alanschu

AD&D purists are turning in their skin now.

Congrats. Even more importantly, both the Canucks and Leafs aren't in the playoffs! )

Sounds like it's done a good job of perpetuating its status of it then. You say straight up that as far back as ancient Greece, classical music was for the selected elite. This just sounds typical of elitists not liking something that's new. Society projects an aura of sophistication about liking "high arts" such as the Opera and whatnot. Not surprisingly, being a fan of high culture tends to be more expensive than pop culture. Society's elite has been using it as a way to separate themselves from the "general population" for generations. People are so quick to say that the only reason why Britney Spears is so popular is not because of her talent, but because of the executives that have marketted her so well. It couldn't possibly be that the state of classical music and high culture is also effectively marketted, and has been for quite some time.

I never had the idea that that's what this thread was about. I do think that some people are "luckier" than others. But that's only with just dumb luck (and often hard work).

Err, isn't that exactly what luck is? If I win 40 consecutive rounds of blackjack, I'd say I was pretty lucky.

I'm going to take a slightly different approach, and feel that the conception that smarter people appreciate jazz and classical over pop because society has placed that expectation to.

What are incidents of good fortune then? And why did you say you were really lucky at little things? Why do you not believe in luck?

I saw V for Vendetta and Thank You for Smoking. Both very entertaining movies.

Oh noes!

When it rains it pours. But you don't believe in luck

Exactly. Given the fact that you weren't hurt or anything, the focus goes to the car. Had your neck been broken, I doubt you'd be too concerned about the shape your car is in. Ironically, this even relates a bit to happiness as measured by wealth

I am curious if a good chunk of the population explosion could be attributed to the lack of clerics, rather than just the powerful nature of the cleric. I remember making a priest in WoW, smiply because on the server I was on there wasn't very many.

I'd be surprised if players like Bertuzzi and Naslund are still on the team next September.

Fair enough, but even then it's difficult to say because we aren't in their shoes. I agree with astr0creep that it is relative. Of course, it's probably a fair conclusion that places that are war torn or suffer from some other sort of disaster would feel less lucky than someone that doesn't. Though I don't think this has any place in a discussion with respect to a third world country either. I doubt France was a happy place when it was under German occupation. Same goes for the Japanese living in Hiroshima. Both countries certainly would not be considered 3rd world (though to be honest I'm not sure what classification Japan would have, as they don't conform to the often misunderstood definitions of 1st, 2nd, and 3rd world nations....I guess technically it would be 3rd world....though Germany probably would be as well). Studies published in the peer-reviewed Journal of Happiness Studies have found that failure to meet basic needs does cause unhappiness, but excess material wealth beyond that does not result in an increase in happiness. Which does make sense. I would suspect that there may be an increased feeling of being "unlucky" in a place like Afghanistan because it is war torn. But at the same time it might not be that unreasonable that many people, such as the men that were now allowed to shave, or the athletes that competed in the summer Olympics, it was a bit more "lucky" than previously. But this would not have anything to do with the "3rd world" status of the country.

Sounds like you could conclude good luck from your experience. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> No, the bad luck is more long term. Now there's no way I'll ever be able to sell it so it's gonna be that much harder to buy a new more fuel efficient car. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> Or.... The fact that you came away from incident unscathed, with no permanent (and perhaps crippling) injuries. Furthermore, your mode of transportation suffered no intrinisc capability to perform the function you require of it. It seems perspective plays an important part in determining good and bad luck. Which actually makes a bit of sense. Not entirely related, but research has shown that people tend to view their personal success as coming from within (Having strong motivation, good work habits, etc), while their personal failures has being external (lost job because of failing economy, or....just "bad luck"). However, people tend to view someone else's personal success as being external (good luck, right place at right time, look at many of the Bioware bashers and why they feel Bioware is successful), while their failures are internal (A perfect example is the common capitalist perspective that someone is poor and unemployed because they are not committing themselves enough to bettering themselves). I also think that people tend to be more pessimistic when dealing with personal setbacks rather than someone else's misfortune. My supporting evidence naturally being our discussion here "

I enjoyed X-Wing: Alliance

Regardless of character skill? <{POST_SNAPBACK}> Yes.

I'm unaware of the level of plight, nor the level of moping, of either of the countries, so I concede nothing. Wow, you guarantee that people that have been displaced and are war refugees for a significantly longer period of time than the small scale time frame suffered my hurricane victims. Which is all moot, because astr0creep was not talking about disaster situations: And you said yes. Based on what? All you have stated is that people that suffer tragedy for an extended period of time will mope about their bad luck more than people that suffer tragedy less. Which is still a bull**** statement to make because you're doing nothing but making an assumption based on commonsense, which is a very bad thing to do.

Were the people in Pakistan moping more about their bad luck (which is significantly worse than people that didn't get help for a few days) than the Katrina victims?

Sounds like you could conclude good luck from your experience.

The "Are You Dumb" was great.

Me neither, though I almost got the last question wrong, but I thought about what he said for a moment.

They were bested by zee Germans, so that must "count" for something.

shhh! http://www.i-am-bored.com/bored_link.cfm?link_id=6798

Somewhere up the family tree, the pronunciation of my last name changed from the standard German Schumacher (Shoo-mach-er) to Shoemaker. I never really looked into it, but I imagine it's because of the trends many German immigrants followed of changing the spelling/pronunciation of their last name to mask their German ancestry in and around the World Wars.