Gromnir

same HA! Good Fun!

yeah, we mentioned above that we shoulda' started doing companion gift runs when we first resumed playing swtor, but we didn't know how companion influence would work and if old gifts would become useless for new companions. couple things we learned real quick: 1) save basic comms to buy the level 8 gifts, but dont use them... yet. ok, that sounds odd, but hear us out. the vendor on fleet that sells level 1 & 2 greenie gifts is still in business. if you got time on your hands, and you wanna do comp increase most efficient, you can BUY your way to level 20 influence w/o too much pain. as soon as you get a new companion, head to fleet and boost their influence to level 20 with monotonous gift giving. if you use your comm purchasable level 8 gifts, or the level 5 gifts one can acquire from diplomacy or investigation or treasure hunting or whatever, you will quickly gain too much influence to get results from the level 1 & 2 gifts. so use cheap gifts firstest. after doing all the star fortress fps (which you can do solo?) you will likely have a full set o' the gear you could be able to purchase with basic comms anyways, so save those comms for level 8 gifts. 2) your companion legacy affection increase perks are no longer useless. for 180k of credits, you can increase both gift and conversation influence increases by 30%. purchase these immediately to maximize their use. is mind numbing dull, but if you wanna increase companion influence (new or old companions), take our advice and invest in the perks and buy your way to level 20 influence asap. conversation gains is static and do not decrease as you increase influence, but gift usefulenes does decrease as your influence increases. use gifts as much as possible before any conversations. hell, if you got the full 1000 basic comm max, am believing that you can get a majority o' your new companions to level 40 (reach 20 with level 1-2 gifts and then to level 40 with your level 5 or 8 gifts) long before you finish the chapter 1-9 material. again, am not suggesting that our advice is fun gameplay, but it is efficient. HA! Good Fun!

'bout 6 weeks ago, when we started replaying swtor (though we played almost none the last 2 weeks) we considered stockpiling companion gifts for future sale. 'course, we weren't 100% certain that gifts would have any place in 4.0. shoulda' gone with first instinct. HA! Good Fun!

"While there was some diversity among the 10 winners, no English learners were elected, even though they make up about a third of enrollment." am suspecting this is a big part o' their "problem." most folks is not comfortable speaking in public. esl students is understandably tending to be less comfortable speaking in front o' groups. any school election we can ever recall had the candidates do speeches and some even had to answer student body questions. regardless o' the demographics o' the student body as a whole, to win election you need have kids run for the offices that is popular enough to win and is willing to speak in front o' some large group o' fellow students. regardless, seems obvious that you fix the "problem" before elections next year. administrator made an error. seems clear that hiding/delaying current election results would be viewed as unfair and we suspect that if there is any racial tensions at the school, such issues (dislike that word) would only be exacerbated by highlighting the "problem." was a teachable moment *snort* for the administration more than students. HA! Good Fun!

we got no doubt that a few directors and studios has various agendas they wanna push. is nothing new. push anti-communist then five years later it is anti-military. save the trees. save the planet. does such stuff give the sjw conspiracy nutters ammunition? dunno. hell, original star trek tv show weren't exactly being subtle about the diversity o' their cast, were they? star trek were fantastic stuff. am suspecting that is a generation o' nerds in the late seventies and early eighties who watched star trek as kids and learned more 'bout diversity by accident than they ever got from school. 'course they also learned that women is 'posed to wear go-go boots and dangerous short skirts... or nothing but green paint. baby steps. then again, have a traditionally white male character played by a latino woman and folks will ask, "why?" hell, am gonna admit that for recent fantastic four movie we were curious how they were gonna manage a white sue storm and a black johnny storm. adoption were our guess, but we did wonder, "why?" Gromnir does not feel oppressed if santa claus is played by a white guy... and we don't feel empowered if Denzel Washington gets to play George Washington. *shrug* have a white female and black male protagonist for star wars = sjw? unless the conspiracy nuts got more info than we is privy to, we don't see it. oh, and we agree that the lightsabre cross-guard is silly... but so too is a lightsabre. and the sabrestaff that darth maul used were equal dumb as the crossguard thing. HA! Good Fun!

it is amazing how quickly we forget. marino may not have been particularly agile, but he had the quickest release we ever saw. we could go down list o' marino qb attributes, but we would simple be describing the ideal pocket-passer. well, ideal pocket-passer attributes on the field. kinda a head case early in career. rivers is a fantastic qb, but is likely that with benefit o' hindsight, he will not even be recollected as the best ever qb to ever play for san diego. dan fouts likely gets that title. other great qbs deserving mention and likely a place before rivers on a list o' all-time greats who never won a championship is gonna need include fran tarkenton (for certain) and arguably warren moon, sonny jugenson, ya tittle, and john brodie. jim kelly? he had such a great supporting cast and failed to win a super bowl, but in spite o' playing half his games in likely the second most unfriendly qb venue (rich stadium is comical windy at times) kelly were named all-pro in 1991. rivers has not yet even managed 2nd team all-pro. regardless, is no way we put rivers ahead of fouts or marino... not yet at least. HA! Good Fun!

Let me guess, because most also got bogus stacked charges like "Resisting arrest"? bad guess. am only considering felony charges, and oddly enough, resist arrest is simple misdemeanor 'ccording to fed. individual states do distinguish misdemeanor and felony resisting arrest, but felony requires violence. run from cop or pull away from cop to avoid drug possession charge? no biggie. folks have been watching too much tv. there is a growing assumption that cops is bad. there is bad cops. the thing is, there ain't enough bad cops to explain the numbers. speaking o' tv, that is why we got the terrible minimum sentence and three strikes nonsense. all it takes is a handful o' publicized stories o' felons who get probation and then commit heinous and violent crimes for the public to be demanding minimum sentences. is not that the media is creating the problem, but the public reacts more to images o' dead children on the 5 o'clock news than it does to reasoned discourse. HA! Good Fun!

mechs is an implausible upgrade o' tanks, no? railgun tech is gonna require a rather significant change in ship design. *shrug* HA! Good Fun!

am much conflicted 'bout avengers 2. ultron is fantastic. sure, the extinction-level event he engineers is a bit queer, but is worth noting that ultron is a perversion o' tony stark, and tony is a bit o' a drama queen. well-written and spader gives good performance. biggest flaw with the movie we see is utter predictable. ensemble casts is making very difficult to meaningful develop characters. as a transition film, the ensemble nature is even a greater impediment as scarlet witch and vision is added while attempting to give adequate screen time to the core avengers. HA! Good Fun!

ps:t suffers a great deal if you play other than high wisdom & Intelligence. charisma were also important to a lesser degree. ps:t is the game that taught us to always play a high wisdom & high intelligence character our firstest time through a black isle and/or obsidian game wherein such a choice were possible-- is a kinda metagame, we s'pose. iwd has a party with no specific protagonist, so the wisdom/int bit aren't genuine tested. nevertheless, play kotor 2, motb, and even nwn2 w/o enhancing wisdom & intelligence (and charisma) and you will miss opportunities and options. our favorite kotor/motb characters is rogue/cleric multi-class with extra points in intelligence for more skills and better dialogue options. and more recent, poe is rewarding the resolve and intellect player, which came as no surprise to us as our initial 3 runs through the game, regardless o' class choice, were with slight variations 'pon the following spread: m 10/d 10/m 10/p 16/w 16/r 16. rogue, priest or paladin? didn't matter. sure enough, best options for exploring dialogues is available by inflating poe versions o' wisdom and intelligence. ps:t and kotor 2 is enjoyable enough w/o focus on the cerebral attributes-- we have played both games that way. even so, after having played a high wisdom and high intelligence character in ps:t, we always made our first run through a black isle/obsidian game with those attributes. HA! Good Fun!

With current tech I think the next step in big weapon platform is gonna be orbital or some kind of high altitude glider/VTOL. For future tech, gravity manipulation is definitely where I see us going. well, if you are encompassing more than land-based big weapons platform tech, then obvious next step is, predictably, naval power. HA! Good Fun!

we got nothing 'gainst offering the player hard choices. we got nothing 'gainst making right choices less obvious. even so, we recognize that the nature o' these crpgs makes moral dilemmas inherent different regardless o' the degree o'... immersion. can't do moral dilema same as movie or tv or book. can't do same as rl. we will note that our most frequent complaint with handling o' good v. bad consequences is gonna be disappointment with the bad guy consequences and options. the bad guy options, almost w/o exception, is petty and/or opportunistic. our sense o' esthetics makes bad guy choices an unlikely option, but the limits o' game design is a significant obstacle towards improving the complexity o' moral choices. HA! Good Fun!

it might be bad, but am in agreement. we got no interest in battletech pvp. also, implementing pvp, once promised, could require disproportionate resources. "best laid plans..." and all that. it is possible that by reaching the goal for pvp, the sp game will suffer. HA! Good Fun!

genuine realistic combat would be less than entertaining in a game. one need take any number o' liberties to add appeal to an inherently terrible and exhausting exercise. am knowing that some folks is constant demanding more realistic combat, but such has always struck us as a desire based on ignorance. but you ain't talking combat... 'least not direct. why we bring up combat when you is talking morality? we will get there, promise. realistic morality? hmmm. start with understanding that we don't know what cant and others mean by morality 'less they get specific. is more than one definition o' morality. regardless, extreme goody-two-shoe is possible to pull off in real life. some such folks can be annoying if they tend towards proselytizing, and if such folks seek to subvert the dominant moral/political paradigm, then they better have an army at their back or they will end up as martyrs. however, if one is believing in relative morality, then good is what a society deems as admirable, no? would be peculiar if society rejected the good man, no? it happens, but is noteworthy because is the exception as 'posed to the rule. the typical good person lives a life that is appreciated by the small (or large) number o' people they manage to interact with during their lives. mother teresa were known and loved by millions. bob, the postman from amherst, mass., were known and loved in his neighborhood. is nothing inherent prohibitive 'bout being good... again, depending on definition o' morality. play bad? am not gonna go too far down the rabbit hole. get folks to come to any kinda consensus on what is good and evil is impossible on these boards. w/o some kinda fixed starting point, we is doomed. even so, play the psychotic evil that is allowable in most games should have more in-game costs than is typical. show up in a town and rob from multiple homes and perhaps kill a few folks, and even if you do so w/o witness, there will be investigations and questions and likely arrests. the game character who do not have some kinda leverage with the local authority playing it overt bad strikes us as far less reasonable than playing good. now, play a more scheming kinda evil where you do not actual commit overt acts o' violence and larceny is plausible, but again, is mechanical prohibitive. the scheming bad guy needs a plan. craft a complex and long-term plan when each encounter is purposeful insular and discrete is alternative implausible or undesirable. we has suggested the option o' adding a scheme for the intelligent bad guy, but admittedly, is not a perfect solution as you would be simple following the developer's proposed scheme rather than crafting such a thing. in any event, to all outward appearances, the scheming bad guy is not gonna seem evil... which means that the bad guys is gonna need do frequent good or at least harmless in most encounters. the heroic aspect may be complete divorced from morality depending on definitions being used. and in any event, one can be a bad man who has acted heroic in the past... and nothing 'bout bad past prevents a man from being heroic in the future. however, is easy to be heroic in a game 'cause the sacrifice is never genuine... which is a mechanical necessity similar to the aforementioned lack o' realism in combat. run into a burning building In A Game to save peggy sue and her puppy may not be a morality issue in any event, but is not particular heroic neither if there is absence o' genuine possibility o' real harm. give imaginary gold that you got in abundance to help the imaginary homeless person? where is the sacrifice. w/o sacrifice, where is the heroism? game heroism is necessarily an illusion. IF you use definition o' morality that requires the good man to sacrifice for his fellows, then yeah, play genuine good is impossible for Mechanical reasons. am not sure how the morality conundrum is specific related to aod in any event, save as it is applicable to any and all crpgs. regardless, ordinary and everyday good should be ez to play, whereas bad should have obvious and typical prohibitive costs. most important is the realization that heroism is impossible to manufacture in a game. don't expect realistic heroism any more than realistic combat. HA! Good Fun!

the number o' folks incarcerated for drug offense stuff is a bit misleading. yeah, mandatory sentencing guidelines does result in folks getting ridiculous prison terms for mere possession. however, keep in mind that the guy who has drugs on possession while committing a home invasion or carjacking gets drug offense as well as the theft/assault/whatever. should come as no surprise that people who commit crimes is frequent under the influence o' drugs or in possession o' such. the number o' folks in prison when the only charge is marijuana possession, for example, is relative small. in 2010 there were between 63 and 73 people serving time in fed prison on noting save a marijuana possession charge. the reason why is a range is that we can't get details on 10 o' the marijuana sentences. HA! Good Fun! ps we do agree that the drug war has put too many folks in prison, though problem is more complex than is often described.

we drowned. not today, but when we were young. were a frozen lake and we fell through while playing hockey. just one o' those things. lake had been frozen solid for more than a month, but the patch we fell through were rotten. we got pulled out and resuscitated, but not before we stopped breathing. we drowned. may have already described the experience before on these boards... am not certain. ain't important at the moment. the reason we bring up is that we were terrified and absolutely nothing we did while trapped under the ice did any good. felt utterly helpless. were ten years old when we drowned and since that time we has had dozens o' moments in life that were just as terrible and frightening, but not nearly so dramatic. family crisis. business crisis. personal crisis. unlike most movies and tv shows, real life problems ain't always fixable. fall through the ice and get trapped and just kinda feel self drown. in real life, the folks who might be there to save us, who is s'posed to save us, is often just part o' the ice. only genuine escape woulda' been to make different choices five, ten or even twenty years in the past and that ain't possible, is it? so, you drown. probable takes three minutes or less to drown in water. drown in marriage or problem with kids or job can last a whole lot longer than three minutes. spend days and weeks and months feel like drowning. got no idea what you are going through and it ain't none o' our business. even if you told us, we wouldn't pretend to to know how you feel. we ain't got no great insights, that is for damn sure. that being said, let us know if you need a hand.

It's not a Codex game, it's basically a one man game then a couple of multi-purpose significant contributors coming on board. AoD is brilliant and you should all get it. OK, in fact, not everybody. But if you want to see what a game that actually takes choices and consequences seriously, actually has NPCs lie to you and backstab you, actually has a combat which is very dangerous, actually makes you choose suboptimal outcomes and live with those wounds - that is, all those things people speculate about, wish for, or make empty promises about.... if you want to see a game that does all of that far more than almost any game in RPG history, then this is it. It's a unique thing. For better or for worse its a very pure distilled vision, without the million compromises where unique features become gimmicks and design philosophies become watered down. Which is why some people will hate it, some people will love it. Hey, there's a free demo. (Also, if you thought, regardless of the rest, Alpha Protocol or MOTB were amazing because they gave you such unique roleplaying options that you don't find elsewhere, then AOD gives you a ton of that. Ever talked one enemy group into fighting another enemy group and solve both of your problems? Ever disguised yourself as a guard, scaled the walls with rope, backstab a guard, jump down onto the floor, then smooth-talk the palace's owner about why all that means he should hire you? Ever gone on an assassination mission and then shot your partner in the face to defect to the target's side? Well, there we go.) can't express how much we disagree. perhaps you like the game, and that is fine, but is hardly brilliant and its notion o' choice and consequences and/or role-play is complete misguided. aod is skinner box mentality, and not particular inspired at that. there is clear wrong choices in character generation and quest progression that the player gots no way o' divining before failure/death. player choices do not necessarily result in new and different routes opening up to the player. more frequent you discover that 'cause o' unimaginative design, "wrong" choices result in a simple dead end. is much more difficult for a developer to make diverse choices in character generation and gameplay viable and fun. is much easier for developer to simple prune the bifurcations o' a quest tree, or to make combat that is only challenging AND fun for a limited number o' potential builds. bad consequences is okie dokie with Gromnir, but am not in favor o' such being unforeseeable. is more difficult to artful inform player that "here there be dragons" before getting game over message. 3/5/9 hours into game you discover that aod provides choices, but offers only a few viable options? is not brilliant. is lazy. is limited. is anachronistic. ... and the writing is... *shrug* anybody who applauds aod w/o noting writing shortcomings is gonna have a difficult time complaining 'bout excessive exposition and uninspired character development in future crpg titles. is nothing inherent wrong with a glorified rat maze o' a game. is nothing inspired or brilliant 'bout such design neither. is also kinda the opposite o' what we believe role-play is 'bout. be that as it may, sometimes anachronistic can be fun and nostalgic. enjoy the nostalgia. but recognize the flaws. regardless, aod is a rather simple conditioning program as 'posed to creative, clever or inspired rpg. we got loads o' mechanical quibbles, but am gonna leave those aside as we ain't played final release (don't plan to) so is possible that considerable/few/no changes were made to those mechanical issues we observed. HA! Good Fun!

the min-max is hardly essential. we posted in response to fighting robots query. brawling gets more use from strength than any other character, so min-max or not, your brawler is gonna be resilient compared to most. with med skills you can heal self and with computer science, you will be turning enemy robots into allies with great frequency. blunt weapons focused melee is almost as good... and likely better, but only at very end of the game once you got plasma hammer. regardless, the point is that melee weapons can be overpowered 'gainst 'bots, particularly as melee is the folks most likely to effective exploit computer skill. if you softened and is only core four doing melee, then ag center and honey badgers is likely your most difficult challenges, yes? energy weapons no longer is easy-kill weapons 'gainst honey badgers, and the badgers hit very hard. add green girl with gamma ray blaster and ertan wielding the 3.. plus whatever. vulture's cry with a sniper rifle? you went highpool first, yes? CA will likely be easier than arizona for you simply 'cause there is so many bots and most bot battles will be surprisingly easy for you if even a couple or your melee guys has computer skills. and 'course, explosives and rocket launchers can make any difficult batlle less so... which you is already aware o'. gonna disagree 100% on luck, but no sense opening that can o' worms. HA! Good Fun!

channel kp? regardless, is as much representative o' a great american as is, well, captain america? oh wait, cap fought on the side o' the rebels in that civil war thing. jimmy stewart in mr. smith goes to washington? hmmm. he were fighting rampant corruption in washington, so might not fit. rambo? ... in any event, even when you see folks being condemned as unpatriotic, the rebel and rabble rouser is as much a part o' the American identity as is the guy who wraps himself in the flag. oh, and just for fun, Thomas Magnum and Gromnir likely only got one thing in common: both big stalag 17 fans. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gm1biDpzlp8 bit long, but great william holden stuff. HA! Good Fun!

Yeah, I figure those will be some of the roughest fights. I'm going to need explosives, lots of explosives. Those don't actually use any weapon skill, so I don't technically violate my own rules if my core 4 are lobbing grenades. with new perks, a robot destroying melee ranger is even more viable, but one o' our most efficacious pre dc wl2 builds were: co:1 lu:1 aw:1 st:10 sp:10 in:4 ch:1 added 1 point to coordination then went awareness. skills were brawling, computer, and few points in the med skill with animal whisper and eventual leadership rounding things out. our melee brawler were the one most likely to out distance our primary leader, so in spite o' crappy charisma, points in leadership were not a complete waste once we maxed everything else. is only a few wl2 bots that could not be hacked, and most bot battles that had bots immune to hax0ring also had hackable bots. battles got easier when bots were attacking each other 'stead o' you. melee weapons have changed a bit with dc, so brawling ain't the clear win melee skill. we suspect that this makes an all melee core squad more viable. HA! Good Fun!

is relative off-topic, so we will be brief... as brief as we is able. in a nutshell, the Court observes that recognized (such recognition is more complicated than you might think) Indian tribes is deserving o' "dependent domestic nation" status. as such, those tribes got sovereignty that trumps individual state law, but fed law can diminish or even eliminate such sovereignty. the tribal dependence on Fed government and the limits placed on tribal sovereignty create a trust relationship between the Fed and tribes. am suspecting that don't clear much up for gifted, but truth to tell, it ain't much clearer to experts. http://www.truesiouxhope.org/need/ is embarrassing. and as for hurl comparing kp to college students in the quad, we see as appropriate and not necessarily a criticism. is a good thing that american university students is encouraged to challenge the dominant paradigm. those university students is often integral to social change. the thing is, as we has noted before, there is few creatures more naive and ignorant than a first/second year university student. college is a new world, and with a mere few dozen credits to their name, the largely ignorant students thinks they got answers. *shrug* is a good thing to have young and intelligent people who is not daunted by the magnitude and complexity o' real world problems. naivety gives the college student protesting in the quad a kinda power that more educated and mature minds is incapable o' recollecting. the older and wiser mind understands that the problems is rare so simple and easily corrected as the college student believes. the older and more jaded realize that the villains that college students sees as obvious don't really exist and neither does most o' the heroes neither. the college student protesting in the quad is a blessing... if a bit comical. the college student is ignorant and naive but the paradox is that their lack o' awareness makes it possible for them to demand change that wiser minds would dismiss as pointless. and sometimes, those smart and ignorant college kids who has no reasonable chance to bring about meaningful change... succeed. oh, and as for leferd being a lazy uc student http://admission.universityofcalifornia.edu/freshman/profiles/ other than at merced, even the mediocre uc freshman is academically impressive. HA! Good Fun!

Nah, 99% of the time I just ignore you, so the last thing I'm going to do is trawl through pages of you following Sensuki around from thread to thread or whatever. Much as 99% of the time if there's a game I don't like I ignore it rather than wandering in to (not so) randomly diss it. Just thought people who weren't aware of your background and chip on shoulder with respect to the Codex/ VD etc needed to know where you were coming from. so this were a complete random zorish PSA? *snort* oh, and we only responded 'cause we Just thought people who weren't aware of your background and chip on shoulder with respect to Gromnir needed to know where you were coming from. HA! Good Fun!

I don't know about the whole "'Murica **** yeah" myth as I've never been there. But you can find fictional representations of gov't agents and US soldiers as brave, selfless heroes just as easily as works depicting them as overweight dummies, remorseless killers or just ineffectual morons, depending on the scriptwriter's bent. Except IRS people. Those are universally reviled. It's like a modern day Gestapo or something. Personally, I have had nothing but good experiences with Americans. Haven't had to deal with the US government yet, though. highlighted... 'cause apparent it were missed somehow. HA! Good Fun! ps edit am thinking we can all agree that if all or virtual all depictions o' State agents were insulting, that would identify a complete different problem.

*chuckle* we would observe that zor's comments is a pavlovian reaction to Gromnir. guess he doesn't like getting his silliness called-out. sadly, is gonna happen again. gotta venn diagram o' games Gromnir likes and those approved by codex groupthink would have near complete overlap... with the exception o' bizarre codexian fascination with arcanum and their knee-jerk hate o' bioware. nevertheless, while we like games such as fallout, we also has noted, for +15 years (before codex in fact), that as much as we liked fallout, it were horribly unbalanced with utter useless skills and its "freedom" in character generation were a misleading as even the developers noted that there were only a handful o' builds that a majority o' folks actual played. etc. our public rejection o' the things vd seems to think are essential to crpgs goes back before codex existed. we do dislike misogyny, anti-semitism and racism that is common at codex, but am not certain what that has to do with Gromnir disliking aod. if zor can find inconsistency 'tween comments we made between games such as poe (easiest option as is accessible on this board) or recent criticisms o' wasteland 2 and our observations o' aod, we will concede hypocrisy or bias 'gainst a title. ... am waiting. HA! Good Fun!

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/13/sunday-review/why-russians-hate-america-again.html?_r=0 "Intellectuals pointed me to books on Berlin in the 1920s and the concept of “ressentiment,’’ a philosophical term that describes a simmering resentment and sense of victimization arising out of envy of a perceived enemy. It often has its roots in a culture’s feeling of impotence. " most o' the world recognizes the unique position the US has as the sole remaining superpower. though such a label has far less meaning than it did in decades past, there still exists the pervasive envy and the widespread belief that the role is undeserved. we spent time teaching abroad. we would sit 'mongst a group o' euros as they mocked American culture and American intellect. initially when such stuff would occur, we would point out that Gromnir were American. our euro companions would shrug off and observe that they weren't talking 'bout Gromnir but 'bout Americans and America in general. were kinda surreal. how often is you gonna have a group o' Americans discussing the failings o' swedish or austrian culture and education? the typical American don't care enough 'bout sweden or austria, and that includes educated Americans. is not as if those folks on campuses at ivy schools, stanford and mit is unaware o' europe and south america and asia neither. it won't make some o' you feel better to know that educated Americans is aware but wholly unconcerned with your foibles and failings. furthermore, there is a huge misconception 'bout US patriotism/nationalism. other than perhaps germany, is few nations that is so self-deprecating 'bout their history. a large portion o' the history hurlshot teaches kids in school is how rotten and evil the US has been for the past couple centuries. bad to indians. bad to revolutionary war vets. US were bad to laborers and blacks and just about everybody. gets even more pronounced at universities where professors is not shy 'bout exploring faults in US politics and culture and history. there is a world-wide myth o' "america, f*%$@ yeah" that has been perpetuated but that doesn't exist. watch tv shows and fbi agents is more often portrayed as buffoons than highly educated and competent. the military? the US military in tv and movies is as often portrayed as trigger happy maniacs as they is shown heroic. oh, and again as this gets missed so often, Gromnir has much reason to loathe US. http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2012/08/pine-ridge/huey-photography some well-intentioned euro tells us 'bout gaza and the suffering there and we cannot help but note that conditions at pine ridge is worse than gaza but that euro sympathies not seem to extend to folks who ain't lobbing rockets at farmers or hurling molotov ****tails at police. soa gain, if you got some weird notion that Gromnir is just another ignorant and blind American, you got your facts wrong. we do run into frequent misapprehensions 'bout US when speaking with folks from other corners o' the globe... and the fixation 'pon the US folks got is sadly understandable. we blame on the internet... can blame all on internet. ... that last bit were sarcasm in case it weren't obvious. HA! Good Fun!