Walsingham

As ever, your remarks remind me of something:

I didn't know what the **** I wanted to do with my life as an undergrad. And frankly my degree has had little to do with any of my life skills. But I did use the time testing things and working out what I did want to do, and learning how to organise people. The latter did link to my studies, but if I hadn't been running around like a bluebottle actually practicing I'd have learned next to nothing. Interestingly for me are all the folks I knew who worked very hard to get their degrees, got firsts, and then after about three years realised that the only thing they were good at was wimping out to authority. Then THEY went through a crisis of faith and collapsed by the way side. Or descended into a hollow piping world of office politics.

One of my incarnations was as a psychologist. So when our group project failed we span it into a study on how group projects fail. Got top marks.

Foudn a couple of randoms: 'Cogs' - indie game, looks neat. Quite reminiscent of Bioshock's hacking A less constructive, but still mech-ish game; Cog Factory

I'm utterly baffled by your insistence that selling a game second hand is bad. What about selling my car second hand?

Beat on the brat - The Ramones

Ok I think you are on to something here. I was investigating if any conferderate veterans turned up in the French Foreign Legion, or the British Army following Approtimax but I like this idea too. On a book note I'm now reading The Pirate Coast: Thomas Jefferson, the First Marines, and the Secret Mission of 1805 by Richard Zacks. As many of you know it was the Barbary Coast campaign where the line in the Marine Corps hymn "To the shores of Tripoli" came from. Fascinating reading. That does sound interesting. I will have to give it a go.

'Tis true.

Lars and the Real Girl It's a little simplistic, but basically heartwarming and not too challenging. I rate it because it was nice without being too saccharine.

World of Goo she might like, as it's cartoony. The Incredible Machine could be a contender too.

Strangely not very comforting. Since unlike our Austrian colleague I worry about my neighbours.

Went back to an old stomping ground this weekend. Ran into two of my exes at a party. Naturally, female logic being what it is, not speaking to them for over a year apparently more attractive than all the preceding eras of conscientious wooing. Spent much of my subsequent time wreathed in cigarette smoke and kisses. Fantastic. EDIT: I know I'm a massive retrophile. But I _like_ my late night romance wreathed in smoke.

FFS, that really sucks. So the organsack who stole it must have seen you rushing to help the guy who was hit? I'd talk to your local media, get an appeal out for witnesses. You'd be amazed what can turn up if the community turns on someone from righteous indignation. ~~ Today I have been doing admin, including filling out a personal statement in the third person. It's incerdibly creepy. I feel like that guy from Silence of the Lambs.

Arrested? for what? For being racially abusive. Although personally I think a simple offence of being uncouth would have done. You don't just harangue people on the bus.

I like to think of myself as Watson. Maybe a little slow, but willing to go all in for a good cause. Hence it annoys the bojangles off me when he's portrayed as a buffoon. He's not. He's an army doctor who fought on the front line in Afghanistan, and lived in India. He has huge knowledge of the world, and knows a fair bit about women. He does not deserve to be portrayed as a simpleton, just so that lazy scriptwriters can get away with straight exposition of key points rather than conveying them properly.

Damn good point.

I find it quirky that there's that whole "show skin/flash flesh" and people get considered to have lower intelligence, lower self-control etc.. And I'm thinking of the various girls I knew at university who were studying to be doctors, nurses, etc... who paid their bills by working at some of the.. a.. gentleman's clubs in the area. Fascinating. I believe we should immediately set up a commission of enquiry to study whether poledancing should be made mandatory for zesty college girls. Further I believe this is too important to play politics with, and to demonstrate and underscore the urgency of this commission, I shall reach out and ask Mkreku to chair.

Well, North Americans do sometimes write 31st of December, 2011 as 12/31/11 or 2011-12-31, so it might have been a fair question Indeed. Listen up North America: 28.06.11 = Fine 11.06.28 = Fine 06.28.11 = INSANE Or perhaps I've missed a million other examples where formatting is done out of ordinal sequence?

All I can say is, go back to the drugs. Speaking of which: .

I'm confused, Raithe. Are you saying that if we want to solve the global financial crisis then the G8 leaders should wear wifebeaters?

Yes, although I'm not against austerity per se. I just mean we need to face the fact that we're going to be in a period of austerity and adapt. My question then is: what now? Do we all train as navvies, or something? Go abroad? Invade Austria? There must be some better option for all our unemployed to do than sit about on the dole. So what is it?

It looks as if the next few years are going to be bleak in the UK. My question is, what businesses are going to do well? Organised crime? Gin? Harlots? Toaster makers?

You... you forced their heads into a concrete ceiling, then set their asses on fire?

I probably will lump for minecraft. But all the same, it would be good to have something a bit more technical. I should explain she's fourteen, very fierce, but suffers from a bunch of ailments which mean she enjoys playing at home as a bit less manic an option than with schoolfriends.

I probably already mentione dthis, but a mate of mine met a bunch of Ubisoft guys at a training conference this year. They were _obsessed_ with piracy as if it were mice eating their money. Obsessed with clamping down on something that's bloody difficult rather than leveraging income up in other ways.