Walsingham

1) I don't own an ipod, nor have I operated one. I am sure they are good in their fashion. 2) If, like me, you are a bit of a cheapskate, bear in mind that you are going to be using the system for a while. I opted for a creative labs muvo because even when it becomes obsolete for playing mp3s it will still function as USB memory storage and as a very convenient dictaphone (and radio although I don't use it). Even before it becomes obsolete the muvo functions as my one-stop-shop gadget, carrying most of my work files, a couple of albums, and recording meetings. You may not think having a dictaphone is actually much use, but you'd be surprised how they can come in useful. I've used mine to record shirty sales staff, and also to record the tales of aged relatives. I even used it once to record directions from a passer by.

Extremism of most kinds appears resurgent in recent years. We must be more intolerant of intolerance, cornsarnit!

I understand the logic of tattoos, but they can be professionally limiting, so I never had any.

I think perhaps an elegant compromise would a 'cretinous oath', for people such as this gentleman.

One water-cooled maxim gun. The water gets pretty hot though. Tommies used to seakily use them for boiling water for tea. Which meant the oppo could see your MG points and plot them for arty, but you need tea more than life, yes?

Hey, you dance pretty good! *joins in*

iirc You are correct. 1) Several replacements are better 2) Any barrel develops wear and tear from firing. So you have to replace at some point anyway. 3) Most non water-cooled Mgs have replaceable barrels for sustained fire. I seem to remember that the Italian MG from ww2 had no handle for grasping the barrels so you had to swap out one that was red hot, with bits of cloth! ...Ah my mis-spent youth...

All I have so far received this Christmas is a cancelled contract for work in the New Year. Cornsarnit. But I am well fed, warm, and about to go defrost the chicken. Later I shall have some fine ale, and make a plum duff. I therefore feel pretty good.

A merry Christmas to one and all! May your plum duffs not explode and kill you.

I choose kamikaze santa.

I'd have to say turn based for games with a party of players, and non-turn for solo games. Dialog, obviously needs to slow down so everyone has time to read what's happening.

You're confusing 'noob' with 100 year old monkey corpses again, aren't you?

This has shown me I have no recognisable photos of me in electronic format. How pleasing.

Er... curare also paralyses the heart muscles. Which is, like, bad 'n' stuff. The point is, however, that if the mechanism of attack leaves the individual with any motor control for the 0.25 of a second required to press a switch, then it's adios amigo, should they be carrying a bomb. Bullets are the simplest, cost effective, and reliable way to inflict this level of damage. The explosive decompression things is, as already said, not a serious issue with a bullet hole. Although the cabin would not be a fun place to be until the crew brought the plane down from its cruising altitude. I don't fancy tasers myself. Aren't they basically single-shot?

- The players decide to sneak away from the scene of a crime unobtrusively rather than setting fire to everything. Or was that just us?

Even lethal wounds don't stop you immediately. Think zombie movie. Destroy the head or sever the brainstem. Unfortunately it seems from the BBC that the man was known to another passenger as being mentally unstable. So I think this may be a rather sad event where someone chose the wrong moment to indulge their psychotic delusions. Still say the marshals had the right procedure, even so.

Are you nuts? Like people are safe. People taste like pig. Hence the expression 'long pig'. I would assume that, irrespective of evolution, the fact that chimps catch many of the same diseases, and are used in chemical weapons trials, that their flesh is comparable. Hence, tasting like pig.

Do you think he could be trained up to the required standard? Perhaps we could send him a message, to attend the Obsidian heroes college. We can give him daily missions. That way he can build up to the big ones.

I have to agree with Commissar. There is quite simply nothing illegal or even unusual about a state as fractious as Iran buying arms. And realistically we cannot prevent anyone selling them such weapons. After all, while they do improve the state's capacity to wage war, they do not in themselves permit a form of attack (bar some slightly hamfisted poaching at passing planes). However, what this does do is ramp up the tension, because anyone wanting to have a pop at them would be well advised to do so before they can get fully trained up on the new hardware.

Does anyone know anything about the Indonesian 'state' religion, I think it is called Pancalism. Sort of enshrines mutual acceptance as a law.

We have those archaic laws so we can hit people with ceremonial maces. Like the one in the house of Commons. I actually think JFK discussed this best in a speech I read of his recently: http://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/j...rialspeech.html One part in particular seems relevant: "I believe in an America where the separation of church and state is absolute; where no Catholic prelate would tell the President -- should he be Catholic -- how to act, and no Protestant minister would tell his parishioners for whom to vote; where no church or church school is granted any public funds or political preference, and where no man is denied public office merely because his religion differs from the President who might appoint him, or the people who might elect him." But I also think it is nonsense to talk about a complete rejection of religion. Many people derive their morality from their religion. Many of those have very workable and easy to get along with moralities as a consequence. Should we somehow screen for that when they vote? I don't think so. But I do feel that prosletyisation, and any notion of trying to save people by conversion should be frowned upon*, and that secular lawmaking should make no reference whatever to religious 'law'. *Like this *demonstrates by hoiking face into a terrifying rictus*

Can you boil tea with water-cooling, like on an old lewis gun?

Not Yakman?

I rather liked Jan Janssen's account of being a god in BG2.

I liked that episode. I especially liked how Bender really tried to make a go of being responsible. But it went all wrong.