Raithe

And I pay for my tv license and satellite tv... but I hardly ever watch anything except when I download tv shows when they're shown 6-8 months earlier in America and then choose to watch them when I have time rather than when the tv schedule says they're on... What I do find annoying music wise... is that if I go to Amazon.com there are music albums sold via digital download that you can buy for $4.. but they won't allow people outside of the States to buy/download them... and then Amazon.co.uk sell the same albums for

Hey, the "we advanced aliens can't commit warfare for ethical/philosophical/neurological reasons, so we're here to get you humans to fight for us" has been used in way more sci-fi then just ADF's...

Well.. because the parents went to the police over the matter.. both kids got cited with "underage sex" so there was the illegal aspect of it..regardless of how much it's "teenagers being teenagers". People have lines they'll cross to protect family. Especially dad's over protecting daughters. Dad's scare daughters boyfriends all the time, it's part of the job of being a dad.

The trouble is reminding yourself that there is so much stuff we don't know and have yet to understand. Things change. Science changes. Take the amount of simple "health" issues that have changed over the years, and biology is a bit easier to understand than physics. Given the vastness of the universe, the odds of there being some other form(s) of intelligent life out there have to be fairly good.. but the question would be.. if some alien intelligence is advanced enough to travel through interstellar distances.. why would they want to visit us? Apart from wanting to shut down the obscene amount of crappy reality-TV we've been beaming out into space for the last decade...

Yes.. to consider one point.. the French have always gone on about their higher safety standards (according to the law) for vehicles, but they don't actually enforce them as much.. while the UK has lower standards but rigerously enforces them. Note a few years back when we gave spot MOT's to French truckers as they crossed over, and they were all failing them miserably.. One of the those wonderful "political" byplays with the EU and the French truckers wanting to go on strike... Oh, and unpopular unless you're a French farmer or a Belgian bureaucrat..

You're making the mistake that "european" is based on genetics... if you're going to say that you just need that mix of danish, irish, german, dutch etc. background to be "european" then wouldn' that make a whole bunch of people in america "europeans"? Nah, European is a cultural thing, not strictly a geographic & genetics thing. And for a whole bunch of reasons, the UK has never quite walked to the same tune as Europe proper. Maybe it's an island thing....

Hey, and you have to be careful on the use of British... That's like.. the collective of English, Welsh and Scottish. Which is really annoying with how a lot of government forms these days don't list English as a possibility to put down. If you want to say you're English you have to tick "Other" and write it in yourself..

Hm, I've been playing as Ramses.... and by 1940 Catherine and the Russian Empire has around 20 cities minimum... She really seems to be pushing the expansion..and the conquering other nations. It's odd considering we started as neighbours.. she tried invading me once.. i stopped her cold..and since then she keeps offering me research pacts while stomping around the rest of the world... I must say, getting all the social policies that offer defensive bonuses within your own territory can be very worthwhile...

Arg. I don't know if its the lack of sleep, or the troubled dreams when I have managed to sleep this week..but my mind's been feeling like mush the last couple of days. Combined with a few annoying needles from life..I am forcing myself to try to stay upbeat. I think I might try calling a halt to the whirly-gig of reality today and see if installing and playing the new Civ for a couple of hours might break through and focus me...

Schlock Mercenary.. it has it's ups and downs.. but the ups can be quite...amusing. And the many references to the Seven Habits of Highly Effective Pirates (which include a list of more than seven rules) :

But does it have the Seven Habits of Highly Effective Pirates?

Grans visiting family in America, so popped over to her place to fix some things out in her greenhouse. Hm, and for the slight vent.. There's an organisation in my city that is basically an umbrella group that organises all "volunteers" in the city.. so if you want to do volunteer work, you go to them, fill out a few forms, and get shown a list of all groups/organisations/charities/companies that use volunteer workers in various situations.. you point out which ones would interest you, add in when you could be available..and then they forward details, handle a lot of the communication back and forth.. I went to them back in November last year and put my name down, got posted to a bunch of groups I thought it would be either interesting or useful to do some work for (both for general interest, and having something on my CV while I struggle to get back in the actual jobmarket).. Since then, I've been notified of forms being passed along, several emails saying "cool, but maybe in a few months", and a few places where you get asked to come along to fill out a few more forms and then get told to wait some. Then after even more months of nada, I got asked to come into a meeting, where at the meeting they told me I needed to get some forms of ID and fill out another form for the CRB report (basically background check for criminal history/sex crimes etc.). That was the whole point of the meeting.. to tell me I'd need to get id to come back another time and fill out this form... I was like.. "jeez, why didn't you just say come to this meeting with id and the forms can get done right now". Still, I did that. Two months later, I chase it up as to why I haven't heard anything and today I got an email "sorry I haven't gotten back to you, we've just got your form back..apparently in the time it was in the post they changed the forms. So we're going to send you another to fill out." .....10 months of paperwork and waiting. All because I just wanted to do some volunteer help work. I am so tempted just to say feck it now.

I just played ME2 again last weekend. I have now played it more times than BG2. Mildly concerned by this development, but it's like crack to me. The more I play it, the more I think of Mordin's writing. And the more I am bored by Samara and Thane. Any character that can work in a sensible reason to break into a Gilbert & Sullivan song mid-game is totally going to be classed as well-written... Samara and Thane do seem a touch..flat compared to some of the others. Although the dossier info in Lair of the Shadowbroker did add a certain depth to Samara.

magic missiles from behind bricks that won't actually work on a lot of enemies if they have shields/armour.. so basically everyone if you slide into insane difficulty.. I enjoyed Vanguard in ME1.. then ME2 just..nerfed up biotics. I mean, if I squint a little, I can kind of see what they were aiming for by changing biotics and tech that way..but it really doesn't feel like it worked. Although I have to admit, I'll still try importing my save on to ME3 to see how they change Vanguards for that...

But the general "public perception" still tends to be "games are things that kids play" even though a lot of games these days come out with various mature / 18 ratings depending on the board... Of course most parents don't check those and will still buy those games for their young teenagers... but that's the parents fault not the game makers.

Isn't that the fun one that Governor Arnie is spearheading to cut down violence in media ..? I'm not sure if that counts as hypocrisy or irony... Although to be fair, I think he's been pushing more the "in media that children are exposed to" rather then media in general..

In the midst of this metal and rock mixture... I shall interupt with the soundtrack to Serenity..

Smooth video..and it's using that music again.. so that had to be a win for trailer design.

One of the things he actually did was steal about 122 silver bars off a train, held a Wells Fargo security guy hostage..and then got Wells Fargo to "fence" the silver bars for him... I was out last night with a friend from Mexico helping her celebrate the bicentennial of Mexican liberty from Spanish rule ... I got a bit of history spun out there

Hm.. Pancho Villa? While he grew up into a bandit gang.. At later times he was an official who became a "rebel / freedom fighter" against the usurping dictator Victoriana Huerta... Of course, since they successfully booted Huerta out within about a year, they had no time to really.. spin down into the cycle of freedom fighter/terrorism.... Although yes, he used train robberiers to help finance the movement..so that might fall towards the "organised crime" aspects...

That bio says she's a descendant of Bastilla.. nothing about whether it's also Revan... She could have ended up fooling around wih someone else after Revan disapeared... Technically "Revan" was a whole nother person, so having his backstory fleshes out that character. The player merely controlled the amnesiac figure.... Even the grand reveal only gave fragmentary memories of being Revan.

Which also sounds a lot like the whole "Legacy" series where Solo's son turns to the dark side to save the Republic/Galactic Federation.. and right at the end when he finally gets "killed" has the whole "Hey, this brought everyone together to deal with this.. it worked..." final lines So you could say that the official SW lore liked the Revan sacrifice idea so much they put their own variation on it...

Working in a few hours of Civ IV play around the rest of life... Thought I'd work at it before the new Civ comes out...

There was the "Mysteries" teaser trailer that hints there's a lot more to the story of Revan then just the simple "he met the True Sith and was corrupted" ... so apparently there is going to be a rather extensive "quest/adventure" arc that will be open to certain groups... And it looks like at least a cameo of someone with the catchphrase of "meatbags." Edit: Dang it..that's what you get for rapid copy'n'paste..

Heh, and Stardock are apparently doing a "Buy Moo2 and get a free copy of Moo" at the moment...