Calax

I know Gatsby was on my reading list, as was TKM. I think the teacher had us read LOTR at one point (either that 1984 or something else, we got to pick), but beyond that I don't remember much else.

agreed also the wirework was pretty shabby. someone would get hit, pause for a second, then fly through the air suddenly I watched it again and couldn't help but notice that the Angel fight, dispite how they shot it, felt REALLY slow. Not in terms of the coreography or anything, but when they were flying I felt like if they had been on land there would be cars trying to zip around them.

Mancard Table NAO!

Nothing in my toilet has a radioactive glow. Just a kind of funky smell. Just imagine the glow as scent issues.

That looks like something you'd find in a toilet.

Oh, and for the record it's 92 degrees, but humidity makes it feel like 106 (62% humidity) with the peak at 96/110 F Or for you Centigrade users it's currently 34 feeling like 42

My buildings air is borked... again. This is the third time this month.

So, when am I gonna be fighting instead of just directing a race?

See, the ones I have are just the title on a colored backround with a crest. Those covers remind me of the covers of the Eddings books that I have where it's obvious there is a MUCH larger painting that they just didn't want to show you because the title and authors names have to be 1/3rd of the cover each.

Wasn't part of the BskyB strategy that he'd get that, then kill off the BBC's government support so that he could slowly move in and take a much larger marketshare?

Personally, there's a bit of a graphics nut in me. right now many things made around the turn of the millenium I just can't play because the resolution won't go up high enough, and I just can't stand the graphics (and often for those games I'd have to shut off my secondary monitor to get it to work right). Certain games I can get along with, Deus Ex, Homeworld 2, and other more sprite/stylized games I can deal with because they age REALLY well, but others? Eeeehhhhhhhhhhhhhhh Also Playing: City of Heroes Team Fortress 2 MTW2:K (blast you english history course!) Bad Company 2 Trying to get into X3 Mount and Blade Mafia 2 Forza III Uhh, and that's all... the two major ones are City of Heroes, and Bad Company at the moment.

It'd be interesting what would happen if Murdoch is ousted. I'd expect that once he did, the backlash of the stockholders might de-politicize to a degree the News sector.

*monocle falls out* No "By JOVE!?" ?

NSFW SC2 game commentary. I find it funny for the in game smack talk.

You would hate the saga of recluce. I really don't know how the hell L.E. Modesitt Jr can make buying boots and cleaning sewers so fascinating. I can do it the first time in books, but when you're going through a second time on a book and know that there's this major turning point around THERE, you really get annoyed at slogging through the roticery chicken discussion and the discussion on how person A is sleeping with Person B and Person C is unwittingly being lesbian.

Congrats, but I think your wife deserves most of the credit here. Shouldn't it be "we had a baby"?

Sudan better hope it's China. We're the US' oldest serious ally and we get **** all. That's because the US is a rebellious son of England. Now I'm imagining a personification of America screaming that he's not going to go to bed on time because he's a big boy now... right before collapsing in a heap of sleeping.

second day of my English History (from 1500 to 1725). The teacher can be quite hilarious. He's a brit, and tends to spend about half the time talking about anywhere NOT England proper (like Wales, Scotland and Ireland) in rather demeaning terms (respectively, sheep buggers, uncivilized ginger incorrigible bastards, and ... Irish). This is in between poking fun at the students (I was called arrogant for how I said my name, guy named Devon was poked fun at for having a girls name), and discussing population growth and migration in England during the relevant period, and how that growth interacted with other factors to turn the 1590's into the worst decade for the Brits in history.

I kinda hate Edding's Elenium and Tamuli. Mainly because they're the exact same book, but also because they seem to mostly ignore half of the consequences of what is set up. The main character is a knight of the church, who also just happens to be one of the highest ranking figures in the political hierarchy of a country. They sort of hand wave the entire thing with "well the country will NEVER stray from the chuches ideals!" Probably the biggest thing is the books approach to politics. Guys who have little to no experiance in a political arena are able to easily out politik the career politicians in both church and state, even if they've been gone for two years and the entire political landscape has changed. The entire thing reads like a Catholics wet dream of western europe (the most powerful military is the churches, and all of society is basically controlled by the church except for a few people who easily could be strong-armed into anything).

Except that that email is so hyper-exaggerated in order to make more of an impact it's stupid. Does it have a few good points? Maybe, but it also ignores the realities of life and how things have changed since 1776. The religion thing is big because as a part of preventing the estabilshment is making sure that Jonny Numbnuts who wants to score a few points doesn't put a giant christian crucifix on the front of the capitol building and then declare holy war on his citizens. As to the supreme court, it treats it like the justices are able to reach into the legislature, pluck a law, and change how it works just by shrugging and wiggling. There is a very firm legal process to get to the point where the supreme court even considers looking at a case. Never mind the fact that the Supreme Court has to deal with a document written in a 1776 mindset where anyone not white is considered 3/5ths of a whitey, and they have to reconcile that with "All men are created equal". Also, it's kinda obvious that that email was written in the 90's under Clinton given that there hasn't been a surplus since that point. This was also the rise of the militia movements who weren't really restricted unless they decided to yank out their AR's and go after feds.

I think one of the big things in song of ice and fires ally that it actually went through and mostly explained wtf was going on and kept the most central characters fairly central and easy to keep track of (in the first book). One of the things that's holding me back about erikson is just the fact that there's a cast of characters that's long enough to make a dress from, and half the Bridgeburners get barely any screen time to set in the readers heads. I admit, the first book of the Song was fantastic, if a bit in need of an editor, but it feels like things have just gone straight downhill from there. As to Erikson and Cook, Cook I think is making a bit of a come back with his "Instrumentalities of the Night" books (which is sort of what Song of Ice and Fire WOULD be if it didn't require 3 pages to describe somebody eating, and 5 to describe their random sexual encounters), and I'm slowly getting into Erikson personally, but he seems to have a pretty good following. I will say this, GRRM has a better grasp of politics than Eddings (Oh hey! I just got back from 2 years exile and out manuvered a career politician! How bout that!) or Terry Goodkind (who just ignores politics in favor of magical plot device that makes subjects love Ter- I mean Richard).

So, you're saying that the quarter of that document that deals with the fact that "DAMNIT THIS COUNTRY BE RELIGIOUS YO! AND YOU GOTTA BE PIOUS!" is perfectly dead on?

So, basically, A Song of Ice and Fire is the new Lord of the Rings.... except you're free to call it bad writing. (Seriously, why is LOTR considered like this godly creation of a writer? WHY!? I hated the book when I read it)

I'm at 11 right now, I can probably pick up at least one more today

Bought Mafia 2 on a whim during the sale. Honestly? I don't understand why I'm playing this... I mean, it's ok fun, but it's so frustrating at the same time. I think Yahtzee made a very good point in that the game just doesn't NEED the open world. It would have been better if there was a simple, linear progression with you playing the door gunner and such, compared to this "We wanna be GTA!" stuff where there is NOTHING to do. Also, the whole "Your car gets damaged" malarky in these sorts of games needs to get stuffed. I'm sorry, but unless they have a button that makes it so you only go the speed limit, and have the same amount of control as you do in a REAL car, you're gonna hit stuff. And while I don't expect my car to be an invincible tank, I also don't expect it to crumple every time I boink something because of the fact that games like these suck for drivers.