Raithe

Not directly "New" but a collection of fun science based images from the last year.. io9 - The most amazing science images of 2013?

It was closer to 06-not-so-dark-and-getting-light when I managed to drop off to dozing land.... Pondering how hard it would be to mainline tea. But then I'd lose the taste effect, hm.

Well it's 0440 and I haven't made it to the lands of morpheus yet... The dark ceiling looms overhead and a full moon seems to be glooming its way amidsT cloud cover outside..

My Sith Assassin uses a mixture of the Deception and Madness tree, weighted more to Deception. I used Khem for tanking a lot up to around the 30's, then I started balancing it with Doc for Healing. Careful use of stealth, Mind Trick to do a bit of cc, and swiftly taking out the rest seemed to work quite nicely for me.

Having a poke at AC: Revelations. Stirring up a few memories of when I visited Istanbul some years ago , at least a few of the notable pieces of architecture. Having minor bouts of irritation with it, especially the stupid "checkpoints" that don't actually really count as anything. Missions that have 5 minutes of really piss-easy things to do, and then have a slightly complex/difficult thing.. so if you screw that up, you have to restart the whole freaking mission and go through 5 minutes of easy stuff yet again... Edit: Hm ,and I have no idea whey I posted this in Random Games news rather then What are you playing.. I am juggling too many things and need more sleep...

For the festive spirit...

I've been doing bits and pieces of Christmas shopping over the last few weeks, and in the middle of a conversation with my sister.. I suddenly couldn't think what or if I'd actually sorted out her Christmas presents yet. This could mean digging out all the stashes and double-checking before it gets too late.

To return to the general assortment..:

Poking at work, babysitting my sister's dog (because she's got some Christmas lunch work bash), and sorting out mom's drugs - have to check whether prescription needs refilling before Christmas... Plus the assorted back and forth of various tasks, although I did take a few minutes here and there to give AC:Revelations a try since I picked it up silly cheap in one of the sales in the past few months. Sometimes a good stabby-stabby is what you need to pick you up.

What is kind of funny with the Guns of Navarone, is that David Niven actually spent time with the Commando groups during the war, and Quayle was in the SOE doing crazy stuff with the Albanian partisans. One of those interesting quirks of casting where the actors really did have some experience.... On that slightly related note, I also find it amusing that one of the few times Christopher Lee has willingly made any practical mention of his time with the SOE was during an argument with Peter Jackson on the LOTR set - When Wormtongue gets stabbed and falls off the tower, Lee didn't like the way it was being handled and snapped out something along the lines of "That is not what someone sounds or looks like when you stab them in the back and throw them off a tall building. Do you know what it's like? I do!" As to hard to sit through.. Hm, I don't know about that. Frankly I have a soft spot for a lot of the classics. The likes of Cary Grant, David Niven, Peter O'Toole, Audrey Hepburn, they covered a nice range of screwball comedies, light hearted heist movies, and some thrilling action moments.

Well by the standards of warfare at the time, Mr Cromwell was fairly restrained..

Now I'm waiting for the assorted 40k "For it is mutant and must be cleansed" quotes to begin..

Congratulations on that slow descent from party boy to "Serious Adult" then... Mayhaps we should get Ros to organise a Christmas party for all Obs Europeans to gather at and be impressed..

Suffering bouts of procrastination. I know a couple of things I should get started on but keep staring at the screen and not engaging. The cat seems to have scratched an eyelid, so it's got a bloody eye. The weather is rather rotten wintery rain outside. My dad is being a general Grinch over Christmas as usual, my sister has pretty much stated she might do a flying visit on Christmas day but she won't be lingering - I can actually understand that, we normally gather together for just a couple of hours for everyone to open presents, then disappear to different areas of the house until Christmas Dinner is served, at what point we all go off to our own corners again. Due to various things, the front room has a whole bunch of non-Christmas stuff in it, which is why I went with the smaller tree rather then the big 7'+ one, and not getting out all the decorations for the house. Tried having a poke at sorting out the usual Christmas gathering of friends, but no-one can figure out if they're going to be in the country or out, dealing with family visiting, or whether they can get their kids taken care of. So that keeps turning into a waffle rather then any clear decisions made. Oh and I've been invited to another wedding in Mexico in April, but I doubt I'll be able to make that.

Heh. That reminds me of the story of some terrorists travelling through Europe back in the 80's, they set the bomb in one country as they were traveling but forgot about the time zone difference when they got there.. so it went off an hour early in the van they were all in.

Psych - The Musical. There is something to be said for a dose of utter silliness. Especially when wrapped up in extra length "musical" episode.

It's slightly disconcerting to have a phone call with someone, and just as you're about to hang up find that you've got a bloody nose.

Hm, there's something to be said for Sam Manekshaw. The first Indian Army officer to be promoted to Field Marshal. His career ran through four decades and five wars... That, and he's pretty good for quoting: "I wonder whether those of our political masters who have been put in charge of the defence of the country can distinguish a mortar from a motor, a gun from a howitzer, a guerrilla from a gorilla, although a great many resemble the latter. "If a man says he is not afraid of dying, he is either lying or is a Gurkha." On being asked what would have happened had he opted for Pakistan at the time of the Partition in 1947, he replied "Then I guess Pakistan would have won (the 1971) war."

Okay, I'll admit, that one was a cheap throw. Although I was balancing the urge to say that or "Tony Blair". I would throw in for more serious consideration "The Information Age" given the shift in privacy issues nowadays..

Congress.

I mentioned Peter O'Tool had died to someone, and they promptly said "Oh no. Dr Doolittle and 'enry 'iggins!". I wasn't sure whether to slap my forehead, slap them, or just grit my teeth.

We could always throw in mention of this guy.. Pyrrhus of Epirus: The man who won his battles, but lost his war due to the costly nature of his victories over time. How many generals actually lead to fresh sayings and new terms used in the language? The good old pyrrhic victory.

Yeah, that's been an on/off bug for awhile. From what I've heard it doesn't always turn up, but by now so many people know of it's possibility, they tend to be careful of the attacks to not cause it to go active. It's along the lines of if you attack one with immunity near the start, it sets something up so immunity never drops, so you have to be really careful about only attacking the ones without shields from the get go.

Eh, they're by.. Max Allan Collins, the guy who wrote Road to Perdition. He's done a bunch of movie-novelisations as well. For what they are they aren't bad. There's no major screws loose, but they do follow the season 2 feel more then the season 1 style of Dark Angel. It's more that they flesh out what was actually going on with the cult and answer some of those mysterious hooks and questions. He pretty much crams what the planned "Season 3" arc was to be into one and a half novels.