Maedhros

Has anyone tried Aarklash: legacy? Party-based RPG that's on sale now (40%). Might wait for an eventual 75% discount, but is it any good?

There's nothing from The Silmarillion (or Unfinishes Tales) in the movies, as they don't have the rights to it. Some of the background information comes from the appendices in Lord of the Rings, but it's mostly just fan fiction from PJ . I just wish they'd make two movies instead of one. There's too much new material that makes little sense, and doesn't make the movies better. Gandalf going to High Fells (why?), Silly romance triangle, Radagast Binks, drawn out fights, etc. Bilbo says it best: "I feel thin, sort of stretched, like butter scraped over too much bread." I'm obviously arguing from a Tolkien fanboys' point of view, but I loved Lord of the Rings despite of all the changes they made there. Those actually made sense for the most part. I can't shake the feeling that the studio producers have had much more influence on this triology, sadly. One positive thing though, I loved Thranduil! Lee Pace being impressive as always.

Oh is that out now? I won't see it in the theater but I suppose my usual "I saw the first one" means I'll see it when it's on PPV. I didn't like the first one much tho. It wasn't bad, exactly - just boring. Sometimes magic can't be done twice. The first Hobbit film suffered from poor pacing due to all of the shoe-horning of Silmarillion material in there to pad it out to a trilogy. Most of the scenes that aren't in the novel is just fan fiction from Petter Jackson, with a few exceptions. They don't have the rights to Silmarillion or Unfinished Tales. Agree that all those new scenes totally messed up the pacing though. Desolation of Smaug as a movie fails because they're trying to make a lighthearted adventure novel into an epic to match Lord of the Rings. Never gonna work, and they should've focused on what makes the Hobbit a good novel - Bilbo's adventure. All that other stuff is irrelevant to the story of The Hobbit. They had the right idea when they expanded the Bard character, as he kinda appeared out of nowhere in the book, but pretty much everything else just lessens the experience. Why did they think it was a good idea to keep -------- Top 5 movies this year: 1. The Act of Killing 2. Prisoners 3. Rush 4. Before Midnight 5 The East

Desolation of Smaug. Worst movie made in the Middle-earth universe so far (and that includes those cartoons from the 70s).

Bernadotte. Not one of the better marshalls and he actively hated Napoleon despite, iirc, being his brother in law. In a vaguely on topic observation it was one of his descendants who the Stern Gang (or was it the Irgun/ Haganah?) murdered just prior to the partition of Palestine when he was trying to mediate for the UN. Should have gone for one of: Davout- as best marshall MacDonald- could establish a chain of restaurants equivalent to Ikea in ubiquitousness, also possibility of forming United Kingdom of Sweden and Scotland in a year or so time to compensate for losing Norway's North Sea petrodollars. Plus Etienne MacDonald is a very cool name. Poniatowski, despite being a mere general- epically trolling P/Russia and Austria and as a sort of reverse Gustav Adolphus, plus lots of free cores on Poland and Lithuania. Bernadotte was probably more suited to be king than most of the other marshalls. In many ways he was similar to Napoleon, with that "larger than life" quality that made him such a good leader of men. Skill in the field doesn't necessarily mean you're suited to be king though. Someone as cold and stern as Davout isn't king-material for example. In general, the french marshalls under Napoleon were mostly all pretty badass, here is one example: http://www.infobarrel.com/The_Silver_Tongued_Frenchman_Marshal_Lannes_Stunning_Capture_of_Tabor_Bridge

Not sure what you mean by there not being a lot to do? Dota can be a very hectic game, you're always supposed to do something. The charm of it is the endless potential of how good you can play as a team. Playing it alone, with random internet strangers isn't very fun. Considering buying Europa Universalis III, but I'm still having so much fun with Crusader Kings II. How does it compare to it?

He also happens to be an accomplished actor. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UOV3ghVxVkY (How to embed youtube videos here?) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mF6J1afUzjQ

In no particular order: The Smiths - The Queen is Dead Radiohead - Ok Computer Wilco - Yankee Hotel Foxtrot The Eels - Electro-shock blues Beach Boys - Pet Sounds The Cure - Disintegration Sufjan Stevens - Illinoise The Beatles - Sgt. Pepper's Led Zeppelin - IV Pink Floyd - Animals

I think the death penalty is one of those things you have to leave behind if you want to head towards a better society. Humans shouldn't have the lawful right to kill other humans. However I suppose it's easy to be naive about these sort of things, when you live in relatively peaceful Norway. After the Breivik-massacre the mantra in the country, including the people who lost their friends and family was "more humanity, more democracy, more love" etc, rather than "off with his head". So it's definitely possible to be anti-death penalty even if you've lost loved ones.

I've heard death penalties are usually more expensive than giving someone lifetime without parole. Googled it: http://www.acadp.org/contents/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=40:costs&catid=14 http://www.deathpenalty.org/article.php?id=42

Finished Heart of the Swarm. Was alright, but nothing special. If you didn't like WoL, chances are you won't like this one either. For me the quality of Starcraft lies in e-sport. Watching the pros play in front of large audiences is awesome. To the people worrying about a Starcraft MMO - don't. Blizzard has said their next MMO is going to be something completely new, and not related to SC/WC/Diablo.

Might not be everyone's cup of tea here, but this is my favorite song of 2013, so far: 2013 list (spotify link(shameless self-promotion))

Scandinavian girls in the "big" cities are the best (no bias here ). Healthy, fit and educated. It's impossible to walk around in the city here (Trondheim) without noticing the sheer amount of pretty girls. It's not that the best looking girls here are better looking than the best looking from other countries. It's just that there are so bloody many of them (relative to the population). Too bad everyone uses chewing tobacco (snus) though. New York (Manhattan) had a lot of stunners as well. Wasn't too impressed by the other places I visited in the US though - Miami surprised me in that it had an insane amount of fat people everywhere.

Moonstone: A Hard Day's Knight. Don't really remember much from it, except that it was scary as hell for a 6 year old, especially that swamp monster. :D http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=uvS4uhVXkmM

Duncan Jones is a very talented director, so that's good news for the Warcraft movie.

So you do think it could've been better?

I thought the Hobbit movie was very fun to watch, but I still had a lot of beefs with it. The Fellowship of the Ring, which it kinda parallels in structure, was a much better movie. I know I'm sounding negative now, but I'm just a bit frustrated since it could've been so much better.

The Hobbit. Barely noticed it was running in 48 fps, so don't really see what all the negative fuzz is about. There were some dissapointments, but overall I enjoyed the movie, and looking forward to the next one. Liked the inclusion of other stuff Tolkien has written about, one flashback in particular was amazing.

I've only tried a couple of the games released this year, and found them all to be underwhelming: Mass Effect 3, Mists of Pandaria, Guild Wars 2, Diablo 3 and Dishonored. Gonna buy Football Manager 2013 soon, guessing that will be my GotY, they're always good.

Dota 2 is pretty much the only game I play nowadays. Such a fantastic remake of Warcraft 3's best custom game. Feels just the same, only with a better matchmaking system, prettier graphics and a much better interface. (PM me if you want the game for free btw. Got 2 invites to give out).

What are you talking about? I simply replied to a post where someone was wondering why Palestine didn't try to "give peace a chance", and gave one reason (of many) why it's not so simple. I completely detest both Hamas and its supporters, so stop putting words in my mouth you silly goose. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-evIyrrjTTY&feature

AGX-17 answered this some posts above. The Israeli have proven time and time again that diplomacy with them is useless. In "peace time" the Isreali simply spend their time systematically stealing Palestinian homes and land.

Did you watch the trimmed down western release? Because there are two movies really, they mashed them together and left out a lot of stuff for the western audience. It's based on my favorite period in history, so I quite enjoyed it. But the 2010 miniseries Three Kingdoms was better (of which the Red Cliff part is 10-12 episodes or so). Cao Cao (the "villain") is a much more nuanced and interesting character in that.

Wow, banana on pizza? Never heard of that before. I'm pretty bad at making the "perfect combinations", but I love garlic- or chili marinated shrimps on pizza. A simple pizza with only some mozarella and green pesto can be nice, too. Us Norwegians often use something called "rømme" as well. It's kinda like sour cream, except not as sour I guess. A more milky taste, kinda hard to explain. It makes for a really good contrast when you add it to spicy pizzas.

Pretty much anything David Simon touches turns to gold. The Wire, Homicide (based on his book), Generation Kill, Treme, The Corner...all very good.