Walsingham

Absolutely what I was about to say. I suck at being original.

I think I must have beaten the odds to come up with teh least efficient means of testing the different souls. AND I got truned into a chicken twice.

I hat eto say it, but did anyone else think Mask of the Betrayer was stupendously cool, and had many elements of PST type coolness? I certainly thought the companions were awesome, particularly the way you actually ahd to think about who wthey were and what they were going through to get the right answers.

Actually, I think you've come up with something even smarter than my suggestion. I was trying to say that the things that make you strong/smart/independent can prevent you from availing yourself of some augmentations. Because you're unwilling/unable to surrender enough of that quality to let it be augmented. *snaps his fingers* I guess the family thread set me thinking. I have friends who are almost completely independent. You know, travel around Yemen etc etc. But they can't surrender that enough to make close contact with family. they can't draw on it because... because they're too used to finding their strength and resources internally. Maybe.

Simple. Those fancy bath salts are actually just balls of gravy granules. Which also explains your delightful sour meat aroma. EDIT: I've been going through some old stuff. I found a valentine's card from way back which the girl in question returned amongst albums and so on (ouch). My inscription reads "I wanted to send you poetry, but the only poetry I could think of was the poetry of the line of your lips, and the rhythm of your kiss." I used to be smooth, man. Now look at me. *sigh*

Rather like Cant I agree more strongly with point one than point two. I don't think the surge in troop numbers was key per se. As has been widely reported an influx of boots doesn't equal increased effect when effectiveness comes from the local knowledge and understanding in the boots. The whole concept of a surge was bizarre in counter-insurgency terms. I wouldn't like to dismiss point tow until you've had a chance to elaborate, but I must say I don't like it one bit. If Coalition troops had left two years ago then these chaps wouldn't have had the opportunity to wise up. The only other option I can think you might be suggesting is 1) An immediate postwar pullout 2) A non-Coalition nations UN mission, I can't see how the former would work. I can see the latter working only too well, given the stand up jobs France, Russia, and China have made of Chechnya, Rwanda, Chad, Sudan, and the DRC. Sorry if this sounds aggressive, but right now I just don't understand your option.

NO. I said armed.

Another report charting progress in country. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/7116717.stm Abul Abed, former insurgent: "At the beginning, people saw it as an occupation which had to be resisted. But then they saw that the Americans were working in the interests of the people. "They saw al-Qaeda doing terrible things. They were killing Sunnis, Shias, and Christians. There were bodies everywhere, being eaten by dogs. So we had to fight them," Abul Abed said.

I heard the radio adaptation of this. Really very good. Made me think of Sando.

I decided cold sandwiches were out, so I got some smoked salmon, horseradish, and fresh spinach in the wok. It was... fresh, original and tasty, but at the same time totally not what I wanted.

Maybe it's the avatar, but I kind of picture you cursing in a constant stream anyway. The way badgers do.

What, no takers?

I've been thinking about stuff in RL, and it occurred to me that some thing sin life are neat, but to get the best of them you have to be weak in certain areas. For example, some people gain tremendous strength from being in a cult, but to get that strength they have to be sufficiently weak to connect to it. It just occurred to me that some super-powerful items in games ought to be predicated not on minimum stats, but maximum stats. Thoughts?

1) By 1918 it was virtually impossible for germany to win any snese of occupying the whole of France. They had neither manpower nor logisitics to support such an offensive victory. However, in the face of large offensive gains by Germany then a peace might have been negotiable. It is true that the French leaders were bellicose in the extreme, but the British weere becoming increasingly tired of this attitude of being willing to "Fight to the last Englishman". Such a negotiated peace could go many ways. On the one hand it could be seen as a mark of sense in high places overriding the military establishments. IN this case it could have lead to an era of monarchism predicated on peace. On the other hand if such negotiations came after offensive gains then the troops might still feel stabbed in the back, as they did in real history. Germany would still have been an economic mess either way, and unrest would have been certain. In the face of such unrest we might have seen an influx of Bolshevik agents. We might have traded Nazi Germany for a superpowered Eastern Bloc. 2) The impact of US troops was significant in many ways, although not as significant as they would have liked to think. They were fresh, and enthusiastic, and well armed. But they were also tactically very inexperienced. However, while their value is debateable, what is not is that they had the mnpower reserves to grind Germany up using the attritional operations of the day. This knowledge drive the Germans to make peace without fighting to the death. Undoubtedly it saved tens if not hundreds of thousands of lives. 3) Had the United states declared in the favour of the Western Allies at the outset, the Central Powers could not possibly have hoped to win, given teh combined power of France, Britain, Russia, and the United States. When the line solidified in 1915 I suggest that peace would have been inevitable.

I don't deny that the USA was strategically beaten in Vietnam. I am asking whether it was a phyrric victory in the sense that at least proved a speed bump to further expansion. Had it not been for the US at least trying to halt communism the South would have possibly fallen by 1968 if not before. Don't lets forget that besides time the communists lost something between 1 and 2 _million_ casualties. Which is a sizeable chunk who could have been later used in the domino process I already described. I've forgotten, though, what the relevance is to world war. Oh yes, isolationism. Let's see.. first half of the century an isolationist USA, and two world wars. Second half of the century an involved USA, and no world wars.

I also had a rather fragmented family life. Parents moved around quite a bit. Fought quite a bit. Got divorced. Mad as badgers in the bayou. Sent to boarding school. Demanded to stay in boarding school. I suppose teh idea for this occurred to me because on the one hand my grandfather is in hospital, and I feel like he's been a huge part of my life but never really knew. On the other hand I just woke up to the fact that I have a niece, who I grotesquely bad with, but who adores me. She's only five but she seems to think an uncle who pretends to be a pig and lets her hunt him around the house with a nerf gun is the pinnacle of entertainment. I also buy her ice-cream when she is brave.

I now have the exact same problem, but much stickier.

I wouldn't object to that. I don't buy the notion of society as a general rule.

I was wondering what to do with all these damn hazelnuts so I cooked up a panful with sugar, cinnamon, salt and black pepper. They're actually very good.

I must say that as more of my friends get children I start to wonder about the importance of having a family. It's inconvenient and expensive, and constraining, but... I don't know.

With Christmas coming up I thought it might be interesting to hear what people tought about and felt about family. I know some of us are also having problems with family members being very sick, but I hope this won't cause problems. Who are your family? Are they nice? Are they getting nicer? Where does family end? Where does it begin? Are parents really sensible people to leave in charge of a child? Woudl life be better if we didn't have families but came out of pods? What are your best memories of your family?

Always fresh, never fails.

Cool. Now, to be a bit more risky, what IF the reason we're struggling with them is that in fact society is working, rather than failing? It's easy to get these things because we are prosperous, and there are a lot of safety nets to catch us when we do overindulge. Like alka-seltzer and re-runs of Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

Chocolate Mouse Nazi. they're sweet, but evil, and high in fat. And a vermin. But cute vermin. It works.

I think they do. They are our way of tapping into the hidden undercurrents of our minds, by showing associations, mainly. I did kill the person concerned. They were horrible, and standing in the way of my getting a lot of money. Actually I'm not sure what was more horrifying. The fact that I killed them, or the fact that I tried to conceal the body in an inflated air mattress then forgot about it.