Nepenthe

No, I agree with you. A crash would be the (only) logical solution to the situation. The problem is that Greece reached a point where it wasn't enough to bribe the people with their money, they had to loan extra money from other European banks. This whole brouhaha is about not letting banks go under, partly from fear of getting a major loaning freeze that would dwarf the one from a couple of years ago, partly from the banking sector having a really good lobby and ties to everybody who makes the decisions. So we're stuck in the situation of pumping money into a dead carcass so they can meet their payments to the German and French banks. Or have been stuck, as the debt slashing was the first step in admitting that things've gone Pete Tong, and now it looks like the Greeks aren't going to play ball, anyway. The railway employees thing is just one example. I've lived in Greece for years and maintain steady contacts there. The whole system is just full of fail already by design, rampant corruption and tax evasion at all levels of the society just makes it worse.

Will they? I have a nagging suspicion that they'll choose the "oxi" option, expecting that they'll still get bailed out, just without the forced austerity measures. And they might not be wrong.

Badum-tshink.

Same studio, different team at least in name, no idea how much assets they share.

So. Greece is going to put accepting the new support package to popular vote. Currently 60 % oppose all the bailout programs. This could get really interesting, Greece's exit from Euro has never seemed more likely than now.

I am, but she sends me baby pictures. I also gained a ton of weight during the past year while I was crunching on my dissertation, to the point where I've become essentially invisible to attractive women. Gonna take a while to pull myself out of this swamp, but I'm working on it. The new job is a major step in the right direction.

Hey, I was supposed to post that!

Put on my (three eyelet, so no granny kicking) doc martens for today, and immediately got a massive blister. Six months of essentially sitting down and wearing sneakers when I've absolutely had to go out has apparently totally pussified me. Guess it'll be softer leather for the rest of the week. Also utter failure of a day at lunch, main achievement was grabbing a good minute steak at one of the two good steakhouses close to the uni. Kind of making it my main aim for the month to not have to eat at the teacher's restaurant (where they serve the same crap as to the students, albeit at double the price, a nicer salad selection and slightly better table manners from everyone involved) before I leave the place (hopegully) for good. Other aim for November is getting used to having a schedule again, for good and for worse. Waking up at ungodly hours (possibly stretching to 6am) instead of just starting to work when I wake up, but also having such things like free time, instead of just working until I drop.

I live in an apartment block where one of the ladies gathered all the kids yesterday (and informed all of us today). Since I knew that I'd be getting just the one unit of kids, I just hung a candy bag on my doorbell. :D

No, that's what your elected representatives are for. C'mon kids, we live in the age of Obamacare. The money will be taken from "the rich" to pay for everything youre too lazy to earn on your own. And to teach them a lesson for "being rich". Warren Buffett disagrees with you, and I'm more inclined to believe him.

I watched the Crow last night, as tradition requires. (I also watch Groundhog Day at the appropriate date every year). Scandinavian blu-ray version was surprisingly good, always a bit risky with them (as they could be using some cheap knock-off hdtv transfer to make a quick buck). Had similar issues with Boondock Saints in the past, I actually have a German digibook version of it. :D (or whatever that WB project of releasing blurays in a book was called).

No, that's what your elected representatives are for.

That end part sounds suspiciously like you're talking about booze! :D I had two DIY hotdogs, which is what I'd eat on a Sunday evening while watching vikings at panthers, anyway.

Calax, you're still at University right? Hit up some bars man! Meet some new people! The noise would exacerbate my symptoms. You need to get a good roll in the hay. That will snap you right out of it, or at least make it go easier. This requires being social enough to find a willing female who wants to roll around in a haybale. Again, not that much of an option except online. Honestly, the biggest thing I need to do is cultivate a good friend. It's really the isolation that gets to me (my demeanor doesn't really help me make any friends what so ever and right now my roomate is sleeping in another room because I flipped out on him for always using a variant of "Go **** yourself" to end every discussion). Admittedly saying that and DOING that are two entirely separate things and I'm getting worried about just how hard this one is going to hit given I've gone over in my mind the mechanics of stealing a neighbors bottle of Ibprofin for OD uses. As long as you're not in the bathtub with a knife, it's still going ok. (Only half kidding, I was there a year ago). OTOH, I the first part of your assessment is right on the money. Of course, it's a lot of trouble in a down phase. I'm lucky to have a few really good friends (my cousin's husband, a geeky American isolated in a very different country, as well as my parents. The latter is easier at this point, especially when you have the same employer).

Said studio was administratively attached to Bioware (IIRC even before it became a label in its own right). Which is what we're going to see, new teams under different studios working on stuff that branches out. Clearly one can make a lot of money on a successful fantasy/scifi franchise without being SW or LotR.

Wrote a bunch of posts but decided that I'm going to be special and not be a broken record like everybody else and refrained from posting them. :D

Well, after owning a PS3 for more than three years, got my first Platinum trophy (DXHR). Well, that's done now, can just enjoy the game now. :D

Not sure what new augs they can add or how to balance them ? Find both of these unlikely, they managed just fine in the main game. Stand by my earlier assessment, forces the player into seeing what he can do without the augs when he is actually in the game.

http://officialxp8.bandcamp.com/album/x-a-...de-of-decadence Rubbing my paws with glee, the first non-soundtrack release of the year that I like at all, and it looks like this one compensates for that.

And how exactly is that going to be competition? Market steam as a premium service because it's more expensive? Or do you mean they need to charge more because Origin is jacking their sales and they have all those 1s and 0s getting backlogged in the storehouse?

Why do you hate our freedom? For lack of a better term, they generally have a low intensity and the "commute" starts feeling like work, I guess. FONV is the only one that I've even remotely liked, and I've heard it's openworldness questioned, so... But then again, I probably play about 10 % of the games most people on this forum do and I do consider myself more of a casual gamer, even if some people tell me that makes no sense in a guy with thousands of posts in different gaming forums.

If that's the obvious "oh, he's talking about DAII again, lulz", I wasn't the one to bring it up. But if it was actually something astute for a change, please enlighten me so I can enjoy it, too!

Ok, so to summarise, GTA is awesome because it's made by Rockstar who are awesome (because they make GTA). The game plays like a turd, but it's ok coz it's AWESOME. But to /sarcasm, I could make the same arguments about DA2 that WUE is making about GTA, so I'll just put it down as another enriching difference between people.