metadigital

You'll need his direction (in relation to the prison) and altitude, too. :D Did a v. good kickboxing session tonight: felt like I'd been swimming I was perspiring so much.

They could have gone into detail about Leonidas being guilty of killing (probably; it's difficult to be sure) Cleomenes I (his step-brother AND father-in-law), the Spartan King who -- without meaning to -- ushered in Athenian democracy under Cleisthenes by removing the tyrant Hippias, and then tried to quash it (and was chased out by the rioting citizens as he tried to reinstate another tyrant, Isagoras). (It was at this time, 507BC, that the Athenians gave earth and water to the Persians, as insurance against the Spartans. In perfect irony, Artaphernes (The Persian Great King Darius' brother and the satrap of Sardis) told the Athenians to reinstate Hippias as tyrant. Funnily enough, the Athenians declined. ) Or that the other King of Sparta (there were two Royal families jointly ruling, a hang-over from the pre-Hellenic Moon mother-goddess culture), Demaratus, ran away in shame (after boasting about winning the chariot race (not done by Spartans, let alone Kings) and after Cleomenes questioned his parentage) to finally join up with Xerxes and be his chief intel officer on the Spartans.

Rockclimbing is fun for all the family. Also builds up your forearms and gives you muscular fingers.

Ninjas.

I'm desperately trying to locate the passage where he states that Earthly justice is an affront to Divine Justice ...

SLi PhysX in CrossFire mode ..!

He might be drowning sorrow at the attitude of the inheritors of his Great Civilization ...

Ah, the epitome of human empathy and a determination to stand up for the weak and oppressed, wherever they may be. Thomas Jefferson would be proud!

Rousseau made that point, too.

I played the tutorial of my Civ 4, and then didn't touch the game again. I could see some merit in the game, but it didn't hook me (or I didn't let it hook me ) like Civ2 did. It seemed to have a much more complex mechanic and required a significant investment of research to play (which I was just not prepared to do), as compared to the earlier games in the franchise. Whether this makes for a more fun game is still unknown to me.

Kolto. (Or Bacta in the modern SW Universe) TY.

Granted, but I agree with the sentiment of my friend who used god mode to finish Quake IV, for example, because it was just a ludicrous twitch-fest where the

The museum: Who is that debonair chap with the beard next to the typically loudly-dressed American?

Yes.

Hooray.

I'm surprised to hear a US citizen who has even heard of New Zealand, with their amazing grasp of geography. I can even forgive the fact that you are still a few thousand miles east (and south) of God's country. And, just so that you know, tea is not made by pouring hot water into a half-cup of milk and tossing in a teabag.

Wait, you pay taxes every month right? and then they send you an estimate of it, which you have to correct for yourself - adding extra income etc. right? I hope you're not expected to pay your taxes for an entire year at once. For individuals, the Feds & State gov'ts (most, but not all, states have an income tax) deduct a % from payroll checks. At the end of the year, your employer(s) sends you a statement of the amounts you've earned and the taxes you've paid. You plug these amounts into the tax forms, account for any additional income/loss (like interest on investments), take any deductions that you are entitled to, and figure out how much you owe. If it's less than what has already been deducted, you get a refund; if not, you've got to pony up the difference. Businesses generally pay estimated taxes every month, and the same annual accounting process is used to see if they've paid enough or too much. They actually have provisional tax payments in Australia (or did), whereby businesses and individuals pay tax in advance based on what they paid last year. Unless you can give a good (legal) reason why not. At least that was the case about ten years ago.

Well I hope they all get the bends or altitude sickness or similar.

I descrive, from my descrying, that this thread is now over.

I saw Syriana, too, recently. It was okay.

The real shame is that the rich people spend $60k to helicopter into base camp with a team of Sherpas waiting to help them climb the last bit of the mountain with their tons of gear.

I love that book, probably because my views are in some ways akin to those of Bertrand( ) RusselL. Right now I'm reading Michael Grant's The Classical Greeks, and Umberto Eco's A Passo Di Gambero. Yeah, I just got to the middle ages ... so far I am a little concerned at Russell's fast-and-loose handling of the facts that I can confirm (after just reading the history of Ancient Greece, for example). It's certainly an interesting point of view.

I wonder if anyone else noticed the metaphor, now quite commonly heard, of England being to the US what Greece was to the Roman Empire in the Ancient World? He was too interested in supping beer from every available spout to contaminate the experience with a good cup of tea.

Interestingly, whilst writing The Transmigration of Timothy Archer, PKD felt he had channelled one of the characters (Angel Archer) who was smarter and better in every way than he was ... he was inconsolable when he finished the novel as he knew he would never know his character's thoughts in his mind again ... so maybe it is possible to roleplay someone smarter than you. Tangential tangent: this was his only non-SF novel, too.

And a thankyou. Waitaminute ... you told me you spent forty days and forty nights ..!