metadigital

) Well it wouldn't be very useful before, would it? I don't think the creators of the joke every thought that much about it. Then again, there are much worse things to contemplate in the transmogrification ...

Total Recall is now on BBC 1.

Zombie In-Human Rights Now! ZIHR-Now! I played a NwN community mod where the undead were portrayed in a more forgiving, less stereotypical manner, and they had even settled next to some dwarves and goblins deep underground. Seemed like nice people, and they didn't keep trying to eat my brains or anything. Very genial. Nicer than some of my neighbours, in fact. Of course, this is not what we want, this is what the Jedi ought to be doing. Jedi are meant to be Lawful Good.

And don't tell me, they turn into a pizza after coitus.

Yep, I agree that was probably the best line in it. They must have spent hours and hours doing the SFX for all those lightsabres!

She must be dynamite in the sack ... "

It isn't as complex as it might be. For example, have a problem that must be solved using an element from each of the defining attributes of the classes. The PC will have one attribute due to their class. The others need to be obtained through some side-quests. Too easy, Campese.

Cloris always wins because she cheats and only comments with facts.

... And they will be judged not by the name of their species, but by the content of their character ...

I loved studying history at university - it was one of my combined majors, along with Spanish. Linking it with a language works well, too. Spanish history is rich and fascinating (not short of wars, either, but there's always a war going on somewhere). A word of warning - in the UK at least, history graduates tend to become accountants. I only escaped this fate by fleeing to Japan. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> Ancient hsitory is quite appealing to me at the moment. I had a book that listed the ten greatest battles in all of history, and only one from the twentieth century made it (the book was written just after WW", iIrc): Marathon was there ... I can't remember the others, my friend Luca, who has militiaphilia, "borrowed" it ... (I've always wated to learn a bit of Ancient Greek and Sanskrit.) Then again, my current desire is to finally map out history throughout the last few thousand years taking special notice of what was happenning simulataneously in the geographically seperate nations, like the Venetian Empire (the real culrpits for the destruction of the Pantheon) and the Kingdom of Siam (Thailand: never conquered). I'm also currently reading through the Times Compact History of the World, but it is a little too compact (not enough depth to keep me interested).

I didn't mean to sound condescending, but it's true. These people are not used to having freedoms, and most importantly, a voice. And now that they have been given one, they have to adjust and learn to get used to it. It would be like living in a democracy all your life, and then suddenly being placed under a dictatorship. You were so used to having a voice, and now you are silenced. Wouldn't you have trouble adjusting? I sure as hell would. And I'm sorry you have such a lack of faith in the Iraqi security forces. These people want freedom, and despite a risk of getting killed, hundreds of Iraqis line up in front of recruiting offices to sign up to defend it. I think that shows how dedicated they are to fighting these insurgents and bringing peace to their country. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> I have every faith in the Iraqi security forces. I just fear for the hand that holds the leash ... (like Napoleon the Pig in Animal Farm). No one wants to answer my trivia question? Okay, unless I am mistaken, the first democratic election was for Arab Idol, the Pop Idol competition.

What about at the end of Warcraft III? How did you feel about the Prince?

That's a tad condescending. The Iraqi issues are more about the power politics struggle of the formerly-dominant Sunni Muslims, versus the numerically superior Shi'ite Muslims, and the independantly-minded Kurds in the North. (Iraq is just another British colonial hangover of a country; there is no historical reason to group all these peoples together except for expediency. Think of the poor Mash Arabs.) The foreign insurgents are certainly a problem, but as soon as the Iraqi police are more in control, this should be manageable (like it is in Pakistan, Syria and Beirut ). Trivia question: what was the first democratic event for Saudi Arabia?

Hmm, Russia (not much left of the USSR now) is certainly escalating up the charts with a bullet, with Putin eagerly taking over the mantle of Tsar handed to him by the crime cartels that rule Russia, but I don't see them making land grabs or commercially hostile takeovers anytime soon. I would expect the Chinese to sit back and attack the US on commercial grounds, not a flat-out military fight (Sun-Tzu and all that). International currency exchange and futures could kill the US as dead as a nuclear weapon. Sure, they've made mistakes (can you say "Hong Kong" and "Opium Wars", boys and girls?) but you must admit they certainly have both the intellectual prowess and the human captial to do potentially anything.

Yep, I like history. Sort of like politics, except all the spin is neutralised. Well, the crimean war started in 1854, and the UK and France were allied at that point, so 1852 seems unlikely...Waterloo was in 1815, and trafalgar in 1805, and I had always thought they had broken France's back. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> Hmm maybe Napoleonic? Might have been 1792? Here's one possibility ...

Where is this post? Not on this forum, I take it. It's obviously not true, but I'd like to see it, for curiosity's sake. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> rumour mill It's probably over on the Dark Side ...

Ooh, "Inflexible! Linear!" shout the magazine reviewers as they deduct points. I think the idea is good - it doesn't actually reduce your freedom in the game, but it does destroy some of the illusion of freedom that seems so important to some. Unless you have the option to change your mind halfway through - a great dramatic 'life or death' decision thing. That would be great fun. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> Of course: redeemded / carry on to enslave the galaxy if starting DS, and fall / cheesey medal ceremony if starting LS. Just have (at least) two seperate start points. Like Dragon Age.

Now stop clouding the issue with facts, Cloris! Really, this thread, and all like it, are just peurile in the extreme. Different systems for different uses: there are situations where one system will have an advantage over the other, but this doesn't mean one is necessarily better than the other, because they both have advantages. Just be happy that games have a multitude of platforms to be published too. Sheesh.

... and yet she still managed to but in with her irritating opinions, even when she was meant to be safely contained on the Ebon Hawk.

Granted, but Jedi shouldn't hold "grudges"; they should act with regard and respect for all life. Did these terenteks cause a disturbance in the Force when they died? Like the inhabitants of Alderan? I can understand the control and management issues, just not the blood-thirsty genocidal attitude. :D

I seem to recall the war was naval, and off the coast of Canada ... dang, I'll have to look it up (it was published in the last 18 months in the UK). The title of the book was just the year "1852" or something like that.

Well, there's going to be a showdown between China and the US, it's just a matter of when and where. China is not stupid: there has been a civlization there for ten thousand years or more; I'm still reading through "1421", the story of how the Chinese sent out huge (even by todays standards) ships to trade and explore the entire world, then the Emperor decided (about ten years later, when they returned) that the rest of the world had nothing to offer China and destroyed all evidence of the trips. (The only surviving evidence is from those the Chinese fleets visited.) At the coronation of the Emperor in 1418 (IIRC) all the most powerful rulers in the world were invited and attended: none from Europe, because it was an inconsequential backwater, at the time. (Arabs, Persians, etc). Not to mention the Mongolians had an empire twice the size of the Romans at its peak.

The Amazons were greek. The germanic equivalent were the Valkyries. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> Weren't they based on a South American culture? (I was watching Katherine Hepburn and Spencer Tracey in Adam's Rib the other day and Amanda Bonner -- Hepburn's attourney character -- quotes some reference to the Amazons and their forebears.) Hmm, researching a little more: amazon: Word History: In classical legend the Amazons were a tribe of warrior women. Their name is supposedly derived from Greek a-mazos,

Absolutely, "My enemy's enemy is my friend" ... until that particular enemy is disposed of, then we can have a brawl over what's left. Incidentally, the world would have looked a lot different had France won a battle in Canada in the nineteenth century: that was the critical point in history when Britain gained ascendancy and the French civilization was forced to adopt things like Greenwich as the world standard ( :D ). I can't remember the battle exactly, but there was a book I was going to buy and read about it ... sometime after the War of independence in the US, and the French and British were fighting over Canada ...

Seeing as that is a common Greek hair color, Id be inclined to say yes. Also, Hildegard, there were the Witches of Dathomir. They were force users who only trained women and treated men as second class citizens. Granted, they turned evil for the most part...but you see the similarities, I trust? <{POST_SNAPBACK}> Greek? I thought it was a Germanic myth ... Yes, well, females, non-whites and left-handers have always been regarded as evil ...