Raithe

In space.. No one can hear mom Squee!

Woke up with a headache, tried to stay in bed, but spent several hours fading in and out of sleep with some bizarre freaky dreams. Gave it up as a bad idea and got up to face the rest of the day.

Still puttering around on TOR. Have got to get back to play some of the Saints Row the Third dlc at some point, but haven't been in the right wacky mood.

So there I was, taking a moment to clean out the drawer in the fridge... I mean it was like 30 seconds, and I turn back and boom.. I present.. FridgeCat!

No, I've got my SI capped out, my smuggler just hit 50 but still has class and world quests to wrap up on Corellia. I still haven't hit Illium with either of them. Just popping off some of the assorted bonus missions and wotnot. Hoth, Voss, Corellia... I've got a Jedi Knight in the low 30's on Alderaan. I just spent a chunk of the evening running my Bounty Hunter through Dromund Kaas and there was a planetary population of around 30-45, the majority of which were in the 11-17 range. And I've got a Sith Marauder who's 11th still lurking on the Imperial Fleet... From what I've seen, I have to say that Corellian Run seems to be pretty balanced in population Republic / Imperial wise. Heh, now that you can email between your characters without concern for Republic/Imperial wise.. I have to say it's being a little surreal how my smuggler say is picking up materials and level 5 c ompanion gifts, then sending them to the Imp characters who craft stuff then can be used to send those finished products to the Republic side.. (bad roleplaying I know..but hey..it's one of those funky things). That and my Guild is established on both sides so there's that sort of trade between the guild banks.

Well I did say a long time ago.. and it was around that '91-'93 time frame. Of course, I was channeling my inner Belloq whilst clambering around the Pyramids..

I don't know why.. but Diablo has never had great appeal to me. Hm.

Family Photos from Hiiiiiistory.... A long time ago, in a far sandier place...

Had a brief spurt of getting my Smuggler through Corellia. I don't know why but I there's something about that planet that just doesn't hit my Star Wars oomph button. On the other hand, I am thinking of spending a few hours pushing my Bounty Hunter through Dromund Kaas at some point this week... And once again, I growl over the way you have to piecemeal the companion gear sets.

This was the final nail in the coffin for me. I had 3-4 planets each with a few heroics to do and every day I would log in and fly to each planet trying to scrounge up a pug in trade chat only to see 10 people on the entire planet. And I was on a supposedly well populated server, Corellion Run. Hm, that's the server I use. If I'm on during daytime/early evening hours (gmt) there's usually that 10-20 folks around on a planet. When it's hitting later evening it can get quite populated, especially on that fri-sunday stretch. I'll tend to throw out a "anyone interested in x heroic" if I've got them, but I'm not that fussed about them. They generally don't seem to be as interesting as the other quests you pick up (either from class or general world). Although it would be nice if you could get access to companion gear via the heroics as well...

For the kind of duh laughter track.. Scotland Yard are pushing their IT department to drop the use of the terms "Whitelist" and "Blacklist" because they can be deemed racially offensive. They want to start using the terms "redlist" and "greenlist" http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/picturegalleries/howaboutthat/9250580/Police-IT-department-bans-word-blacklist-in-case-it-is-deemed-racist.html You'd kind of think they could focus on a few, you know.. criminal issues instead?

Where would we put the BritishEmpire then? The largest Empire in history and lasted for over a century.. Although that wasn't strictly pushed via purely military means as such.. Edit: Hm, actually a lot of the "Empire" in that sense didn't get stolen or suchlike, but was given right to self-govern and guided into various independent democracies post-WW2 as part of a general "decolonisation" process. There wasn't strictly speaking the usual Empire fragmentation and collapse. And unlike a lot of Empires, a fair chunk of those countires joined together in the Commonwealth..

Didn't manage to get to sleep till some time past 4am. Then got half woken up by a pseudo-work related call at just around 9am and had to develop a clear head and jot down notes. Kind of pushing along with limited energy at the moment...

Doomsday. Rhona Mitra and cannibalistic punk-rockers in a sort of post-apocalyptic Scotland.. Backed up with supporting cast from the likes of Bob Hoskins, Malcolm McDowell, Alexander Siddig, Adrian Lester and Sean Pertwee. A lethal virus spreads throughout the British isles,infecting millions and killing hundreds of thousands. To contain the threat, acting authorities brutally quarantine the country as it succumbs to fear and chaos. The quarantine is successful. Three decades later, the Reaper virus violently resurfaces in a major city. An elite group of specialists, including Eden Sinclair, is urgently dispatched into the still-quarantined country to retrieve a cure by any means necessary. Shut off from the rest of the world, the unit must battle through a landscape that has become a waking nightmare And thus.. the boss entrance.. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sGA7q9VLfps&feature=related

That's because the Africa campaigns had that magnificent bastard Rommel. Great history does tend to require some great personalities....

The Sixth Book...

Heh. Pentagon Quits the Avengers

Speaking of obscure military history, I was reading the Timeline of Military History, and you had mention that in the 4,000 years or so of recorded history of the world, there's only about a century or so (in collected years) where no "recorded" wars have occured. Also, since the beginning of the 20th century, there has been only a single year where no member of the UK's Armed Forces has been killed on duty somewhere in the world. The majority of which were various "peacekeeping" duties rather then actual "war". Now that's an interesting distinction isn't it....

Marvel has said that they do hope to get all of the licences back together under one group, so that you can have potential cross-overs of both Heroes and Villains.. So the likes of Spider-man and Doctor Doom both could have a spin in a future Avengers film..

And they're even working on a Nick Fury film to show his origins.. Everyone I know who have seen the Avengers have the same list of about 5 scenes that made them laugh out loud. But yes, Joss certainly showed he has managed to bring a certain elegance to out-ZOMG'ing Michael Bay's summer blockbusters.. and the assortment of dialogue and geeky comic-book references he worked into the script.. Edit: And I have to say, I'm actually a little impressed with how well the guy playing Loki handled it. The combination of delivery of lines, facial expressions and body language was top notch. He managed to chew the scenery in just the right manner.

I half feel it's worth it just for the Hulk / Loki scene. Seriously. And Lou Ferrigno voices the Hulk once more..

Had an afternoon splurge of TOR. Got my Smuggler to Corellia, and landed my Jedi Knight on Alderaan.. missed running some flashpoints with guildbuddies, but juggled some stuff around between characters..

A full chorale variant of the amusing "John Williams is the Man..." http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Il1YhUrqaH0&list=UUKynxaAizvbQWD-hmf6OgEA&index=9&feature=plcp

And the Avengers certainly show a fine sense of Joss Whedon's style and writing. There's some quite humerous moments spun out in the midst of it all. Fun cinema, and while there are plenty of explosions and wotnot, it doesn't actually take over the characters. Without giving away too many spoilers as such: Jackson's Nick Fury gets a whole hunk of screen time (as expected) and plays nicely as that manipulative magnificent bastard. Captain America comes across as a bit uptight, but gets back to the man of principle more then a "good" soldier. Thor is more of the background character in a lot of ways then taking forefront. Robert Downey's Stark pushes to the forefront in pretty much every scene he's in.. Although I think it comes across as if Stark and the Black Widow have the most "on-time" out of the whole group. Bruce Banner is fairly subtle as well for his presence, he plays the only one who can talk with Stark at that level and plays with a quiet confidence for most of it. The Hulk side not putting in an appearance towards the end of the film. Although I do think there's going to be a handful of scenes that everyone who goes to see the film will find stuck in their memories. Natasha's introduction and the "reverse-interrogation" hit my humour, Loki's interaction with Agent Phil Coulson (yes, Agent is not his first name), and the impeccably timed and shot Loki/Hulk moment... Gwyneth Paltrow does her 5 minutes as Pepper Potts, whilst Natalie Portman is just a photograph and datasheet shown to Thor...