Raithe

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...

It can depend on the lines they draw. There's a big difference between willing to allow the occasional "collateral damage" to occur.. and going out of your way to target schools and "innocent" civilian casualties. The lines of when military/political/economic targets blur with the rest... The ethics and morality of warfare are one of the hardest things to sit down and make sense. Just how capable of justifying "x civilian dead now will prevent/stop a war/oppression that could potentially kill x many more" or balancing key principles... If a "corrupt" government is in power, do you blame the civilian populace for not removing it and thereby feel free to target the civilians? Should you put liberty above everything else? At what point will the ends corrupt the ideal? If "liberty" is the key principle, should you place it above common decency and honor and the way you interact with the rest of humanity? Or if you have "religious faith" as the key principle should that override all other concerns? At a certain point some things can get a touch silly to the outside observer.

Yeah, but that's like a typical weekend for you guys. Step on out, kill a king, go for a swim. What can we say.. we take our politics a little more seriously over here...

A filmed around the stage version of Pirates of Penzance.. The Essgee Pirates of Australian fame... And Jon English as the Pirate King really pulled out the stops enjoying himself on stage, really playing up to the audience.. and then the conductor has fun making him go through 6 encores for "With Catlike Tread".... If you like Gilbert & Sullivan, it'll amuse and entertain. If you don't.. shame on you uncultured heathens.

"The Bill of Rights. Too freaking long to actually read. So I'll just misquote it to support whatever I want it to..." Someone had to say it...

Just for the general SyFy cheese factor.. The Immortal Voyage of Captain Drake. Adrian Paul (of Highlander the tv series fame) playing Captain Francis Drake dragooned into a "hunt for the tree of life" quest by the kidnapping of his daughter.. (and for the random here, I have to say, for a guy who turned 50 last year, he still looks like he did in Highlander...) with Temuera Morrison (prequel Jango Fet/Clonetrooper fame) having fun as the evil spaniard chasing him... Throw in some cgi ship fighting, and a dose of "monsters" .. cheesy fun if you can deal with the budgetness of it all...

Actual beliefs, or just a pr spin to attract sympathy/support? What are the odds?

A proper Victorian era -pulp adventure style RPG could be fun.. Depending on just how much you wanted to push the boundaries of the fantastical with it.. it could cover a lot of areas.. The victorian interests in spiritualism/mysticism.. the sudden crank of science (the hint of steampunk), the possibilities of exploring "lost/hidden" worlds ...

UK teen banned from US travel for calling Obama names in an email... So for being rude and generally uncivil I can understand the need for a slapdown... and if he was actually "threatening" I could see why they might decide to follow up and check out the emailee to be on the safe side. But for calling Obama names in a drunken email, the law enforcement agencies in America and the UK were stirred into action..and he's been banned for life of ever travelling to the US? Does seem a little overkill. I always thought the american love of free speech technically included the right to call someone names?