J.E. Sawyer

I was defending against a shot on goal. The forward took the shot, which went by me. I tracked the shot with my head, and was immediately hit in the lower jaw by the ball as it bounced off of Brad Smith's knee. My lower teeth struck my upper teeth and took a chunk out.

Welp, the season is over for the OEI B-Team. We won 1 and lost 7. Our roster was pretty thin this season and we were regularly playing with only 7 (no subs for the game). Our last game went okay. It was a rough first half, with two goals scored and one of my front teeth chipped. We shut them out in the second half and actually had several good shots on goal, but it didn't pan out. I'm going back to fencing until July rolls around (that's when the next Irvine city league soccer season starts). At least in fencing I get to wear a mask.

It's not too bad when I ride my motorcycles. My Triumph takes 89 octane and gets 30 mpg at worst. My Honda can take 87 octane and does a lot better. Of course, the Honda is 35 years old and doesn't exactly have great emissions. I feel it most when I drive my car: 91 octane, 20 mpg during my 11 mile commute.

Who benefits from incorrectly referencing things from the real world? Why not a) reference it correctly or b) rely on fiction? This is a pretty good example of what I'm talking about. Even though the .223 pistol was a good weapon and wasn't based on anything from the real world, the goofy caliber irritated you. Would it have been worse to give it a more sensible caliber?

It doesn't break that atmosphere for you because you (presumably) know nothing about firearms. Or rather, you don't know enough to care. Games like the Rainbow Six series heavily emphasize the real-world origin and function of their firearms, because they orient their gameplay heavily around simulation. There's very little in Fallout (for example) that feels like a simulation. Instead, the gameplay mechanics are fairly abstracted. Being specific about anything is generally only helpful when you want to ground something in what the audience knows. Those who don't know anything about guns won't care what caliber the ammunition is, nor how many rounds a magazine hold (outside of how it directly affects them), nor who the real-world manufacturer is. Those who do care will tend to be more knowledgeable, which raises their attention to the details you do choose to call out. The more specific you get, the closer things will be examined. Don't call out a car as a '61 Mustang, because all you're doing is begging a car nut to tell you that Mustangs weren't built until '64. I don't think Fallout 2's weapon choices felt particularly... well, smart. You've got FN FALs, Pancor Jackhammers, H&K G11s -- all very specific, and idiosyncratic weapons -- floating around with "10mm SMG", ".223 Pistol", etc. No one really complains about the .223 Pistol because it's totally fictional. Also, the .223 Pistol was totally awesome. It had its own distinct niche to fill and that's what people remember about it. I think it's fine to create fictional manufacturers like Fallout did for weapons like the Minigun, but I think it starts to "get weird" when you mix the totally fictional manufacturers and guns with real manufacturers and fictional guns and/or real manufacturers and real guns. Especially in a game where you're abstracting the functions of the weapons instead of simulating them.

The soundtrack to Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory was pretty jawesome.

I think there is a practical cutoff between genuine ambivalence ("I am not sure what to believe") and belief that allows for the possibility of error ("I believe this, but it is possible I am wrong"). You may posit that there is a silent, invisible, and otherwise undetectable attack helicopter outside my window that tracks my movements everywhere without disrupting the environment. This seems pretty silly to me and I would not believe it. Of course, part of the scenario you have described involves assertions that I cannot refute using the senses available to me. I am so sure that the scenario described is false that I will continue to live my life as though it is false. However, I must admit that I could be wrong because, even if the scenario were true, it lies beyond my ability to perceive and comprehend. Deities are often described as possessing similar "out of the understood world" properties, which leads to people asserting that they do not believe any god(s) exist but admitting that supernatural beings may exist outside of their ability to rationally perceive and comprehend -- because how the heck are you supposed to argue against that? IS THERE ARGON IN THE ROOM ON THE TELEVISION?!

One can hold a belief and still admit their own fallibility. "I believe this to the best of my knowledge and experience, but my knowledge and experience are limited." A theist may admit the possibility that no god(s) exists and an atheist may admit the possibility that god(s) exists -- and this doesn't make them agnostic. I don't want people to be compromising in their religious beliefs; I want them to be compromising in their attitudes toward the beliefs of others. This is easier for people with beliefs that don't involve a soteriology focusing on people who are, by default, damned.

In Hitman: Blood Money, killing dudes with a garrote was very satisfying but also potentially dangerous. It took longer to perform than other killing techniques (meaning it was more likely that you would be caught while doing it), but it left no blood and made no sound. Also, the garrote was effectively undetectable (IIRC), so you could take it into places where weapons weren't normally allowed. You could also smack guys in Blood Money and take their weapons, but overall the game wasn't oriented around melee.

It's almost too clich

I'm sorry, walkerguy, but the "Manhattan bomb" scenario described is very far from the typical case in which torture/enhanced interrogation is applied. It takes for granted many facts that are often quite blurry or unknown when dealing with Random Imprisoned Dude #28361. E.g. this person definitely is a terrorist, definitely knows something of value, etc. It's a really bad way to argue for a general policy because such scenarios are so rare. Torture most certainly can get valuable information out of people. But if we knew what information were in a person's head, there'd be no reason to torture them, would there? For every Al-Qaeda Miniboss that we capture and interrogate, there are a whole lot of... just dudes. People who were captured during fighting, or who were marked as a terrorist by some other piece of intelligence. Getting intel out of them is like trying to squeeze blood from a stone. But that doesn't stop the squeezing. Our modern versions of torture are comparatively humane -- nothing listed in this thread can compare to vaginal/rectal pears, thumbscrews, the strappado, or the Judas cradle. But they carry with them the same basic limitation of Medieval/Early Modern torture: the unreliability of gathered information. This is especially bad when any gained intel points toward other people. The worst witch-hunts in the HRE involved torturing accused witches and forcing them to name other members of their coven. Since the victims weren't actually witches, they eventually just named people they disliked. Those people were then brought in and tortured, and they in turn named others. Whole villages were wiped out in this fashion. The process -- then as now -- relies upon dangerous logical assumptions that, at best, mistakenly subject innocents to incredible physical and mental anguish. At worst, it yields terrible misinformation, gross tactical errors, and innocent deaths. In the right circumstances, individuals and governments can be excused or even applauded for performing actions that would otherwise be reprehensible. But our interrogation cells aren't filled with people who definitely planted atomic bombs on Manhattan Island. Mythic examples can't be used as arguments for general policy. I think if American citizens felt that those being subjected to torture/enhanced interrogation passed a higher threshold than "suspicion" or "accusation", the techniques used would not be criticized as harshly.

Hmm... I don't know that I'd trust ~50 year-old German wiring. Best be on the safe side.

There's a large amount of rust on the headers, and bits of rust all over. It looks like a 35 year old motorcycle.

I live in an apartment. My car has been relegated to an uncovered parking space while the three motorcycles take its place.

Given all of the equivalents of Hunter's Marks that get thrown around from round-to-round, and the fact that there are often many options for an individual character from round-to-round, I think it may be hard to adapt into a real-time CRPG. I'm sure it would be fine in turn-based, though it will probably require more management and attention than previous editions have.

well JE you know what it's like over here in Wisconsin ... so don't rub it in . And this year has been one of the worst in a long time. My parents just visited this weekend. Strangely enough, the weather was warmer in Lake Mills this weekend than it was in Huntington Beach. I hope the flooding doesn't get too crazy there. I'm still trying to figure out if I'm going to be able to go on a summer ride around Wisconsin. Also, I just picked up another SWEET RIDE. It's a rolling death trap right now. No signals, no speedo/tach, weak drum brakes. Yeee-haaaaw.

Our Warhammer group at work seems to really like it, though I haven't played it.

We've coordinated on our timelines and content for a variety of reasons. Also, they get regular copies of our builds and we get regular copies of theirs.

I didn't know he did the music for Zork Nemesis. That game had cool music.

I think Giovanni Ornellas had a front row seat. Then we all gathered outside like good rubberneckers until Ferg told us to get back inside.

http://www.ocregister.com/articles/santa-c...9043-area-least That's our building behind the SUV. It missed one of our QA offices by about five feet.

No, we have one team that is about half the size of the old one. The "new team" is half Obsidian guys, half guys who played for Obsidian but were just dudes we met at the soccer field.

No, we lost 8-0. Q__Q

The third season of the Obsidian All-Blacks started... not well. JR, Trent Campbell, and Mark Bremerkamp (Obsidian folks and All-Black team founders) left the team with All-Black non-Obsidianites Martin, Mario, Raj, and Stefan. These individuals represented most of our best players. They went to form an A1 league team, leaving the B2 team with a much smaller and less experienced roster. Our first game of the season was a super slam, 8-0. We only had seven players for the game, no subs. This week, the lineup was mostly the same, but we had a few different players and a total of eight people for the game (one rotating sub). We also had a new Obsidian team member, Kevin, playing defense. Kevin did a great job, as did everyone else. Our defense was very strong, shutting down the middle. The other team consisted of a bunch of guys from an 11 v. 11 team, and they just couldn't manage to get any shots in on the small goals from the outside. They had one extra sub. We managed to keep them to one goal for the game, and we won in the end, 2-1!