Raithe

Went to replay some Deus Ex which has been installed on my machine for ages.. and it kept crashing. uninstalled it. reinstalled it. It still kept crashing. So I decided to enjoy Steams sale and picked up Deus Ex for a couple of pound.. and it installed and ran fine. Makes me wonder what the hell was wrong with my old Game of the Year...

Hm, I might be coming out of left field here, I have some vague memories of seeing on the news a few weeks ago that here in the UK they did put a change in about allowing women to be placed on the front lines. While allowing women to serve in many positions within Her Majesties Armed Forces, they made that change not because women couldn't handle it, but because no matter how pc a group is, the men will still put themselves at greater risk to protect any women who are along.

That one always struck me as a bit..hm, blackly humerous. "If you've killed yourself, we're going to slap cuffs on you." I always thought it wasn't so much the actual suicide that was illegal as the attempt at suicide. Or is it that just because you got caught making the attempt you get to hit the 48 hour psych ward monitoring?

Although you have to be very careful with targeting things like this. There have been a few instances over here where it gets hammered home that it doesn't matter how you actually meant something you said or did, but how someone else perceived it. Which sets you up for an automatic fail. Like the policeman who was on holiday in Africa and sent a jokey postcard that was sold at his holiday resort back to the police station. It got passed around with some humour, right up until the guy who'se grandfather had originally been from said location in Africa claimed that it was rascist and was used to humiliate him by the guy who sent it, and all the constabulary in the office who passed it around. And I have to admit, I've had to struggle over the last few years of finding myself almost becoming rascist due to various people I've met who were jerks, but who then play the whole "i'm not an obnoxious jerk, it's because I belong to x minority group so I can be a total **** and be abusive and if you call me on it its because you're rascist." I could take the first few with a grain of salt and humour, but when people start dropping the "you're x-ist" at the drop of a hat and can have the weight of discrimination laws behind them just because they're a minority and you're automatically in the wrong because they can claim to have perceived something as a slight ... it starts to get worrying. Of course, that's a whole nother matter then the Army issue. Although on one hand I don't quite see it having that much of an effect. I think on a certain level it'll run along pretty much the same "don't ask, don't tell" lines but without the stresses of what happens if it is told or comes to light... But then I might be oversimplifying it.

There was also the "Normally when a child enters this school, if everyone in the teacher's staff room recognises a childs name by the time half-term has arrived we know it as either a really good thing or a really bad thing. For some reason, we can't decide what it means with your child."

I remember having the problem that I was one of those annoying kids who'd made it through Secondary School and my GCSE's without ever needing to develop revision/note-taking skills (roughly High School to translate for the Americans). I'd soak things up in class and manage to get passing grades in exams without too much effort. Then I hit college and that shift in pace left me in a very awkward position where the teachers all expected you to know how to do that stuff, and I got caught out trying to scrabble and figure out some of those basic techniques... That, and what was the bad academic practice of producing the right answers without showing the process of how I got there... That was something I always found awkward to do. Of course, by that point I'd had years of teachers telling my parents that I drove them to distraction by not doing as much as they thought I was capable of. Even with the history teacher who complained what annoyed him was that he could hear me finishing his sentences when explaining about a new period of history ..but what really annoyed him was that I was always right.

I always remember the exam a group of us had finished early and left , stood outside talking about it, what we'd done, what we thought we'd gotten wrong... and then one of our lecturer's passed by, stopped and did a double take.. gave us the whole "What are you doing out this early?" When we replied we'd all finished the exam.. he peered over us.. then laughed evily and did a really maniacal cackling "Then you did something wrooooong!!!" and kind of skipped off.

No matter what.. I still keep seeing Hitman these days when I hear Ave Maria...

Or to life from tvtropes..

Went to look up something on tvtropes before I got around to sorting out plans for the evening... Then realised it was about 3 hours later and I still had a batch of links yet to read (mostly related to QI...) That site is dangerous.

The Tourist - Johnny Depp as a slightly bumbling maths teacher from wisconsin, acting like a rube on holiday getting picked up by femme fatale Angelina Jolie to distract the cops and criminals following her to find her lover who stole x billion dollars and got facial reconstruction... While Paul Bettany's obsessive detective and Steven Birkhoff's mad crime lord chewing the scenery on occasion.. Lots of pretty visuals of Venice, and an equal amount of screen time of the leads... Starts off kind of thrillerish, turns into a sense of romantic melancholy, then speeds up into something that actually had me chuckling slightly. Throw in a couple of twists and turns most of which you'll probably see coming a few minutes beforehand. Depp actually manages to convey the idea that he's out of his depth for most of the movie, while Angelina does seem to rely more on looking good for the camera then delivering some slightly ropey dialogue. But generally an amusing enough film for what it is.

Well the snow has fallen again, so the world has turned white once more... But I'm having trouble getting the festive spirit alive today. Not overly sure why, running along on a bit of a hollow and melancholy feel. And dealing with laundry and assorted needed chores doesn't really manage to distract/engage the mind. No new and interesting games to play with, or fresh books to read... Maybe I'll just re-read some john ringo..

Indeed, congratulations to you both. For the random trivia moment.. Houdini always said, that the chains of marriage were the only ones he never could, or even wanted to escape from. Hm, on the general pleasantries I just got my pocket watch and chain back from the jewelers for evaluation. Apparently it's now worth a touch more then I realised. The Albert alone is around

Ah hah! Indeed. That was one that was great for slow, day long lan matches. Lost a few weekends away during uni with beer and Supremacy.. Also, firmly agreed with Evil Genius. That was a stonking fun game...

The financial year.. so from March.. they're looking at releasing it post-April.. Until I'm missing something..

Now, while I'd caught a few instances of these in various news over the last year, I hadn't noticed all of them... I have to say, on one hand I do find this somewhat amusing. From an article by Jon Brodkin at Network World

Well my self-tasking and self-organising seems fairly screwed today. It's dark and grey and miserable. And we had what I believe were search and rescue choppers passing in the early hours of the morning. That whole 3-5am period with low flying really heavy beating chopper/s passing back and forth. That inspired great sleep. Hm, and someone parked their car on the hill and must have left the handbreak off.. its rolled down the street and slammed into someones white van.. Right..time to gather my shredded mojo up and figure out the day properly.

Geez, making the christmas cake is an important family tradition. Start the sultanas, raisins, cherries and other fruit soaking in brandy a few days before.. Sift flour, spices, salt all in together.. Whisk butter and sugar together in a seperate bowl till its really fluffy.. then add some beaten eggs to it a bit at a time.. Folding that mixture into the flour.. that whole squelchy goodness.. Then you get to add a splash of brandy and watch it all settle.. before the fruit, peel, chopped nuts and such get added..possibly a touch of treacle depending just how you like it.. If you cook it just right.. it's a really nice rich, moist fruit cake.. if you cook it too long it dries up.. (and personal family tradition is to use a hypodermic to inject brandy directly into the cake to help make up for any that's evaporated during the oven time...) Usually we do that in mid october so we can seal it up in an airtight container..then early December break it out to put on the marzipan and a thin layer of icing...

hm, Telltale games are doing a series of episodic games based/inspired on Back to the Future.. Supposedly in the sam and max/monkey island style... They got the rights to Christopher Lloyd and Michael Fox's likeness.. and Lloyd will be doing some of the voicework apparently... And a percentage of the profits will be going to Fox's Foundation for Parkinson's Disease.

Actually already broken into the supply of Christmas Puddings... Although we're saving gran's home-made one for christmas day proper.. And it always amazes me that my friends in the states have never had a proper Christmas Pudding...

Had a rough night, and stirred from bed with a nice headache grinding away on my forebrain. Tried getting various things done, but I've had the focus and attention span of a goldfish so far today.

Tron 2.0 It was a fairly standard fps in mechanics.. but it managed to grab the mood and athmosphere of Tron rather well. The scattered emails and such just helped flesh out the feel of the universe.. Whilst the level design and look just made you feel like you were inside a computer.

For that shift in focus from the rpgcodex style.. To something a little more smile inducing..

But can we expect to run into Conrad again?

And for the non-food related festive spirit..