Enoch

Sonny Rollins - Blue 7 As great a feature that Saxophone Colossus was for Sonny, I think it was an even more impressive album for Max Roach. There's some really stellar drum work on there.

Actually, you were promised "Technocolor," which I assume means "lit entirely by glowsticks." I've momentarily tired of my M2TW campaign as Sicily (of course, the first time I play as Sicily is also the first time I've ever seen Venice and Milan ally with each other), so I fired up NWN2 again. Playing as a Human CG cleric of Sune.

This would actually fall under trademark. Works are copyrighted. Names are trademarked. Saying "Superman" in a Spider-Man comic would be using a trademark. Having Superman actually appear would be using something that is copyrighted. If someone where to use a building (to use from the example, a McDonald's), then the building itself can be copyrighted. However, depending upon the purpose, amount used, and whether it dimenishes the value of the original work it would fall under Fair Use. Trademark is a lot harder to infringe upon than copyright because it exists for a completely different purpose. Trademark is used to identify something as belonging to a company or otherwise seperate for other things. DC Trademarked Superman so that other companies can't go around naming other things Superman and tricking DC Superman fans from buying items that have no real relation. Maybe if you argued that Spider-Man referencing Superman confused readers into thinking that Marvel owned Superman there could be an issue, but I think that's unreasonable. I was thinking more along the lines of a Spidey comic wherein a character drew an analogy to the exploits of Superman. At some point, the description of that copyrighted Superman comic would become part of the appeal of the Spidey comic, thus creating an actionable copyright violation. But a simple mention of Superman and maybe a very limited character description probably wouldn't reach that point. (e.g., "Sometimes I wish I were like Superman and could look through girls' blouses.") I didn't think to consider tm law, which wouldn't be an issue with a simple mention of the tm'ed entity in dialogue. (If they mentioned it on the cover, though, it'd be an entirely different ball game.)

This is all part of the very murkily-defined concept of "fair use" in copyright law.

Jack? Johnny? Jim? Sam? erm... Bass?? I've got an expensive bottle of fancy French wine with my last name on it (it's not a French name, but there is a chateau there founded by some cousins of distant ancestors). Haven't popped the cork yet, though. It's more of a special occasion thing. As for what I'm drinking, I've had some heartburn bothering my lately, so I've been sticking to water.

Tom Waits - Pasties & A G-String

Go to law school. Most law schools have dropped the 'immortal soul' admission fee, so it'll only cost you three years and another $80K in debt*!! C'mon, you know you want to! *Note: upon graduation, there are many soul-forfeiture options to reduce this debt load.

To know what it changes, I'd have to take a look at the prior directive it superseded. That document doesn't appear to have been publicly released (which suggests even more strongly that there's nothing insidious in this new document-- it there were, it wouldn't have been publicized). I'd imagine that the new version simply adjusts for the fact that there is now a Department of Homeland Security, and hopefully adjusts based on some of the lessons learned from the response to the 2001 terrorist attacks. For general information, here is the wiki article on Continuation of Operations Plans in the government.

Mingus -- Eh's Flat, Ah's Flat Too.

Mountain from a molehill. Here is the actual text of the directive. A few points: --This is a directive issued by the President, not a law passed by Congress and signed into law. Thus, it cannot give the Executive Branch any power it doesn't already have. By definition, a Directive cannot supercede or "negate" an act of Congress like the National Emergency Act. --The directive does supercede a similar directive that Clinton signed in 1998. Frankly, I think it's kinda shocking that something like this has gone so long without being changed. It's not as if there haven't been intervening events that might lead us to re-evaluate how the government operated in a national emergency. --The summary that Azarkon linked seems to suggest that, under this directive, the President can order states, localities, and private parties around. Upon examining the actual text, it only mentions coordinating emergency plans with these parties. I'm no friend of the Bush administration, and his attempts to aggrandize the powers of the executive with respect to the other branches of government are quite troubling to me. But it's ridiculous to suggest that this is the first step in some kind of coup. I had never heard of World Net Daily before, either, and based on this link, I can say that it's not a respectable news source.

i've got the 320 MB eVga 8800GTS "superclocked" and it's sweet. I have the very same card, and I quite like it as well. However, Cant is probably going to want to shell out for the version with more memory, if he plans on gaming with the ultra-high resolutions he can get with his new monitor.

I could never get into the Transformers cartoon. It's a cool idea for a toy-- I had a couple of them, and they were fun to play with. But, even to my childish eyes, building a storyline around why these things existed seemed farcical. Isn't it enough that they were a cool toy? Slinkies and Legos didn't need elaborate animated mythologies to make them fun. He-Man, on the other hand...

Springsteen -- Kitty's Back I've recently come to the conclusion that The Wild, the Innocent, and the E Street Shuffle is far and away Springsteen's best album. It's certainly his most improvisational, jazzy, funky, and experimental album. It captures some of what it must have been like to walk into the Stone Pony in the early- to mid-seventies and catch one of his legendary four-hour sets. After this album, his songwriting became more conventional Rock & Roll, with occasional dalliances into Folk. (Some have blamed this on the influence of producer/manager Jon Landau.) The lineup is also dramatically different from the E Street Band that would form his backing group from then on. Lyrically, it's very local, centered mainly on Springsteen's experiences on the Jersey Shore (where I grew up). Which is odd, given that his first album was titled Greetings from Asbury Park, but strains to be more universal.

Except that argument is based on the assumption that good players that participate in a session and a good Game Master are a constant in PnP, when this isn't true. Bad GM

Except that argument is based on the assumption that good players that participate in a session and a good Game Master are a constant in PnP, when this isn't true. Bad GM

The better objection is that any SP CRPG imitation of PnP is destined to fail because it doesn't include the one thing that makes PnP worthwhile: other people and good gamemastering. Without these elements, the pretense of imitating PnP gameplay is nothing more than an artificial limitation on the CRPG maker's creativity. Sure, it inspires some nostalgia for people with memories of fun PnP experiences, but that's not worth crippling the experience for everyone else. It's better by far when game developers adapt their approach to what works best in a SP CRPG environment instead of importing the limitations of the table-top game.

Modest Mouse - The Stars are Projectors

I need to bring this thread back up. It just wouldn't be right for it to get buried when the last page worth of post is all about pansy-assed water and lemonade. I'm drinking a Long Hammer IPA. It's an India Pale Ale made by the Red Hook brewery in Portsmouth, New Hampshire. I know nothing about the place, but apparently it's "mass market" enough to be available at the Safeway in Arlington, VA (along with 1 or 2 of their other varieties). Anyhow, it's pretty good ale, with a label that could be a part of a USSR propaganda poster, if they added a little bit of red.

I concur. From the article, their heart seems to be in the right place, with the talk about the primarily quest-based XP system, better NPCs, and conflicting questlines. But it remains to be seen whether they can actually pull it off. Generally, I liked most of what I read-- the POV options are fine with me, so long as the combat targeting isn't done in real-time. Plus, I'm a local, so the heresy of the DC setting is a plus in my book.

Electric Six - Danger! High Voltage!

They should've buried a Volkswagen.

Only if they occur naturally and not by man-made carelessness. Not really. The function of a forest fire in the ecosystem is the same regardless of how it is started. Human-started fires clear out old dead ground cover & break openings in the canopy so that new growth can start on the forest floor just as well as lightning-sparked fires. Problems only arise when human interaction leads to fires starting either far more rarely or more frequently than they would otherwise occur.

A thunderstorm rolled through the DC area last night and we lost power for about an hour and a half. It came at around 8 PM, just as we were starting to watch Children of Men, which unfortunately has to go back to the video store today. So we ended up entertaining ourselves with a combination of staring at the cat and carrying on the time-honored pastime of blackout sex.

This thread needs one more link.

Well, the Scots are a separate faction. I haven't played as them, but I think there is a Highlander unit. It's probably pre-gunpowder, though.