Raithe

With a damn good soundtrack. If you like orchestral scores that pluck at the soul.

For another classic example.. One of the key reasons why the UK was still having to deal with rationing up until the mid-50's.. was that the UK was the only country that the US demanded repay the war loans they'd given us. Now, I don't object to paying back a loan.. but when the US basically said "don't worry bout paying it back" to every other country they'd given loans to.. but demanded that the UK pay back.. it does kind of smack of a bit of a strange relationship for such "bosom buddies". And for a funny point in how things can totally filter through society... The Great Escape.. a classic film, but made during one of those low-points in the American-UK relationship. And all the key English cast get killed off by the end of the movie.. while the Americans survive...

To put one possible spin on it, Obama's father did grow up in British Occupied Kenya didn't he? (and with all the fuss and bother, there's the hint that Obama was born there as well.. although that's a whole nother matter... ). So there's that possible reason for his continued snarkyness over the Brits. Of course, I like how all his speeches Obama has made sure to say "British Petroleum" rather then BP. Trying to highlight the british connection mayhaps. Although technically the company changed the name to just BP years ago.... And yes, Bhopal.. how many people dead? How many birth defects resulted from it? And which government protected the company owners and refused to extradite the CEO who jumped bail in India? I know a lot of Americans and get on well with them, but frankly, their government does tend to be really quite slapworthy.

But we got some great episodes of MASH out of it. Although a lot of the MASH episodes were inspired by events that happened during Vietnam rather then strictly Korea... (just for the pedantic trivia...)

Okay, is it me, or are things being a little weird again... The US senate has attempted to "order" Jack Straw, and a couple of other MP's to appear to answer some questions regarding the release of the Lockerbie bomber.. and are causing a bit of a stink over their refusal to do so (please note, however much I dislike the annoying people who were the Labour government then, they had nothing to do with that.. it was the Scots who decided to conduct the release). However, when the inquest into the legality of Blair stepping into the Iraq War was happening over here and the Americans were invited to attend.. they ignored. For both the Iraq War and the Gulf War a few years before.. when the Americans were asked to come along to the inquests into several "friendly fire" incidents where American troops shot up British troops.. they ignored all requests and never showed up. The moment it's the other way.. then they cause a bit of a fuss because the Brits won't go to America when told to... Don't yah just love it?

You say it like it's a bad thing. Be sure to take a ride on one of those upright gas canisters, aim the grapple at the top part and then shoot it. It's one thing to do it when you want to do a crazy stunt thing.. but when you're chasing someone in a car ahead of you... they take a sharp corner.. you react automatically by trying to do a handbreak turn to follow them.. but forget to hit x instead of space and go flying off in some other direction.... It's got a mix of fun and some annoyance factors.. But wide open and crazy explosions count for the good Plus it's a damn pretty island...

Put Just Cause 2 on for the weekend.. some fun explosions.. but the habit of hitting space for a handbreak is really ingrained... so I keep meaning to do handbreak turns and end up parachuting out....

The original Mafia was a nicely paced story and everything flowed smoothly. The car action wasn't so much fun, but then it was the clunkers of the 20's / 30's so yeah, they were slow and cornered like a cow with broken ankles. A dead cow with broken ankles. So it's going to be interesting to see what they do with the sequel...

I look away for one night and you destroyed Scarlet from the competition.. tsk...

The Screwtape Letters - CS Lewis.. depending on how you approach it, there's a lot of..humour in it. Screwtape (a demon) writing letters to his nephew Wormwood, giving advise on how to undermine faith and promote sin in an unnamed Englishman.

Getting a touch annoyed with Red Faction Guerilla. Doing the "hunt the sniper" mission in Eos.. and no matter how I play it, changing weapon combinations, trying to sneak, trying to just take out the building, using the jetpack, sniping them with the nanorifle..... within 30 seconds of taking out the first sniper I'm surrounded by EDF in one storm of hailfire with no possibility of cover. or running from one group that have me nearly surrounded to another group that has me almost surrounded..with no break to recover health.. oh.. and of course the colonists running into your way every time you take a shot at any EDF soldier... So I'm going to give it a rest for the night and try again when I'm not swearing at it.

Omen Deng- 70 (-2) SIE- 42 Scarlet Lake- 81 (+2)

Omen Deng- 74 (-2) SIE- 40 Scarlet Lake- 77 (+2)

Should have Just Cause 2 arriving in a day or two... so the weekend could be bringing some general chaos and explosions...

Maybe I'm getting old.. but I still find Spycraft 1.0 a touch more flexible then Spycraft 2.0... (or maybe I'm just biased because I enjoyed Shadowforce Archer so much....)

Does CoC still have the trouble of surviving character creation these days? Roll up a character.. die. Roll up a new character.. go mad, then die. Roll up one more character... survive till first gaming session, then go mad...

Pootling around on Red Faction Guerilla. Having a bit of a pain picking up enough salvage... Anything non mission related seems to suddenly end up swarmed under a dozen EDF soldiers within seconds.. But it's making me ponder picking up Red Faction I & II....

Actually that was my original plan, Uni, then Signals. A couple of years back dad was going to retire early to let me apply..and while I blazed through the barb testing and such quite nicely the medical board came down and had to file a reject on me. Because.. and I kid you not.. My left eye. So because my left eye needs a stronger prescription then my right..and it just hovers past the acceptable limits.. All of the armed forces are a no go. That kind of killed my original plans. I'm currently putting my name forward to a bunch of volunteer groups around the city.. one way to help put something on my cv, potentially get some references (even if its just character) and potentially gets me out of the house so dad will start taking over more. Ah well. Okay, thanks for the advice. I'll keep that in mind. Go back 8 years and most of the IT related jobs seemed to expect fairly generic skills and would concentrate on site for what was needed. Now it seems everyone expects you to be fairly specialised when you arrive..

Okay, trolling for peoples thoughts on the matter.. But here's the basic situation.. some years ago I was doing computers, IT and business at University but had to drop out in the final year to look after a disabled family member.. It's now 8 or so years on and my dad's finally taken retirement so its possible for him to do it.. I need to figure out how to get into the workplace but all my IT skills are out of date and I don't have the full shiny degree letter (just some of the certifications of the units I'd done in the couple of years there). What's the best way to try to modernise my IT skills? Figure out a way to go back to school? Try to get into some really base level job ? Going through the government "back to the workplace" stuff tends to be a total roundabout. You go into meetings and they're all "we can't give you advice on jobhunting until we get your skills back up" then send you off to other meetings where they say "we can't talk about getting your skills up until we figure out what jobs your looking at" then back and forth.. It's very, very head slamming. Plus the whole.. 8 years hole on a CV with your only reference basically being "my mother" doesn't really suit well for sending out to jobs

Assorted music from the Buffy the Vampire Slayer soundtracks..(the series ones, not the film) . For some reason, they always put me in the mood to read Shadowrun stuff...

Did rewatch War, Inc the other evening.. that's kind of fun in that slightly bizarre way. Although it's always a treat to watch the Cusack siblings share scene time.. they do seem to have a great time doing those characters... Plus it feels like they got half the cast from Grosse Point Blank together for it...

I almost feel like I'm on the sidelines watching a tennis match between Oner and WorstUserNameEver... Konstantin Brayko- 12 Omen Deng- 41 (-1) SIE- 40 Scarlet Lake- 41 (+1) - She's a survivor... Sis- 35 Steven Heck - 22

Knight & Day - Tom Cruise goes through it with a ****y grin, and Cameron Diaz with a baffled expression. Still, it has some funny lines and moments in there..

It's more the werewolf goes into a "just because the person is just born.. I'm in love in a uber-bodyguard / uncle type / godfather / family way..but at some random point in the future when the ick factor isn't so big and she's at some undetermined age, it's suddenly going to turn into major sexual love as well.. and anyone who hurts her will get eaten." There's something about that that is just an eeeny-bit creepy.

Albatross - 14 Henry Leland - 13 Konstantin Brayko- 14 (-1) Omen Deng- 30 SIE- 34 Scarlet Lake- 35 (+1) Sis- 30 Steven Heck - 21