Raithe

Just to show how ..bizarely uninformed people can be on general knowledge a series of questions and answers from various daytime quiz shows

To add to the mood.. a series of flying and pilot related quotes : "Though I Fly Through the Valley of Death, I Shall Fear No Evil. For I am at 80,000 Feet and Climbing." - At the entrance to the old SR-71 operating base Kadena, Japan "You've never been lost until you've been lost at Mach 3." - Paul F. Crickmore (test pilot) "The only time you have too much fuel is when you're on fire." "Blue water Navy truism: There are more planes in the ocean than submarines in the sky." - From an old carrier sailor "If the wings are traveling faster than the fuselage, it's probably a helicopter -- and therefore, unsafe." "When one engine fails on a twin-engine airplane you always have enough power left to get you to the scene of the crash." "Without ammunition, the USAF would be just another expensive flying club." "What is the similarity between air traffic controllers and pilots? If a pilot screws up, the pilot dies; If ATC screws up, .... The pilot dies." The three most common expressions (or famous last words) in aviation are: "Why is it doing that?", "Where are we?" And "Oh S...!" "Progress in airline flying: now a flight attendant can get a pilot pregnant." "Airspeed, altitude and brains. Two are always needed to successfully complete the flight." "A smooth landing is mostly luck; two in a row is all luck; three in a row is prevarication." "I remember when sex was safe and flying was dangerous." "Mankind has a perfect record in aviation; we never left one up there!" "Flashlights are tubular metal containers kept in a flight bag for the purpose of storing dead batteries." "Flying the airplane is more important than radioing your plight to a person on the ground incapable of understanding or doing anything about it." "The Piper Cub is the safest airplane in the world; it can just barely kill you." - Attributed to Max Stanley (Northrop test pilot) "A pilot who doesn't have any fear probably isn't flying his plane to its maximum." - Jon McBride, astronaut "If you're faced with a forced landing, fly the thing as far into the crash as possible." - Bob Hoover (renowned aerobatic and test pilot). "Never fly in the same ****pit with someone braver than you." "There is no reason to fly through a thunderstorm in peacetime." - Sign over squadron ops desk at Davis-Monthan AFB, AZ, 1970 "If something hasn't broken on your helicopter, it's about to." Basic Flying Rules: "Try to stay in the middle of the air. Do not go near the edges of it. The edges of the air can be recognized by the appearance of ground, buildings, sea, trees and outer space. It is much more difficult to fly there." "You know that your landing gear is up and locked when it takes full power to taxi to the terminal." As the test pilot climbs out of the experimental aircraft, having torn off the wings and tail in the crash landing, the crash truck arrives, the rescuer sees a bloodied pilot and asks "What happened?". The pilot's reply: "I don't know, I just got here myself!" - Attributed to Ray Crandell (Lockheed test pilot)

So from the hints we've seen so far in trailers.. Jensen is the ex-cop turned Security Specialist, he has some sort of relationship with a female scientist working at Serif Industries.. During an attack on the place she gets killed, he suffers a batch of injuries..and when he wakes up his boss used advanced cybernetics to "save" his life. So he didn't exactly choose to get himself modified the way he ends up.. Guess they're planning on making that whole point key to the personal drama element...

Well, congratulations on the success of the courting so far Wals.. may it proceed smoothly. After not getting to sleep until aroun 4-5am and then waking up with a joyful joyful headache digging away... I've been taking the morning slow. Have to try braving the darkness and dangers of a cold attic to dig out some of the christmas decorations to put up on the tree at some point and some other things to poke at work-wise.. Have to see how well the ibruprufen kicks in.

Actually (to be a touch pedantic) she claims she wrote them to suit the people growing up with them.. so while book 1 was written for 11/12 year olds.. book 3 was supposed to be for 13/14 year olds, and book 6 was meant for 16/17 year olds to be reading..

Camp Nowhere - It's amazing how a night with insomnia can leave you finding old movies.. well, early 90's is getting a touch old. Fun movie from the childhood years in its way. Christopher Lloyd working his usual magic as a manic ex-drama teacher bribed into playing the role of fake summer camp director. And one hell of a lot of faces of "before they became famous / semi-famous". Including a blink and you'll miss her Jessica Alba.

Any game that posits a half decent story, with the potential of multiple paths to complete things and different consequences resulting... is worth a look at. Although I would like to see a bit more detail on some of the "social path" type of thing they've talked about. I remember one of the interviews a few months ago made some mention of picking up on facial expressions in conversations to react to.. So I'm a tad curious on just how that sort of detail will handle.

Running late with various things, just getting dinner out of the way at half 7 in the evening.. And right before christmas I manage to lose large chunks of brownie points and offend my mother... She's talking about one of her friends and making a complaint that the friend has a habit of starting a conversation to tell you something, then meanders and goes off on tangents and details you don't need, then doesn't reach the point of what she started at for a looong time.... At the end of mom venting and telling me this story.... when I make the comment that I'd noticed over the last year that she had started to do the same .. I got "the look" and a comment of "I stopped talking to your father so much years ago when he said something similar about how I talked like the neighbour with Alzheimers." I feel I stepped in something I really shouldn't.

Apart from a 5 minute nostalgia nip around with Deus Ex... I just haven't managed to get in the mood to play anything in weeks. I haven't had any game oomph since I finished a run-through on FONV...

It's all about the Origami, baby

It's just one of those things.. I'm wondering if the Lib-Dems are pushing that. I hate to generalise, but they do tend to push a lot of the fuzzy-left version of pacifism.

Grunts by Mary Gentle.. It's an outstanding read if you enjoy twisted humerous looks at everything from the Bad Guys Footsoldier version of the whole fantasy light versus dark battles.. Orcs who commit war crimes.. Hobbits with s&m tendencies.. Good guys who really aren't as wholesome as they should be.. Its dark, it's humerous, it's twisted. Not for the squeamish, but when the Orc's get twisted by a dragons curse into becoming ...Vietnam era style Marines.... it really takes on a whole new light. If you don't recognise the standard fantasy/tolkienesque tropes you might not get all of the humour, but its still worth a read. In ways, it's almost as if someone took Lord of the Rings, dosed it down with a mixture of Starship Troopers and Rambo. Inverted it all, and then slathered it with black comedy. Quote for the day. "Pass me another elf, this one has split"

One of those days where for no apparent reason I am in a really foul mood. Trying to stir the christmas spirit and not snap at everybody. On a side-note, got a powerball for wrist/forarm exercise. Supposed to be good for battling off any effects of repetitive strain syndrome and the like. Gyroscopic wonders for making your forearm muscles feel as if they're wrapped in fuzzy wool.

Yes, but my meaning was while it's one level of cruddyness to copy a cd.. to lend out a present you got for your son just takes it to something way more twisted.

What amused me was that in some Shadowrun supplement published post DX1, they slipped in a few offhand comments about UNATCO and Liberty Island.. I'm trying to remember exactly where it was.. but it was some throwaway paragraph...

And for something that has me a little flabbergasted.. my sister just dropped by to ask if I wanted to watch a dvd she's got for a few days.. The bit that has me flabbergasted is that its a dvd one of her friends picked up for their son as a christmas present..but they've been lending to their friends before they get around to wrapping it up. Now I've heard of people picking up cd's as presents but making a copy for themselves, but that just seems to reach a different level of twistedness.

Well had one of those great nights of total insomnia.. ended up reading through a few old JT Edson westerns in between bouts of attempting to sleep... Started off a slow sunday, the snow and ice seems to be melting so the streets are no longer as dangerous.. made an attempt at some work but had a fun headache kick in. So I've kind of spent the day popping aspirin and worked my way through the last half a dozen shows of Remington Steele for light entertainment..

It's kind of hard to do anything cyberpunk without referring to either Bladerunner or GiTS in the current age... Pop culture is pretty much cemented by those sorts of referential icons of the style. That and there's only so many ways you can make slick cybernetics look.. Personally I was getting flashes for some of the art to the various Shadowrun Augmentation-type books... but then taking a general look and making it look "weird" just to differentiate it from all others in that style can be pointless... You can get away with sticking spikes, and all sorts of ornamental crap on armor or vehicles to make them look funky..and still keep a certain level of belief in their functionality. But it's a little bit harder to do sp with limbs and body parts..

Ah, so you can start being "that creepy old guy" at the gaming stores?

http://www.sarifindustries.com/ Let the viral marketing begin...

Noir soundtrack - more of Yuki Kajiura's work..

I find myself getting a touch curious about Homefront...

I have to admit, while the pre-order bonuses tend to leave me generally blah.. Things like art books with concept art and the reasons why the art changed.. and certain game soundtracks just beg for that slight bit of extra change spent on the collector's editions.

Well the Baen one is stictly fantasy and sci-fi.. Gutenberg is more the generic old books.. It's been interesting to see how Baen have pushed the electronic format over the years, especially the idea of allowing people free access to copies to inspire them to get interested in the authors. Of course, while I will read ebooks on both the pc and kindle... I doubt I'll ever lose the taste for having dead trees in my hand. The texture and smell of worn and aging pages.. it just adds character to a good book..