Darth Drabek

I just saw the movie Mr. and Mrs. Smith. I had pretty low expectations for the flick, but those bastards showed some serious taste in picking the soundtrack. I mean, Brad and Angelina's "theme" is a freakin' Joe Strummer song. "Mondo Bongo," from the Global a Go-Go album, is (noticably) used multiple times in the film, and it's perfect each time. The movie was okay, too.

The best band from the 80s was..... Stryper.

Sandanista WOOOOOO! I have an affinity for bloated, genre-defying albums that take up 4 LPs. Some people never get past "Ivan meets G.I. Joe" on that fabulously extravagant piece of work, but those who do get their reward. And yes, I also dig the White Album. Right now, I'm listening to "The Tyranny of Souls," the latest from Bruce Dickinson. Bruce mentioned Icarus in the last song, now he's doing a power ballad sort of thing about "flowers in the gardens of the gods," complete with flamenco guitar solo. I love me a good power ballad every now and then. It's a good change of pace in between all the kickdrums.

I just finished "Elantris," the debut novel by a guy named Brandon Sanderson. It was an excellent standalone fantasy novel, something hard to come by in a genre where Robert "Air" Jordan is putting out his 36th Wheel of Time book. Also recently read that Gamespot article about KOTOR 3.

Kobayashi...... <drops coffee cup>

Hehe.... nice work! An interesting coincidence... in his speech, one of the first things Reed does is pay tribute to another member of Parliament - one "Mr. Malik," whose "convincing and searing" testimony in support of the proposed legislation was influential to Mr. Reed. "It will be a privilege to serve alongside him." Hmmm.... Mal(a)k, eh? :ph34r:

So this isn't exactly breaking news I guess, but it's news to me (I live in America, where we take our self-absorbtion very seriously). There's a sort of religious freedom bill up in the UK Parliament. Anyway, as was discussed a few days ago (before degenerating into a discussion of Paris Hilton and pedophilia), a lot of UK citizens wrote on their census that they were "Jedi." This outpouring of support seems to have flushed out a Jedi Master living in hiding in the verdant hills of England. The honorable Jamie Reed of Copeland announced that he was, in fact, a Jedi during his maiden speech in Parliament. The bill, if passed, will apparently protect his right to use the Force in general assembly. Here's the transcript from the mouth of the Jedi himself (about halfway down the page). And here is the article on Slashdot. Here is a picture of the man himself, for your photoshopping pleasure: No word yet on whether the Labour party is revealing its true nature to draw out the remaining Sith Lords, despite intense speculation.

Some of my favorite video game moments came from the running O.J. Simpson trial gag in Duke Nukem 3d. The "Innocent?" and "GUILTY!" billboards, the car chase on TV at the bar...Ah, my introduction to topical humor. There were so many other hidden gags in that game, from the Quake and Doom one-liners to "celebrity" cameos. "We meet again, Dr. Jones!" :cool:

Cypress Hill - Tequila Sunrise Eat the WORM, ese!

I do like Morrissey, but to elevate him to Dylan's level is a little extreme. They both have been quite pretentious on occasion, but I would venture that more of Dylan's writes more songs with deeper meanings than Moz. Morrissey makes good use of flashy wordplay, but Dylan does it without showing off. And nobody can tell a story like Bobby D. There's nothing in Morrissey's catalog that can stand next to The Hurricane, Desolation Row or Changing of the Guard. Listening to: The Beautiful Side of Somewhere, the new single from The Wallflowers. I totally forgot about these guys for a long time, but they recently released a solid album called "Rebel, Sweetheart." The songs and arrangements have a very Tom Petty-esque feel to them. In the same vein, Ryan Adams' new album, "Cold Roses," might be his best. It's back to his alt-country roots, which is where he makes his best work. Also: The Cars - My Best Friend's Girl Rancid - Red Hot Moon Stereophonics - She Takes Her Clothes Off Ted Leo & the Pharmacists - Six Months in a Leaky Boat (I talked to Ted Leo for five minutes or so after his show last week in Cleveland. Real approachable guy, eager to talk to fans, just like you'd expect him to be. The show was awesome, as well.) Sorry for the length - I'm on dial-up now (Everybody groan) so my long absences necessitate long posts upon my return to this, the only thread I frequent these days. :D One more thing - Solar Plexus is a sweeeeet band name.

Yep thats been my experience too, seems a bit backwards dosnt it. After all it's the people who cant do the bonus' who need the help. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> But isn't that the purpose of doing sidequests? To get some sweet weapon or gain experience precisely to become stronger? I mean I didn't have to do that colored light ring puzzle in Naga Sadow's tomb, but I always did so I could give that blade to Canderous or the Wookiee. And on topic: Malak was tougher. Like D Murda, it was my first RPG, so my first character's stats were cringeworthy, but even on replay of the boss battle Malak is tougher. I also like how it was artificially drawn out; it adds to the epic feel of that particular battle. A bigger area is also key to setting the stage for a great fight - when I first stepped onto the bridge of Nihilus' ship I was awestruck and ready for an fantastic battle. ... <_<

Sonic the Hedgehog 1 and 2. Ocarina of Time had some great music, as well. Oh yeah, and Street Fighter 2!

Warren Zevon - Roland the Headless Thompson Gunner Time, time, time For another peaceful war Time stands still for Roland 'Til he evens up the score

If you're going with 10 Strength, you might not want to go with critical strike. To avoid being stunned, the target has to roll a fortitude save of your level plus your strength modifer, which is going to be pretty low. There are many ways to nullify the defense penalty in this game though, if you're set on using critical strike. Dueling, certain lightsaber styles and (if your PC is male) battle precognition will bump your defense up. Plus if you focus on DEX, you're going to have such a high defense you won't notice the -5. I personally feel the best combo is a keen saber + crit pumping crystal, master power attack, master speed and master dueling. But I really love that critical strike animation. It is so "swashbuckler." :D

Wow.... Well, the guy is on-key. And the dialogue samples did make me laugh. Still, this sort of thing should not be encouraged.

Joe Strummer's last album "Streetcore." I like it a lot. It's a little raw, because it wasn't finished when he died. It also has one song I absolutely cannot stand on it, but overall it's really good.

The First.... the character relationships were more than two or three conversation trees long, the locations seemed more epic and hey, it set the bar. Gameplay, inventory and graphics were all tweaked for K2, but they were totally new for K1. Both stories were great; K1's was more satisfying to me, though. If the cut content and dialogue from Malachor V was in the final cut of the game then I might have a different opinion, that's how close it is. Plus, it was the first game that inspired me to join a message board.

Exile on Main Street :cool: Admiral Onasi's Lonely Hearts Cantina Band Straight Outta Coruscant Atton-in Sane Tatooine... Everybody Knows This is Nowhere Bastila's Wild Years Back in the H.O.T.H. (system) :D The True Sith: It takes a Republic of Millions to Hold Us Back The Rise and Fall of Jolee Bindo and the Spiders from Kashyyk Atton's Tale: Rum, Sodomy and Pazaak "

There goes that bloodthirsty liberal media again. Do you think reporters enjoy dealing with death? Are they sadistic people who feed on human suffering? How do you speak with a family that has lost a loved one? What do you say? When people get killed, people want to know why it happened. There's never a good reason, and it's a damn hard thing to do, but the journalist has to at least try to find out why. It's his/her duty to the public. Now I know you're advocating for both sides of the news from the front and not simply propaganda about how things are going swimmingly over there. You know that as distasteful as it may seem, it's a responsibility to cover the "bad news." If the amount of stories appears unbalanced, it might be because the American people care more about their own people being kidnapped by insurgents or attacked by suicide bombers than the advances toward democracy and a better way of life for the Iraqis.

We could have demolished Afghanistan and kept the goodwill of our allies, because it was the correct enemy to be fighting. A justified war, a war of vengeance. I'm not going to debate that Saddam is a bad person, because he is. He's not a nice guy. But dreaming up ties to Al-Quaida to drum up popular support for an invasion of Iraq to further your own motives is not a nice thing either. Admittedly, lying to your constituents is better than killing them, but it's still not an admirable character trait. The Clinton thing... well, extramarital affairs aren't admirable either. The press covered that whole circus extensively as well, and the people complaining said that it was not a public matter - presidents from Thomas Jefferson to JFK all had affairs and it didn't affect their ability to govern. Clinton never painted himself as President by Divine Right, either. I guess the moral issues voters hadn't come out of the woodwork yet. Watergate, on the other hand, was definitely a public matter because Nixon, as President, set up surveillance equipment to spy on the Democratic National Convention. This is HUGE, but not many people realize it is a fact. Not only are our manufacturing jobs leaving for China and Mexico, but by refusing to allow their currency to float, the Chinese continue to allow U.S. companies to build plants and pay laborers there for a lot less money than if they kept the jobs in the U.S. Plus, what if China decides they are going to annex Taiwan? If I remember correctly, the U.S. has some sort of agreement to protect Taiwan's independence. How do you go to war with the country that is propping up your enormous debt? But I've said enough about my war strategeries.

Well, since I haven't made a politics-related post yet, here goes.... I find it disgusting that my nation has squandered the goodwill of our longtime allies and many other countries after 9-11 by alienating everyone with our arrogance. Seriously, it's like a little kid pouting when he doesn't get what he wants. "Mr. Annan, If I'm not all-time QB, I'm taking my ball and going home." As a citizen, I do not appreciate being misled by my elected officals. As a journalist, I resent the fact that any media outlet trying to shed light on the deceptions, hedges and strategic omissions is derided as just another member of the liberal media. You know, at the time of Watergate, the New York intellectuals turned neo-cons were writing about how horrible it was that the press had gained the power to discredit a president of the United States who had the popular support of the people. They thought that the executive branch should be up on a mountain, unsurmountable and unassailable. This is how you get Frist's filibuster fracas: an attempt to allow the the tyranny of a small majority over a large minority - a power play. I'm sorry, but I believe in checks and balances in government, and if the press is ballsy enough to call "BullXXXX" when it's wading hip-deep in the stuff, I CANNOT fathom how that is a bad thing. As for the news... do you want propaganda or do you want a semblance of truth? NPR is good. So is the Washington Post. But if you really want to be objective you have to read both sides. Read William Safire AND Nick Kristof. Read George Will AND Leonard Pitts. Stay away from Ann Coulter and Phyllis Schafly, because they are idiots. Don't waste your time with the people yelling across a table from each other on TV, unless you want to find out exactly where each party stands on an issue. Moving on... I'm not going to look up the number of accomplished generals who have resigned because of Donald Rumsfeld's shoddy direction of this war. I don't remember the numbers, but the gist is this: these policians can start a war, but they sure don't know how to run one. Von Schlieffen knew that a two-front war is a war you're going to lose. When the U.S. army was running down Bin Laden in Afghanistan, did it make sense to pack it up for a new war and let the newly trained Iraqi army finish our job for us? My good friend flew to Afghanistan two weeks ago, so I think that answer is clear. It's like a little kid again, getting more toys out before putting the other ones away. Now we've got a larger army than Von Moltke did when he botched Von Schlieffen's plan, but as Hooah said - we're stretched thin. Real thin. And there ain't gonna be a draft this time, no sir. Even if North Korea keeps kicking our chair, there's nothing we can do right now. We've got more than we can handle already.

Good tunes to "get into" Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds: Red Right Hand As I Sat Sadly By Her Side 15 Feet of Pure White Snow I Let Love In The Ship Song Cannibal's Hymn There She Goes, My Beautiful World If you listen to any of those and like them, get Let Love In or his best of CD. Some of his earlier stuff isn't so, well, accessible. Right now, I'm listening to Cracker - Big Dipper

Oh man, that song is sooooo good. The outro.... "is there a place? there is a place." That was actually the first Frank Black/Pixies song I ever heard! It gave me chills first time I heard it, which was late night in headphones on a CD of tunes from (and inspired by) the X-files compilation. I got that album for the Nick Cave song "Red Right Hand," when I was probably about a sophomore in high school. Speaking of Nick Cave, his latest album is absolutely fantastic. It's that famous voice doing raw rock and roll with a full gospel choir backing him up. The song "There She Goes, My Beautiful World" will blow your mind. Get it now if you have any interest at all in real rock and roll with brimstone poetry courtesy of my favorite Aussie.

Yeah, the Nihilus part wouldn't be much bigger than Bandon's. He would have to actually be serious for it though... and not be Encino Man.