Hurlshort

I am going to Nobu in a month, and I need to try some sake to see if I can develop a taste for it. I've never had it before.

Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit - This was a pretty well done version of Jack Ryan. I'm not sure that new Captain Kirk has the gravitas to pull off the brainy economist turned action hero like Adam Baldwin and Harrison Ford did, but he wasn't bad, and I thought the story and setting was strong. The rest of the cast was really good, actually. Kind of a shame there won't be a sequel, the Jack Ryan franchise plays smarter than most of the other spy thrillers out there.

Lords of Xulima?

I'm starting to lose interest as well, and I'm in the Hinterlands too. I think I need to just stick with the main storyline, although I'm getting beaten up quick, which makes me less excited to play. I think I need better gear, but I'm too lazy to go looking for stuff.

I never finished BG2, so I never bothered with the expansions.

Oh geez, way to miss the humor.

I've been running regularly for the last year and a half, and I've been really enjoying it. I started out just trying to do a mile 4 times a week, and now I'm doing about 2-3 miles 5 times a week. Plus I still have my weekly hockey game, so that really keeps my cardio up. I've even got a few different running outfits and bought a decent pair of shoes over the summer. For awhile I was doing pushups and situps along with my run, but a few weeks ago I convinced my wife to start leading me in a yoga routine. She teaches it as part of her PE and dance classes, so she has some good stuff. We've also been using our tablets to try and find different routines. It is more of a mix of Pilates and Yoga that we do, less focus on the meditation and breathing. It is hilarious what she can do and I can't. My quads and my hips are terribly inflexible, all my skating over the years has made them strong but tight. I am starting to see a bit of an improvement. She has been kicking my butt with her sit up series, too. We do 10 with knees bent and feet on ground, 10 with knees bent feet in air, 10 with legs straight, 10 with knees bent feet in the air, 10 with knees bent feet on the ground, 10 legs to the left, 10 with legs to the right, and then 30 seconds of scissor kicks. She thorws in some stuff to mix it up so that we don't get used to it, but I'm already starting to see my six pack come back. We do yoga 4 times a week, and we have a schedule set up with a reward when we reach the end.

He mentioned earlier that it is an OCD type thing. Tough game to get stuck with, weighing in at 100 hours or so.

Wait, salami and chardonnay? The chardonnay was already uncorked, forgive me my transgression. I would typically open a bottle of red for such meat.

I went and arranged my classroom for the return to work, then went for a long run, and now I'm enjoying some salami, cheese, and apples with a glass of chardonnay.

Cerberus is definitely a shady organization, even in ME2. Did you believe all the bull that Charlie Sheen's dad was saying? That's why you had all the skeptical conversation options.

Be honest, you are in it for the bewbs.

Many? What if we look at the numbers, and the odds are just as good that you will die of an accidental discharge as they are that you will use the gun to protect your home from a violent intruder? I've already said I have no problem with gun ownership. When I lived in a rural environment, I found them to be helpful in scaring off coyotes. But lets not kid ourselves about how useful they are. You can admit that you like to have guns because you enjoy them and think they are cool, there is nothing wrong with that. But save your time with the justifications.

Tomb Raider was part of one genre, and now it is part of another.

I would really like to see a statistical comparison between your odds of being in a situation where you need a gun to protect yourself versus the odds of having an accidental discharge. I imagine they are both very low.

Right, people not driving cars are doing what they're doing because they're lazy. Speaking of "getting it wrong"... Touché and my bad. I corrected my oversight. It was a response to two people saying they were 'tired' and wanted to 'nap', so I mistakenly didn't include the better reasons one may not want to drive in my response. All of your options are fairly limited. Trains need tracks, buses are limited to routes (It would take me about 3 hours to take a bus to my job), someone still has to drive the carpool (which is me with my wife and two kids), and taxi's are hardly affordable for a lengthy commute. The whole hacker argument is overblown. As you already pointed out, our cars are already highly computerized. It would make a lot more sense to invest in creating stronger security than expect us to go backwards in time. Also how many deaths are going to be caused by these hacks, compared to the 30,000+ that get killed every year in the US? Realistically, I'd be happy if they just automated freeway driving. I fail to see why we need control to drive one direction at a decent rate of speed. You pull up to the freeway meter light, your automated driving kicks in, you select the exit you want to get off on. It would likely smooth out a lot of the gridlock, and I'm guessing a large percentage of auto deaths take place on the freeways. edit: Feel free to drop the enslavement hyperbole and have a rational discussion. You've been around long enough, you don't have to prove anything here.

That's very similar to what I tell a ton of my students every year. They like to read an article, and then sentence by sentence try and reword it so that it isn't plagiarism. It's a mess.

I'm pretty sure that two year old wasn't rummaging around looking for a suitable weapon to kill his mom, and he probably wasn't going to get the job done with a pocket knife. Education isn't an issue either, the mother was well educated and had experience and training. Also no one here has seriously discussed banning firearms. At most they've talked about licensing.

This was briefly mentioned in another thread, and I wanted to discuss it more. Frankly, I'm tired of my long commute, I'm tired of sitting in traffic, and I'm ready to give up driving. Even if it was just automated on the freeway, it would go a huge way towards dropping the 30,000 deaths in the US that happen every year in cars. Here is a fun article from someone with experience. I see self driving cars fairly regularly where I live, actually, although most of them are Priuses and those Lexus small SUV's. http://theoatmeal.com/blog/google_self_driving_car

My bad, it's an automatic response I give whenever someone mentions my state.

It's not a perfect analogy since driver's licenses require that you demonstrate at least some minimum competency before the license is issued. Plus the license can be revoked if the owner demonstrates repeated incompetence (repeated speeding violations; points systems etc.). Afaik Maryland (and possibly California) requires a hand gun safety test/course before a license is issued. (And long gun/rifle safety courses are actually limited to Hunting safety courses required for hunting permits - no other safety course is required in any state). I think Woldan's gasoline argument is that gasoline for a car is somewhat analogous to ammunition for a gun. Unfortunately his argument now fails in California (and Connecticut) where you need a permit to buy ammunition as well: http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/355697/californias-state-senate-passes-ammunition-purchase-permit-bill-charles-c-w-cooke I don't think you understand the bill, the permit is required by the vendor. I assure you I can walk into and authorized vendor and buy personal ammo without needing anything extra. But hey, people love to bash California. There was another bill that required all vendors to take down certain information on people that they sell to, but that failed to pass.

Depends on the state, the gun, etc.

Or we can just automate driving, which is what we are moving towards. Self driving cars for the win. So maybe in the future we can all have smart guns that only fire at bad guys.

TN, I've been doing a Yoga/Pilates combination for the last few weeks, but I might research your program, it sounds interesting. One nice thing is my abs are starting to show more definition, I think I might get my washboard showing by the time I go to Vegas in February. I've never understood the hubbub over New Years either. I'm dropping some friends off at the airport, and then I hope to be home and in bed by 10.

http://www.buzzfeed.com/ryanhatesthis/10-potential-mass-shootings-that-were-stopped-by-someone-wit#.tj1YYnn4E6 Clear enough? I did notice more than half of those incidents involved off-duty police officers, which kind of weakens the argument for random citizens carrying concealed weapons to protect the world. http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2014/12/31/the-inside-story-of-how-an-idaho-toddler-shot-his-mom-at-wal-mart/ This woman was educated, trained, and had a lot of experience with guns. So I'm not comfortable just writing her off as incompetent. I definitely have trouble relating to the culture of carrying around a gun wherever you go. I've lived in rural areas, I've had guns in my house. Usually the only use they've ever been was to scare off coyotes, but I get that they are reassuring when you know the police response time isn't great. My wife does competitive skeet shooting. But we keep the ammo separate and out of reach, we keep the gun in pieces, and the only time it leaves the house is to go to the range. As for using guns to overthrow the government, good luck with that. The greatest weapon against the government in a revolution is going to be the media and the ability to spread information. You aren't going to compete against the military, you want the military to turn against the government with you.