably, I fell, but to make it worse, unlike most people who wake up before impact, I experienced the entire ordeal, feeling the crushing pain of impact and the pulpy mush that was my body. It ends with a solitary chalk outline in the middle of the street, then I wake up. I've had quite a few sleepless nights due to that dream.

Oh, gods. It's reached here now. Anyway, I'm a Gnome.* You're a Gnome!! An Inventor!! You make as many things as you can.. Though you are very disorganized... But who cares? You just found an invention that... that...Well..you don't know what it does.. But it does something! Now just have to patent it to make sure none of the tall folk get a hold of it.. (did I forget to meantion you're a little short?....Shorter than a Kender... But you like it that way.) *Irony absolutely intended.

I wasn't that impressed by rahxephon, I actually kind of disliked it. The mech theme and the ending was pretty bad not to mention and the whole theme of different blood and shi was just stupid. I mean I do remember liking some stuff but as a whole just wasn't good. But im goign to check out Air and hopefully its good. Personally, I liked RahXephon up until the few final episodes, then it ended and I was left wondering WTF just happened.

I've recently been acquiring some of the older classic anime series that I had never seen before such as the early Gundams and Macross. As for newer stuff, there are only a few decent shows this season, of which I have been watching Kiba and Code Geass: Lelouch of the Rebellion. Neither really has a deep message, but both are entertaining and Geass gets fantastically dark at moments, though it is also plagued by the occasional mushy romance subplot. Kiba is basically a variation on Monster summoning with limited political maneuvering, where a boy is brought to a new world and due to his ability to summon one of the Key Spirits (many people are what is called shard casters, the more powerful of which can summon normal spirits. Key spirits are much more powerful.) and so is coopted as the savior of the nation he winds up in, while various other people who control Key spirits are put as saviors of their various nations (one of whom is a friend that came from the other world with him. Add in a secret plot of one nation to bring all the Key Spirits together because they believe it will resurrect their quasi-deific leader and a secret organization to stop them, and you can see where things are going. As of now, over 40 episodes have been subbed. Code Geass on the other hand concerns the Britannian Empire (basically a British Imperial version of America) which has conquered much of the world and has renamed these territories numerically to weaken national feeling, i.e Japan becomes Section 11. The mother of one of the princes of the Empire, Lelouch, is assasinated in a terrorist attack that leaves his sister paralyzed from the waist down and so psychologically traumatized that she subconsciously chooses to go blind. His father uses this as an opportunity to send the Prince and Princess to Japan as hostages, and they are assumed to be dead when the series begins after Japan has been conquered. Then Lelouch is granted a mystical power by a strange woman who was being held by the military and begins a rebellion to overthrow his father and destroy the Empire. The best part is that Lelouch is an anti-hero along the lines of Hannibal Lector (though no cannibalism) in that he views everyone as pieces on a chessboard to be used and disposed of according to his will. Simply awesome. Subbing is ongoing and so far 15 episodes have been released.

My bad, I sort of misinterpreted what you said. Also, what 'contemporaneous' religions are you referring to? Well, there were the Cults of Mithras, Cybele-Isis, Sol Invictus, the Mandaeans who worshipped John the Baptist as messiah, the cult of the Roman Emperor, the Manichaeans who were sometimes considered a Christian heresy due to their attempts to incorporate all known religious traditions and the various recognized Christian heresies such as those of Apollonius of Ephesus, the Gnostics, Simon Magus, and Arius. Many of these groups remained in small numbers in later centuries. Any could have become the major religion. Only because the faith that would become Catholic Christianity had the previously mentioned practices and that the Emperor Constantine converted (at least in name, it was said he often confused Jesus and Zeus), feeding off the cult of the Roman Emperor, did things occur as they have. I was referring to Pidesco, hence the reason I quoted him. " Also, I don't take all my facts from the Bible, so please kindly don't spout off that BS about me. That said, I don't see how the rest of your point disproves the fact that Protestantism is just as 'backwards' as Catholicism. Who cares where their viewpoints came from? What matters is that they incorporated those modern viewpoints into their new religions. Also, the Anglican Church didn't come to power on its own, it was formed by a Henry the VIII due to his disdain for the church and so was government-sanctioned. Anyway, my main point is that you can't say that the Protestant faiths didn't introduce new and/or revolutionary ideas to their time. My BS as you call it was mostly in retort to your 'learn more before speaking comment' towards whomever it was intended. Quid pro quo. And by explaining the origin of the viewpoints, I have in fact said that Renaissance/Enlightenment concepts were incorporated into the religions, though I had not included examples. Try reading more carefully. And while the Anglican Church was created by Henry VIII because the Pope refused to grant him a divorce, the fact that Catholicism was outlawed in England in favor of a Protestant faith displayed its growing power in Europe.

John wasn't his 'religious master'. And that's not true. There are a lot of reasons why it spread so fast, not just one "twist of fate". Actually, it is documented that Jesus was a member of the group that held John the Baptist to be the Messiah before striking out on his own. And again the only real difference between early Christianity and cotemporaneous religions is that Christianity allowed a larger group the ability to join and that it was willing to adopt customs and traditions from other religions (and then thoroughly bastardize them into a 'Christian custom') to make itself more appealing to members of those religions. Blank, I don't think you understand that the Catholic worldview is based upon a Medieval mindset whereas Protestantism is more dependent upon Renaissance and Enlightenment concepts. First, I'd argue that the Catholic worldview was the basis for the Medieval mindset and not the other way around. Second of all, Protestantism is not more dependent on Renaissance and Enlightenment concepts by itself. In fact, Protestantism as envisioned by Luther, Calvin and the rest, was dogmatically, at least as backwards as Catholicism. While Protestantism did prove to be a lot more conducive to progress than Catholicism, that wasn't due to any doctrinal progressivism on its part but rather, on the fact that they had very little political power and as such couldn't influence goings on as much as the Catholic Church could. Again, that's not true. Ever here of indulgences? (and that's just one among others) And no offense, but with all the times you've been wrong about these topics, it'd probably be best for you to learn more about this before you start stating 'facts' on the matter. Who exactly are you responding to here? Myself or Pidesco? I would admit that perhaps I could have stated my point better, as Pidesco is right that the Catholic worldview was the basis for the Medieval mindset, though it was equally dependent on the loss of Greco-Roman culture/knowledge. However, despite that it was imagined as a return to roots by its founders, the Protestant faiths could not help but include the changing opinions of their time (the right to question the church, government, etc.), their creators having been raised in such an environment and employing many of these concepts in their disdain for Catholicism. Also, in the centuries immediately following their birth, the Protestant Churches gained a great deal of temporal power, such as the Anglican Church of England, the Lutherans, and the Calvinists.

I'd just like to add that the only reason Christianity became the major religion of the Western Hemisphere (as opposed to the numerous historical contemporaries who mostly preached the exact same things especially as almost all of Jesus' teachings were derived from the theology of his own religious master John the Baptist) is because Paul went on a propaganda campaign and convinced others to extend membership to pagans. Simply a twist of fate, nothing more.

Hmm, I had at the time. But then I was drawn away before clicking post, and by the time I returned... Such is the price of time. No redundancy intended.

Blank, I don't think you understand that the Catholic worldview is based upon a Medieval mindset whereas Protestantism is more dependent upon Renaissance and Enlightenment concepts. According to Catholicism, God is too exalted for any human to presume to communicate with directly and this belief necessitated the creation of intermediaries, i.e. Saints. Though I am not a Catholic myself, rather a proponent of the almost diametrically opposed agnosticism, I have studied religion and as I understand it, it isn't that the saints are worshipped, more so that they are honored for having proved themselves worthy to be god's secretaries by those who have still to meet the challenges of earthly existence. Anyway, as for Mary, the seeming 'Cult of Mary' known as Mariology, in fact distinguishes between the worship of god and the veneration of the Saints and Mary. According to Catholic theology, no one but god can be worshipped, but others of worthy of praise. Anyway, Mary was a personification of the symbolic Lady Virtue, the idea woman pure in every manner. According to the Dogma of the Immaculate Conception issued by Pope Pius IX in 1854, she was freed from all sin and all tendency to sin in the moment she conceived Jesus. Furthermore, by having born Jesus, she is sometimes considered a sort of co-pilot for him, having aided him in his mission by granting him the human blood and nature that allowed him to die on the cross, etc. Finally, veneration of Mary is mandatory for Catholics, as a result of Pope Pius XII's ex cathedra announcement of the Dogma of Assumption, stating that at her death Mary rose into heaven, body and soul. To summarize, there is a long history of honoring Mary from the beginnings of the Church and after the Dogma of Assumption in 1950, this belief has been mandatory for a true Catholic. Unless I'm completely confusing my philosophers, and I don't believe I am, Spinoza was a neutral monist pantheist, i.e. he believed everything is a part of god whom is a being of infinite attributes including mind and body (in opposition to Descartes' dualism). As a derivation thereof, he believed humans (as a part of the one reality that is god) had no freewill except to understand why things occurred as they did, and so everything occured out of necessity. Ravenskya's father's religious views are a classical Clockwork Universe and thus Deism. -------------------- Anyway, here are my personal feelings on the matter. I think the concept of religion is worthwhile in that it promotes peace and unity, though most are founded upon a completely unconfirmable cosmology, but again that is the definition of faith, I suppose. The problem is organized religion, when faith become so entrenched in a culture through time and tradition that the ability to disagree or consider change is judged heresy by its most devout adherents. By becoming dogma, religion loses its original benefits, serving only to further divide and antagonize various groups. As it stands, only a small number of Eastern faiths/philosophies (the two having rather indistinct boundaries over there), distinct from Western religions in their focus on self-reflection rather than external salvation, are worthy of following, in their present state.. Finally, I've also wondered what Jesus did between his birth and the age of 30 that caused the writers of the Bible to desire to leave it out. Any explanations?

Heh. Not quite. He's more a

Considering that I am very strongly considering going into Synthetic Biology, this is right up my alley. Appreciate it.

Definitely the best new show of the year in my opinion. Simply awesome.

When I have time, I'm reading through the Deathstalker series by Simon Green. Fairly decent space opera, if not overly original. In my spare moments, I'm reading the scifi anthology Future Shock, a collection of short stories about near future problems/worst-case scenarios.

I got an email yesterday, saying that TV Guide is showing the mid-season finale of BSG in select Landmark theaters in I believe it was Atlanta, New York, LA, St. Louis, Chicago, and Dallas before it is shown on TV. Thoughout somone might want to know. Here's the link: BSG in Theaters. Just to warn anyone who might want to avoid spoilers, that page also includes a summary of the finale.

Hmm, well the last episode revealed what happened with her father and her sister, the original Jessica. My theory is that, being as she was 9 years old, she couldn't deal with either , and so her mind partitioned itself as a form of protection, thus recreating a Jessica personality. Think of it as a really extreme version of an imaginary friend. Along with this personality, Nikki also gave up her memory of the event, causing the Jessica personality to be the only to have it and thus hold a grudge/be protective of Nikki/have a major complex. Additionally, I would assume that the power (super strength) is actually Nikki's, but when it developed she couldn't deal and then passed it onto the Jessica personality to again protect herself.