Walsingham

I now have beer, and later maybe some malt whisky. But for now I have beer and Firefly.

Lancer, you seriously have to calm down. Give me your definition of a good villain and weight the two fethers against it. Or I should say that if your definition is simply how closely they adhere to some kiddy definition of bad dude - big fellah taking over stuff full of self overcomplex plans being scuppered by plucky hero - then maybe Sarevok is a better villain. But then I say nuts to villains. I don't want them in my damn games.

Am I a gimp for objecting to double posting?

I decided to drink some beer and watch Firefly. I can report that I am far far more pleased than I would be playing Civ III.

other examples?

Adding Ai players just adds heads to the hydra. I am considering playing with less AI to see if this improves matters. I suspect however that I will merely be proving the triumph of optimism over experience. Incidentally, when playing Civ III my computer keeps just dropping out of the game with no explanation and no save. Could it be something I am doing?

Thinks about this. Women generally like things like offerrings of food in the morning. They also enjoy a bit of 'prayer' - saying how great they are, how you will always worship them etc etc.

Are they Drizzt fanbois, or something?

We mentioned the insane trading strategies of the AIs in the previous Civ thread. King Walsingham - "I could squash you like an ant, babylon, but in a spirit of enlightenment I will offer to trade you silk for fur, one for one. A gentleman's trade between equals." Chief Mbonkwemafutu: "No dice, you crazy hippy! I demand three luxuries for my one." King Walsingham - "My army outnumbers you four to one and they are poised on your borders. Please I implore you to avert the bloodshed." Chief Mbonkwemafutu: *insane cackling* King Walsingham - "Oh, for f**ks sake..." *squishes stupid country and takes fur by force*

I'd never heard of the guy until BG1. This twit turns up saying something about a 'merry dance' and I swear to God it was hate at first sight. Him turning up in BG2 was just a huge fething insult. However what was worse was I'm normally a very placid chap, but my blood was boiling that day. Unbelievably lame.

If it had been a PnP encounter at that point in the game I would physically have eaten the bodies, and melted down their kit. I hate that fething elf.

Huzzah for Kirottu being drunk. I'm going to get a beer.

Reading through I still say Irenicus over Sarevok, because: 1) I actually wanted to kill Irenicus, irrespective of playing as good or evil. He takes my party away, then he takes my kit away, then he takes me away from home, then he takes my SOUL. Then he gloats excessively. Then he refuses to die. 2) More importantly, Irenicus was more active as an enemy. He did all kind of things, Sarevok does absolutely nothing. He hires some mercenaries, . Moreover, we know precisely how thuggishly simple Sarevok is in ToB when he joins your fething party, you nitwit. He's all, like, "Gee I dunno. I suppose I was traumatised at an early age and just wanted to be loved. Or something"

I don't hold with this "try anything once notion". If you feel like spending a bunch of money every single month just to make people the other side of the world impresssed, or maybe improving yourself, contribute to a charity. Otherwise, http://www.somethingawful.com/articles.php?a=3060

I didn't know they had that option in BG2, even though I've played it a bajillion times. Now THAT is weird.

Good points.

:D

Incidentally I saw a fantastic right wing spinner on ITV last night claiming that while a higher percentage of Americans lived below the poverty line than there were in, say, France, American poor people had a higher standard of living! More likely to have a car, washer-dryer, and so on. I don't know if either fact is true, but I had to admire his cheek. "Send us your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free. We will make them stylish and full of moxie. Or something." And Commissar, I like the idea of a diplomat who loses his temper. Might not work in all cultures but some people do react to that. And I assume you are here referring to Wilford Brimley.

Are you kidding. I wouldn't date God. That would raise all kinds of Oedipal questions.

Why do I have an image of Jags as the monkey? Jags, you're really one of those chimps from the System Shock laboratory, aren't you ...? :ph34r: <{POST_SNAPBACK}> Oooooh... I hate those endlessly respawning monkeys.

I use my brain to ignore the itchy spot. It is not as hard as you might think. This ties into research on IQ which suggests that if tests were not periodically normalised then the evidence suggests we are very much smarter now than when they were first introduced. Something like 5% of people today are of 'genius' standard by comparison with the first studies. And I can NEVER remember the name of that phenomenon. :">

Ender - Step 1: Accept that it engineers assessing the levees were on record as stating the levees would not stand a category 4 or 5 hurricane. Step 2: Accept that the storm was predicted to hit category four or five. Step 3: Combine steps 1 and 2. ~ Irrespective of the responsibility of the federal government to pay for the levees being kept up to scratch, which doesn't bother me, FEMA and the DHS have responsibility for organising relief and support in the event of disasters. thsi has not been done effectively or efficiently. Moreover, as I stated before (maybe my posts are too long) the president is less to blame for not acting when it happened, and more for installing poor leaders in his administration, and for permitting a negative culture of buck-passing to persist. He is also to blame for not being better informed about steps 1-3 above, and recognising they entailed a disaster down the line. I'm not happy about blaming the majority of people for not leaving. I don't see that all of them could, having neither transportation, nor housing waiting for them, nor secure jobs to come back to if it turned out to be a false alarm. Those aspects should have been looked at when evacuation was recognised as the only option.

That monkey can marry my sister any day.

I don't hold out much hope. It depresses me to see what the celebrity of soccer, and teh money has done to the firey young man Owen once was.

The budget thing is totally spurious. Bush was lined up to cut Federal aid for anything he could even if he'd never thought of Iraq. Moreover, the US doesn't use real money any more. If the gov wants a few billion it just magics it out of the banks. The genius of not being on the gold standard. You have no real limits. Anyway, a more pressing point is that the handling of the relief work was below par for many other countries. There was a surfeit of equipment and manpower, which was crippled and uncoordinated. My understanding is that this is failure of the culture of leadership in both the military and govt. Rather than individuals as such. The individuals are at fault, but if you want to fix it you need to do more than just fire a couple of people. The culture in question is one where people are promoted for towing the line, and not rocking the boat. For being yes men, rather than focussed on their jobs. Such people are common everywhere but they are a disease, and must be fought tooth and nail. On a related note, reflecting on Bush's statements I'm not certain he is bonkers on this occasion. I find it more likely that he was not told how serious it would be by the packs of yes men beneath him. Nor was he told the leadership was weak. By the same yes men. On the other hand organisational studies have shown that dogmatic highly religious leaders attract yes men and actively persecute anyone who disagrees with them by painting bad pictures. So maybe it does come back to teh Chief in the end.