Raithe

Just have to remember Wheaton's Law - "Don't be a ****"

Urf. Had something like 3 or 4 hours sleep with assorted wakings up through the early hours of the morning. It's kind of grim and overcaste, I've got one of those headaches sliding a spike in, kind of really wish I didn't have to get up when the alarm went this morning... and the puppy just spent five minutes honking a rubber chicken near my ear. So I've distracted him with a rawhide chew, that gives me some momentary peace while I juggle ideas around for a report addendum. Hm, and i've got an opticians appointement later this afternoon. Have to remember that.

Feeling the urge to hunt someone down and kill them.. so I'm reinstalling Hitman Bloodmoney and while away an hour or three on that this evening as life allows..

Small fireworks celebration with friends. Found out one of them had proposed to his gf. And made the local news doing so, or at least, BBC solent radio. Apparently a proposal whilst dressed as a bear (for camouflage so she didn't see him coming) and with a 60+ choir scattered around the crowd outside the university library, waiting to burst into song, class as local interest...

Eh, had my sister throw a bit of a hissy because her car battery is flat and she's got a bunch of things to do. She has this habit of jumping on you as you step in the door , insisting you help because she has to be somewhere at x time, then if you help her, she just idles along then ends up leaving late anyway because she's juggling other things. So been trying to keep uninvolved in all that. Killing my time on this grey and windy 5th of November afternoon poking around at various sci-fi rpgs, and constructing a history and galactic map - a little bit of mental exercise, throwing in the mix of hard science and space opera, tannhauser discontinuities for fixed "gate" jumps - each discontinuity linked to another, allowing two way travel between - different systems having a different number of said discontinuities - thereby forming colonisation patterns. So different groups might be astronomically close and mixed up, but if they don't share the "gates", they'll never meet. Heh, not sure why I got wrapped up in that.. something caught my mind on one small thing, and then it just..opened up as I poked at it and I've ended up producing that all half-sketched out with assorted notes to go with it.. Maybe I should worry that I ended up checking the astronomy of it all of star types, planetary conditions and wotnot to go with it...

Quote for the day: "If you identified with the kids from The Breakfast Club when it came out, you're now much closer to the age of Principal Vernon." And to add further insult to the aged.. "Karate Kid's Ralph Macchio has turned 50 today."

People seem to be hitting between 5 and 10 hours on the dlc...

The internet weighs as much as a strawberry

I haven't got anything new to play, but I'm pondering on re-installing Hitman Bloodmoney to see if I can still achieve all those Silent Assassin ratings...

Tried working my way through one of those "10 minute yoga tone up" routines. And surprisingly my spine is actually feeling rather untensed now.

Official Xbox Magazine - Saints Row the Third Review

They tend to pull the "ridiculous" levels for the stupid-fun. I mean, look at the Professor Genki tv show that's set in Saints Row.

I'm not saying that Byzantine = Force worship or the Sith Empire. I'm not saying that she probably cut and pasted. And I'm not saying those elements were problems, or that they were unique to the Byzantine Empire. What I am saying is that someone who has studied the Byzantine Empire in the detail to successfully get their Masters in relation to that subject, should have a damn good background for understanding political chicanery and underhanded methods of manipulation. Which makes applying elements related to such into a fictional story much more likely to be interesting/realistic then someone who has absolutely no knowledge of those matters. If her background had been Engineering, or Romantic Poetry of the 1800's, I don't think anyone would really expect those to influence her writing a story for a class that is meant to be smart, sneaky, underhanded and involved in the political maneuverings. But Byzantine History, that has a lot of elements that could be used as inspiration. The Byzantine Empire did all of that in such a matter then even a millenia on , we still recognise the word Byzantine to mean sneaky, underhanded, twisty and complicated. (Okay, at least we do if we speak English, I have no idea if it's carried across like that in other languages) That does sound like a pretty good attitude to have for Sith Inquisitors.

Yes, but not all that many empires actually brought their name to be the common reference for sneaky, intricate, complicated maneuverings - ie; Byzantine

The Byzantines had a mass of political maneuverings, infighting, backstabbing and general fun and games going on. The Imperial Court, the Bureaucracy, the Nobility, the Soldiers, and that's only keeping to what was happening within the Empire. Take in the efforts of the Persians as neighbours... They also had the cold war and on/off border skirmishes and outright short wars over a few centuries. Something that the Sith Inquisitor should have a good handle on. So therefore, someone with knowledge of how that sort of stuff actually happens.. is more likely to produce an interesting setup then someone who has no clue at all.

Pimps and Gimps - Saints Row Burt -****ing- Reynolds? Now that just adds to the win factor.

My main thought was that someone who apparently enjoyed Byzantine History - which has some very fun and twisted politics and machinations - was the principle writer for the SI. Makes me wonder how much that influenced the class storyline, and whether that's a good sign for the maniplative , political aspect of it all... I mean, okay, not expecting huuuuge politics in an mmo, but there should be some interesting throw-ins for the Sith Inquisitor..

Heh, the return of "Claude"?

Got a link for us? I picked up the PC version via Steam. But apparently there's also Xbox360 and PS3 versions are available over the relevent networks as well.. Initiation Station Goes Live

So the "Initiation Station" for Saints Row the Third can be downloaded. Basically lets you play around with the character creation options, and nada beyond that. Briefly entertaining to see what it can do, but there's only so much fun you can have just doing that...

Try reading Lewis' The Screwtape Letters. They're rather brilliant.

The puppy has a bit of the devil in him today which is being so much fun.. Hm, and mom apparently won some raffle, and we've had 25 liters of Olive oil delivered to the house...

Heh, the person who was in charge of writing the story for the Sith Inquisitor class has gone on to pick up a masters in Ancient Byzantine History. That's.. interesting. Sith Inquisitor Interview

It's not so much a tough love approach, as a "please hold still while I apply my boot to your arse" approach..