Keyrock

There are certainly cases of sex workers being exploited and wronged, but there are also cases of people completely willingly going into that field and even enjoying their work.

Sex-negative feminism doesn't oppose "sex" they oppose the exploitive industries of pornography and prostitution. I disagree that pornography and prostitution is inherently exploitive and that's exactly the point sex-positive feminists argue, hence where we agree, hence my post you quoted.

Well, I was all types of wrong about the Bengals/Colts game. Of course, I made my prediction before I knew Cincy's best player was going to be out for the game. Still, backing an Andy Dalton led team is never a good idea, so, shame on me.

It's been many many years since I played BG2 and ToB, I remember almost everything from BG2 and almost nothing from ToB. I believe the previous statement speaks for itself. As an aside, I agree with Zoraptor about D&Ds epic level weaknesses, especially in video game form. D&D, in my opinion, is BY FAR at its strongest levels 5-15. D&D pretty much sucks at low level and very high level, especially in video game form.

^ What in the...

A hooker is a perfectly acceptable job (where legally permitted) for someone of age. I do not know the age of Volo's daughter, but if she's underage then suggesting she's a hooker is pretty ****ed up. I will give you the benefit of the doubt of it being a joke, although one with a certain lack of tact (talking about someone's potentially underage child).

More Infinity Wars. I built 2 new decks, one I called Dragon Fire, because it's Flame Dawn and Descendants of the Dragon, and the other called Wings of Glory, because it's Genesis and Order of Solace, the two most flying-heavy factions. The Dragon Fire deck is awful, I don't know what I was thinking. Those two factions are pretty much polar opposites in their approach, Flame Dawn being a very fast, attack heavy faction, while Descendants of Dragons being a very defensive, slow faction. The idea was that Flame Dawn would get me some damage in the early game while I play the slow game with Dragons. It did not work, at all. I'm sure it's possible to build a good deck with those 2 factions, but not the deck I built, that's for sure, and likely not with the cards I own right now. The Wings of Glory deck, on the other hand, has been quite succesful. Flying creatures are just a real pain to deal with, and that deck has them in spades. Plus Angels and Genesis synergize quite well. I don't think it;s quite as good as my Sugar Gliders deck (my Warpath/Order of Solace deck from before), but it's been fairly successful. As I acquire more cards I am slowly tweaking all my decks and getting ideas for new ones. Hopefully I get an Untapped Wilderness card soon. It;s a rare card, so not likely, but it would help speed up the Sugar Gliders deck immensely (It's a 3 cost location card that makes the cost of all Warpath cards 1 less). I am almost to lev 10, at which point I'll be able to play ranked matches and start playing more experienced players with more robust decks. Also more Grim Dawn. I'm almost done with Act 1. I'm in the warden's cellar and have reached the underground railroad portal. I'm very close to the lab and the warden himself. The BATTLEmage is working really well. I've gotten more mage abilities to make me a tad more balanced, but they're still mostly to enhance my melee combat skills. One is an energy burst around me that does damage and can knock enemies back and down. I got the modifier for it that makes it much more powerful but more expensive and with a 5 second cooldown (whereas the regular form had an almost instant cooldown) so I can't spam it. Still, the damage is great and can kill lesser enemies outright. It's an AWESOME ability when I get swarmed by a bunch of smaller enemies. Plus, the skill has a very quick, but still noticeable animation that interrupts and slightly slows down my melee attacks, so I felt it was better to do one big powerful busts every 5 seconds than spamming weaker bursts, constantly slowing down my melee attacks. Another ability is a shield that absorbs 100% damage and reflects a small portion of it back to attackers. It only lasts 3 seconds and has a rather long cooldown (almost 30 seconds, which I can reduce with more skill), but it's extremely useful in certain situations. Just straight up taking an axe to an enemy's face is still the meat and potatoes of my character's combat tactics, though.

The T Sizzle Crotchception may be the wackiest catch since The Helmet Catch.

Platinum Games is working on their next project (no announcement yet) and we may be getting more Bayonetta in some form soon. http://techraptor.net/content/bayonetta-incoming From that phrasing it may not be a sequel, but a spinoff or crossover. 2D beat em up/platformer and fighting game (possibly a crossover) seem like natural choices. Imagine Bayonetta X Guilty Gear with Guilty Gear's art style? Anyway, I'm down for more Bayonetta in whatever form and frankly pretty much anything from Platinum Games

AT&T Lily

Things I learned from the Carolina/Arizona wildcard game: Holy **** Ryan Lindley is terrible. I already knew he was terrible before, but I didn't know he was this terrible. I'm talking Brandon Weeden level terrible.

I'm going to scoop that game up sometime this year. I love Platinum Games so much.

It's partly because so many before us have just given in and made concessions to them, figuring giving a small concession was better than taking the brunt of the slanderous shaming tactics these people employ. Every little concession adds up and they've slowly gained power and influence. That's why those saying earlier (many threads ago) that this was petty and a fight not worth fighting are fools. These monsters need to be halted and every time someone figures the fight is not worth fighting they gain power and influence, making them harder to stop. Also, spoiled trust fund babies have plenty of money to toss about. Money = power.

Seems reasonable.

Playing more Infinity Wars. I'm having a ton of fun with the game. I really like the simultaneous turns aspect of it, since it brings an elements of trying to predict your opponent's actions and bluffing into play (MtG has that too, to a lesser degree, with instants). I've done all the available matches and challenges against the AI and am now playing against human opponents, though in unranked starter matches, since I can't play ranked matches yet. So far I'm 6-1 in PvP matches, though, again, these are matches against other starter opponents. Once I get to level 10 I can start playing ranked matches (I'm almost lev 9 now). My most used deck is most comprised of commons and uncommons, as is expected for someone starting out, but I'm having success with it and gaining cards. I'm currently playing a deck called "Sugar Glider", because flying and animals. It's 2 purity Warpath and 1 purity Order. There are 8 factions in Infinity Wars: Flame Dawn - Basically a Warhammer 40k Space Marine ripoff. Cult of Verore - Death Cult, Necromancers and such. Warpath - Beasts, Druids, nature, etc. Genesis - High tech corporation with lots of robots and gadgets. Sleepers of Avarrach - Undead. Descendants of the Dragon - Martial Artists. Exiles - Demons. Overseers of Solace - Angels. My main deck is predominantly Warpath with a dash of Overseers. It revolves greatly around Leader of the Pack, a beast card that gives all other beasts +3/+3 when in the battle area. Warpath also has cards that can increase your resource pool, plus I use neutral cards that do the same. The idea is to stall for a few rounds, taking damage if necessary, while I get beasts into the support zone (deployed but not in direct combat) and wait until I can get Leader of the Pack along with several beasts into battle at the same time, deploying a ridiculously powerful force all at once. Overseers are there mostly to shore up Warpath's weaknesses. It was hard for me before to deal with artifacts and locations. There are neutral cards for that, but they're expensive. Overseers have Consecrate, which destroys either a location or an artifact, making it versatile, and for a very reasonable cost. I also have a few angels in there for flying purposes since Warpath doesn't really have flying creatures (that I've seen so far) and only some (and expensive) creatures with Reach (lets them block flying creatures). There's also Leader of the Charge, an angel that can get super nasty if allowed to hit the opponent's fortress (the opponent rather than any of their creatures), since it gains flying if it does that and then buffs every attacking creature (itself included) every turn going forward if it attacks. I usually play very aggressive once I have the resources to put a bunch of beasts on the battle field, but sometimes if my opponent is attacking a lot I need to defend with the majority of my forces. If Leader of the Charge has gained flying I will often just leave her alone to attack (there are separate attack and defend zones), while my other creatures defend. Every round she gets stronger as long as she has gained flying and attacks. If the opponent has no way to deal with a flying creature, they have an escalating problem on their hands. Also, Overseer has some relatively low cost angels (without flying or reach, unfortunately) that have vigilance, allowing them to immediately defend. These are there for desperation defense purposes. The deck still has plenty of weaknesses and inefficiencies, but it's a start. Anyway, I'm still fairly new to the game and figuring out synergies and strategies. I'm sure there are some really cool wacky combos for me to figure out. Figuring out unorthodox combinations is one of the most satisfying things about card games.

What parts of second-wave and (so-called) "sex-positive" feminism do you agree with and why do you have such a disdain for the third-wave? I ask because "sex-positivity" is primarily associated with the third wave. Second-wave feminism was (And is, in my mind, since there are still those that share their ideals. I associate the "waves" more with ideals and methods than timeframes, though that's likely an "incorrect" way of looking at it) largely concerned with women's rights when it came to employment. They fight for removal of gender restrictions and barriers in the workplace, and for equal pay across genders, based on skill level, experience, and seniority, rather than what happens to be between your legs. I agree there should be no restrictions in employment based on gender and that people should be paid according to their skills, talents, and experience, period. I do not agree with everything brought about under second-wave feminism, though. For example, I oppose Affirmative Action, since it, by definition, discriminates. While it's goal may be noble, in theory at least, I do not feel the correct way to solve a wrong is with another wrong. As for sex-positive feminism, I agree with sex-positive feminists in regards to pornography and sex work not being evil in and of themselves. While there are obviously disgusting perversions, such as child porn, and making anyone do sex acts against their will is horrible, sexuality and sex acts in and of themselves are not evil in my opinion. They are a natural, biological function, ones that can be seen again and again throughout the animal kingdom. While we are sentient, we are still animals, and mating is a basic and very much necessary part of our life cycle. I find using sexuality to entice the opposite (or same, if you like) sex to be entirely natural. As for third wave feminists, that is a highly splintered group. The group I referred to as "radical third wave feminists" (I may not have been specific enough) is an extremist sect of the movement that, in my view, is fairly saturated with double standards and bigotry. These radicals essentially support sex-positivity when it fits their narrative and condemn it when it doesn't. Like any extremist, their views are highly insular and in many ways pervert the very nature of the base ideals they purport to hold. No discourse can be had with any of these people because everyone and everything has been preemptively judged by them, and even overwhelming evidence contrary to the opinions and ideals they hold is never even considered and immediately dismissed.

So, 1 year ago?

I plan to scoop it up for the Wii U very soon. I'm a huge fan of the series. Edit: We also get Half-Genie Hero supposedly sometime this year with playable Rottytops!

Like who ? Yes, I too would like to know who. If that accusation is being leveled at me, I would like to vehemently deny it. In fact, while my views don't line up 100% with them (my views don't even line up 100% with most gamergaters), I tend to agree with a lot of 2nd wave feminists and sex-positive feminists on a good percentage of issues. When it comes to radical 3rd wave feminists, yeah, I tend to disagree with the vast majority of what a lot of them have to say, on account of a lot of them being either complete lunatics, full of **** charlatans, or a combination of both, in my opinion.

I'm almost done with Act 1 in Grim Dawn with my BATTLEmage character. It's going pretty well so far. I've died twice, falling asleep at the wheel, in a manner of speaking, in both cases, and getting caught out by a sudden spike in enemy resistance. No excuses, my fault for getting lulled into a false sense of confidence. I also started playing Infinity Wars, which is a trading card game. Eventually, they're supposed to add a Linux client for it, as it stands, I didn't break my own rule of not buying games not supported by my current platforms of choice (Linux, Wii U [maybe 3DS next year?]) since the game is F2P, and thus didn't cost me anywhere (I saw a loop hole in my own rule and jumped right through it ). It runs fine under WINE, with the exception of some minor flickering sometimes. From what I read about the game, it's pretty light on the pay 2 win aspect. It seems like the stuff you can't get without plopping down dome dollars is mostly, if not all, cosmetic, and I've been getting cards just by playing at a pretty good pace. Anyway, I'm having a blast playing it so far. I've been really wanting to play a card battler lately. It brings me back to my long ago (really really long ago) days of playing Magic The Gathering (in physical form) some 15 or 16 years ago. If they ever do come through with that Linux client and I continue to like the game, I'll toss them some money. Until then, I'll keep playing freebie style.

Not quite true, at least in my case. It's a Thursday I get off with pay, which automatically makes it better than any other Thursday not named "Thanksgiving".

My resolution for this year is to be just as salty, if not more, than I was last year. Happy New Year, mother****ers!

I'm in. I've been taking the bus to and from work for the last few months, despite having a perfectly functional car, because it saves me money, and also because I get to take a nap on the way home from work. Naps are awesome. I unfortunately still need to drive my car for some things occasionally and thus must stay awake for those trips. Staying awake sucks, I'm down for more nap time.