Gromnir

actual, is not cheaper to buy the weights "in the long run." if you can't turn a +$700 investment into a perpetual gym membership, then you do not know how to handle money. that being said, there is considerable advantages to not having to go to the gym for workouts. as we get older, am less inclined to wanna deal with the gym scene. HA! Good Fun!

hopefully the last images we ever post in a wasteland 2 thread... is our final examples o' why charisma sux. five extra points in charisma resulted in a grand total o' a single level gained after +45 levels o' gameplay. as can be seen, the more efficient use o' skills is not to be dumping them on a single high intelligence and high charisma character, but rather to spread out the xp generating skills so as to be benefiting multiple characters, 'cause the charisma boost alone is of negligible value. and yes, we did have a suicide squad team... though am given to understand that the planned suicide squad movie will be having deadshot, rick flag, harley quinn and the joker, yes? no joker in our group as plastique were an ideal demolitions expert for our team. we were conflicted about harley quinn being a brawler instead o' a blunt weapons expert ( harley quinn with a cartoony giant hammer/mallet just seems right) but we is kinda a big fan o' brawling from 'bout level 20. that being said, we did experiment with blunt weapons, and they are devastating by the end of the game. maybe play 1 more time... got no other games on our to-do list until we finally decide to purchase dragon age: inquisition, and that won't occur for a few months. maybe a mass effect team with femshep, ashley williams, urdnot wrex and garrus vakarian? maybe make vulture's cry an assault rifle specialist in spite o' her starting sniper build? however, we might wait until the balance patch is finally released. assault rifle burst headshots is kinda over-the-top... along with the gamma ray blaster. HA! Good Fun! ps our harley quin coulda' eclipsed rick flag for xp if we had used computer science to reprogram as many bots as possible, but doing so does rob the team o' valuable combat xp, so we did sparingly.

got back from hawaii just after midnight. one disadvantage to being native american is that hardly anybody comments on how dark our tan becomes after our yearly trip to hawaii. HA! Good Fun!

so, a muslim woman walks into a bar and criticizes western notions o' freedom of gender roles... is start of a bad joke, yes? *shrug* is more than a few western cultures that got iconic woman-warrior examples, and they is far less obscure than qis example. joan of arc, boudica, etc. however, we make two observatioons that should be obvious, but ain't. 1) biology, not bigotry, prevented women from pursuing martial careers for almost the entirety of human history. for all of pre-history and most of history, martial pursuits required considerable strength, particular upper-body strength. swing a sword, shoot arrows, carry a shield, and other such activities all require manly upper body strength. sure, there were women who had exceptional strength, and there were also arms and armour that women could excel with even if they didn't have manly strength, but such stuff were atypical, which is part o' why women contributing to combat were also rare. 'course, the unspoken but likely more significant reason for women being excluded from combat (and many other pursuits) is that women is the gender that provides gestation o' live births in the human species. we could detail how significant pregnancy were in limiting women's roles up until very recent times, but that would be tedious... though it will likely become inevitable when some clown starts spouting off anecdotal examples and the tripe their women-in-history professors taught them. in any event, is not the fault o' women that biology made it difficult for their gender to contribute to martial history for much o' human existence, but it is a fact that women had a very limited role in actual combat until relative recent times. firearms and reliable and safe birth control has effectively removed virtual all such biological hurdles to women, so now they can kill as effective as can men. hooray for progress? and 2) games ain't history am not certain why this is a difficult concept for some to grasp. gotta game with medieval and renaissance era real world weapons does not mean that unfortunate real world gender roles need be adhered to. games is entertainment and telling a woman gamer that her female warrior needs wear b00b armor and will suffer a strength penalty is asinine. 'course, it is possible that many women players wanna have b00b armour... it does seems that most male players want b00b armour. heck, we recall one female poster on the old nwn boards who honest-to-god complained that the single biggest flaw o' nwn were the lack o' shoes. shoes? were like karzak with dual-wield. it hurts us to admit it, but there is more than a few players, male and female, that is as concerned with their avatar appearance as they is with actual mechanics. make their female characters look pretty or sexy or whatever is a genuine concern. even so, while we is likely stuck with b00b armour for the foreseeable future, there is no good reason for adding real world mechanical rules penalties to women characters. bring up reality is a silly rationale in a game... particular a game that includes magic and monsters. regardless, women in combat has been relative rare for much o' human existence, but so what? in any event, person from malaysia complaining about western notions o' gender roles in modern society is funny... is a joke, yes? http://www.carnegiecouncil.org/publications/archive/dialogue/1_09/articles/567.html HA! Good Fun!

last day before trip to kauai. we will need a vacation after today. HA! Good Fun!

In Finland there has been 110 police officers that have died in line of duty in last 97 years, which includes our civil war and World War II, in years after the wars there has been 21 officers that have died in line of duty. So it is quite hard to perceive situation and culture where cops in USA live from my point of view, because over hundred officer dying in line of duty every year is lot even for 60 times larger country. Now, there are a myriad of reasons as to why the death rate is what it is in any given year, but without a doubt, the more intrusive police are into people's affairs in what many would perceive and unjust manner the more likely they are to get killed. he makes us laugh. is cops fault for being intrusive? and we doubt that the motivation for most cop killings is a sense o' justice. the typical killing, regardless o' whether or not a cop is involved, is stupid. you don't need to read to many cases to realize just how unnecessary most homicides is. people tend to kill others because they is afraid or angry or in the heat of the moment they see no better way to resolve a situation. far too many killers is mentally ill and their killings is so utter unnecessary it is painful to consider. sure, some folks, even some cops, is cold-blooded killers, or killers for social justice (HA!) or gang members following some kinda perceived sense o' duty. drug-related homicides is far too frequent. nevertheless, the number o' killings that occur each year because some individual is convinced that law enforcement is too intrusive has gotta be ridiculous low. am not sure what inspired val to share that bit o' gut-feeling silliness. according to the cdc, in 2011 there were 16, 238 homicides. of those, 11, 608 were gun-related. 492 o' the gun-related homicides were the result of "legal intervention." http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvsr/nvsr63/nvsr63_03.pdf there is some nice color-coded graphs from the cdc for 2012 and 2013, but they appear less complete. people kill each other in the US disturbingly frequent and far too many o' those deaths is made possible 'cause o' how easy it is to kill folks with firearms. however, death of and by cops is a an extreme small percentage o' total homicides... and death o' cops due to social justice has gotta be a joke category. that being said, regardless o' how infrequent cop-related killings actual occur, we agree that confidence in cops is disproportionate low at the moment. in spite o' the scary homicide numbers above, all violent crime stats has, for over a decade, been showing a steady decrease. is perhaps ironic given recent events in the news, but the crime situation is better now than it has been for years. crime is down, but cop confidence is low? go figure. we tend to attribute most cop-related anger to the economic situation many people is suffering, but that is as much a gut-level impression as val's social justice motivation for cop killings. if confidence in cops is low, something should be done to correct the problem. also, we do agree with hurl, to some degree, that there also should be a change in the way the police is policed. even if there were no shenanigans going on, it is tough to take such self-regulation efforts seriously as there is understandably an obvious conflict of interest involved. however, is not easy to identify an immediate solution to lack o' police oversight given our current system o' criminal justice. aside: there were near 40k suicides in 2011, and of those, 19k were gun-related. actually, suicides markedly decreased as natural gas ovens replaced coal gas as the standard in the 1930s and 1940s. suicides decrease when the means o' achieving is requiring more effort... more time for self-reflection? also, another bit o' suicide trivia is that contrary to popular belief, suicides decrease during the holidays. go figure. HA! Good Fun!

*nod* based on our kids in the hall viewing, we expect low canadian cop deaths. very scientific. HA! Good Fun! ps in response to hurl observations, we started posting this way on crpg boards in 1999, so closer to 15 years.

pointless correction: we actual checked on the farm equipment death thing and according to the cdc (why?) there were 374 deaths of folks dying from farm related injuries in 2012. 'course there is only 42% as many cops as folks working on farms. in other words, the likelihood o' dying while working on a farm is similar to cop chances of dying. also, based on our scientific analysis o' canadian culture (we has watched every kids in the hall episode at least twice) we suspect that the rate o' farm related deaths in canada is higher than the US. HA! Good Fun!

keep in mind that we see mr. garner's death as an unnecessary tragedy. is a tragedy when somebody driving down the highway dies when their car hits a deer. is also a tragedy when folks is struck by lightning and die. perhaps a different cop coulda' deescalated the situation better, but in spite o' media attempts to make ferguson and cleveland and ny the same, we don't have another shooting death o' an unarmed black man. we got a fat guy with a heart condition and asthma that died while resisting arrest. there were no obvious deadly force used on an unarmed man, though that is arguable, and we think the question deserved a trial. perhaps the greatest tragedy is that we suspect that the recent events in ferguson and ny and the media poop storm such instances kicked up is gonna make it more difficult to deescalate arrest situations in the near future. could be wrong on that... hope we are. regardless, what we see in the present situation is a terrible accident. a terrible accident is a tragedy, but a tragedy don't require a villain. heck aluminum could be correct and maybe the cop in question is "officer Chokey McMurderson," but that don't mean that what he did in the video rises to the level o' criminal negligence... though that don't preclude department discipline and possibly another big cash settlement by the city. oh, and we will start posting with correct grammar just as soon as val stops pretending to be an expert on law and history. is not something we expect however. HA! Good Fun!

oh, we would call it hyperbole to say, "Kind of sad that resisting arrest can be a capital offence at least in acceptable results by police. Does seem to be the reality, heh." is intentional over/misstatement for effect, no? if resisting arrest is a capital offence, it has a ridiculous low % o' defendants who actual get a literal or figurative death penalty. regardless, the number o' cop deaths we seen for this year thus far were 113. in 2007, cop deaths were 191. in 2009, cop deaths were 125. we made an average 'cause there is so much fluctuation in a given year. HA! Good Fun!

no reason to indulge in hyperbole. the vast number o' arrests made in the US each year do not end in death of police or suspect. on average, over the past ten years, there is an average o' 150 cops killed per year while making arrests. is a dangerous job.... though am believing that considerably more people die in farm equipment accidents, so perhaps the danger is overstated, for both cops and suspects. regardless, the cop's job becomes exponentially more dangerous when they gotta make an arrest and the suspect resists. the danger increases for suspects and cops. that should be axiomatic. there is bad cops out there. there is cops who is racist and we suspect there is more than a couple cops who enjoy hurting people. the existence o' racist, evil, sadistic cops is all the more reason Not to resist arrests. resistance is indeed giving police an excuse to use force... and again, acting surprised that somebody gets hurt when force is applied is naive. with a little bad luck, it takes very minimal trauma to cause a person's death. slip in bathtub. fall off bottom step of a ladder, etc. have force result in death when the suspect resisting arrest is a 300lb man with a heart condition and asthma is shocking because? do suspects get killed by cops when they is doing nothing wrong? you betcha, but that ain't what we had happen with mr. garner. 'course, on another juvi hall side note, our experience suggests that resisting arrest when the cop is a k-9 unit is far more likely to go bad for the suspect. those dogs do not mess around. we has seen some very ugly wounds that were the result o' k-9. perhaps what we need more than body cams is more k-9. folks resisting would likely drop precipitously. am kinda kidding about the k-9. HA! Good Fun!

is there wanton disregard for human life? possibly. second degree manslaughter has a Subjective standard. did garner go unconscious and stop breathing and cops just stood and watched? we can't tell from the video. according to the autopsy, there were no damage to the throat. this means that even if a choke hold were applied, it might be difficult to show that the choke hold caused mr. garner's death... in spite aluminum's colorful naming convention. nevertheless, as we said above, we can't tell with certainty that there were no choke hold even if at first blush we don't see it. also, as much as the med practitioner in the house might hate to hear, their occupation is a much art as science. get different experts to talk to the jury and explain what is damage they saw in autopsy and cause o' death and what actual were cause o' death. notice already that some folks is shifting their focus... is piling on that were the evil as much as the possible choke hold. is "piling on" constituting wanton disregard for human life? unlikely, but with garner's complaints regarding breathing it might? if so, at what point were the piling on excessive? were the piling on actual causing the death? etc. we see enough that we would wish a finder of fact to get a better looksee regarding the death o' mr. garner. again, in our estimation, the #1 thing people should be taking from the video is that resisting arrest is exponentially increasing the likelihood of tragedy. honestly folks, make the following a headline: a 300lb man with asthma and a heart condition died while resisting arrest. who is shocked? am supposing we could blame mcdonalds along with the cops, eh? we believe a dialog can and should be started regarding what force is necessary and warranted to arrest anybody, regardless of race. the thing is, if the video we saw o' mr. garner is genuinely shocking and appalling to people, we suspect universal police body cams is gonna be creating a whole new set o' problems. 'course, we bet that if we saw same video without there being death of mr. garner, and w/o media exploiting choke hold stuff, we think most americans wouldn't see much wrong with the police behavior. a very large man were resisting arrest. six officers restrained him without resorting to a shooting or a rodney king-esque nightstick beating. as far as typical police restraints we has seen or been a part of, mr. garner's experience were not particularly violent. HA! Good Fun!

see, this is what we mean 'bout pov. first, "piling on" is actual safer for everybody. is easier for four guys to take a guy down w/o injury than it is for one guy to do so.... though in our experience there is a weird peer pressure kinda thing worth mentioning. if you got 6 guys present to restrain somebody, all 6 guys will likely do... something. nobody wants to be the biatch who just stood and watched. so, inevitably you got one or two guys doing something pointless. and again, the "choking him" stuff is, we believe, overstated. if the media were calling the move used a headlock, how many would be suggesting that garner's breathing problems were from a choke hold? with a properly applied choke hold, you cannot breathe enough to say, "i can't breathe." we mighta attributed garner's breathing issues to his asthma, or police pushing his chest into the pavement, or the fact an extreme stressed man with a heart condition and weighing 300 lbs might have difficulty breathing while he were face-down on a hard concrete sidewalk. the force used could very easily still be excessive, but we honest don't see the "choking him" stuff... though we think that along with the bigger question of excessive force, the issue is close enough to merit a jury trial. grab somebody up around the head and or neck is not necessarily choking. every high school wrestling program would need disbanded immediately if that were the case. HA! Good Fun! ps we see that more than confusion as to what is a choke hold, which we think is understandable and up for argument, there is more than a few folks who gots 0 idea what is needed to be getting a manslaughter conviction... first or second degree.

an old lady making noise in her home is far more likely to get more cop attention then the garner situation. were the old lady a victim o' domestic violence? were she being attacked? were she attacking somebody else? unknown situation with possible violence occurring should get more cop attention. compared to garner, who local shop keepers were complaining 'bout his selling of loosies? is not analogous. we can't read comments in your link without disabling javascript, but then again, we has seen enough comments at cnn and npr to makes us roll our eyes. as we said earlier in this thread, we, Americans, are so polarized on race that we can't have meaningful dialogue. HA! Good Fun!

"against department policy" isn't all that meaningful in regards to questions o' what is legal appropriate or reasonable. the media has really beaten it into folks that calling this a choke hold is significant, but it actually isn't. was the force excessive or not? the fact that choke holds (which may or may not have been used on garner) is discouraged by the nyc police department is not having the legal relevance some seem to believe it does. "given that the guy didn't really mount a significant resistance against... well, anything." subjective. garner were not complying with police verbal instructions and is not as if he immediate went to his knees even when the one officer grabbed garner from behind. the cop with the headlock move were lifted off the ground and bounced into the storefront before mr. garner ended up on the ground. how long were this incident? quick? then again, how long had police been giving garner warnings and verbal instructions? there were six(?) cops on the scene? you don't have six cops arrest a guy for loosies, so am guessing mr. garner were being agitated and obstinate for at least enough time as it took to gather half a dozen cops. regardless, we were personally trained to disable an individual quickly and with a minimum of force... which is actual contradictory concepts. ultimately, the safety of Gromnir and his fellow juvenile hall employees was paramount. faced with the prospect of restraining a +300lb man, we would likely have used a move that had a far more violent looking appearance... though am pretty sure we woulda' pepper-sprayed first. am not sure of nyc policy on pepper spray. this is also a situation where the arms raised stuff become illustrative. mr. garner were swinging his arms about. from your perspective that probably don't mean much, but from ours it is significant. the more gentle techniques we were taught for restraining an individual involve getting ahold of a hand. if we ain't certain we can get a hand, chances are we is gonna end up employing some kinda throw, which will send the person resisting to the ground... violently. but again, we see enough for a trial, even if we don't see a choke hold and regardless o' the fact that the video is actual far less violent than stuff we saw daily/weekly... and keep in mind that we were working with juveniles. perhaps that is what you should find genuine scary. if you thinks what happened to garner were violent, then you is likely gonna be appalled at what occurs in 90% of arrests wherein the officers need put hands on an individual... and maybe that is an issue worth looking into more. "But setting all considerations aside, doesn't "accidentally killing a dude through the compression of the chest which triggers a host of existing medical conditions" constitute as manslaughter? " why would it? am betting that there is chest compression occurring while detaining many people who resist arrest. most such folks don't die. the reasonableness o' the force is not a sliding scale dependent on unknown medical conditions. HA! Good Fun!

we worked at a juvenile hall in northern california for awhile and were initially trained in pain-compliance techniques. that sounded bad to folks, so the name were changed to an enigmatic abbreviation: MAB. the training didn't change much following the name change, but we were cautioned against certain techniques when "counseling" residents via a hands-on approach. as you might guess, our perspective regarding use-o' force is gonna necessarily be different than many people as our experience is different. we has seen choke holds performed though we never used one as it were too likely to cause a red flag when an incident report were written up. we were trained in their use and application. we may have used a reap throw... once or twice. even so, when we first saw the video we thought there were arguable enough evidence to get a jury trial. few points: 1) mr. garner resisted arrest. a man with a heart condition and asthma resists arrest and dies. this is not shocking to us. #1 lesson all this should not be that police is brutal, but rather that the death were complete unnecessary if mr. garner had simply complied peacefully. 2) choke holds were not illegal in ny at the time of the incident. identify that a choke hold caused injury is not actual actionable in itself. the ny city police department doesn't like them 'cause they open up the department to law suits, but most attempts to make choke holds illegal for police fail 'cause it is a useful technique and if a cop is in genuine danger, criminalizing the use o' a technique that might save his/her life doesn't sit well with most cops and anybody else with a serious concern for cop safety. 3) please keep in mind that the media is playing fast and loose with the facts. the initial medical examiner did use choke hold language, but the actual autopsy performed at a later date indicated that there were no actual damage done to mr. garner's throat. sure, there still coulda' been contributing damage to the neck that exacerbated mr. garner's condition(s) and the force used by the cops might still have been excessive, but the reason choke holds is prohibited were not the immediate cause o' death... which makes prosecutor case more difficult. is just one example o' the odd way media is covering events in ny. 4) we didn't initial see the take-down o' mr. garner as including a choke hold as we understand the term. is perhaps ironic, but the complaints of "i can't breathe," pretty much assured us that no real choke hold were being performed as you cannot f'ing breathe when subjected to such a hold. from a video, how many of us can distinguish a choke hold from a strangle hold from a headlock? 5) the question o' whether or not there were an excessive use of force in this instance is a question o' fact. looking at the tape, we see an argument that there were excessive force and the proper venue for determining such a question o' fact should be a criminal trial. am knowing that to the average american, the video looks violent and horrible, but we don't see what you folks is seeing. the encounter looked relative ordinary and the only thing that makes it unusual to us is the death o' the individual who were resisting arrest. that being said, we do see enough in the video that we believe a jury trial is warranted, though we doubt we would feel the same if we were one o' the cops involved. quick funny juvenile hall story that we mighta' shared previous. one night we got stuck working in d-unit and we saw something strange. we hated d-unit, even at night, 'cause d-unit were the girls unit. we typical worked j-unit (high security wherein the accused murders and rapists were housed) or at intake where new residents (often drunk or drugged) were processed and then assigned to a unit. Gromnir were a physical imposing personage with a calm demeanor, so the powers-that-be saw us as useful for dealing with the more dangerous residents-- j-unit and intake. yippie. in juvenile hall, we would rather deal with murders than teenage girls. teenage girls are horrible, and a unit filled with 30-40 angry teenage girls awaiting trial is not a pleasant environment. anywho, one morning, just before the end o' our shift, we is doing a room check wherein we check every room to make sure the residents ain't killing or screwing each other... screwing themselves is ok, but killing self is frowned 'pon as it 'causes no end o' paperwork. one resident we had dealt with numerous times in the past were named F______. she were 5'9" or 5'10" and just over 300 lbs, and a surprisingly solid 300lbs. F_______ had anger issues and impulse control issues and she were more than a little crazy. we had been forced to "dip" her once when she attacked a fellow resident, and it had reminded us o' surfing... and not fun surfing. water is extreme heavy, and is sometimes when you get thrown from your board and the wave crashes down on you that you realize just how much force even a mid-sized wave produces. wrestling F________ to the ground felt like getting tossed about by a 10' wave. so, we walk by her room at 6:45 am, a room which she shared with another girl, and we see F________ standing in front of the sink in her room rubbing her face with... something. we tap on her door to get her attention and she turned to face us... turned preternaturally slow. in each of her hands is an orange half-- residents typical were given a s"snack" right before bedtime, though the more common snack were cheese-its or pop-tarts or something similar. oranges were not a popular snack, but F________ had come up with a new use for the fruit as she were rubbing the citrus fruit into her eyes. ... after we have our surreal wtf moment, we ask F________ what she is doing though we can clearly see she is rubbing orange into her eyes. "it makes the pepper spray hurt less." *sigh* "F______," we says "my shift ends in fifteen minutes, so whatever the hell you are planning, wait until i am gone to do it." she kinda/maybe nods and then goes back to rubbing orange into her eyes. we warned the incoming staff that F________ appeared to be a "bit agitated" without mentioning the orange stuff, and then we left for the day. our next day o' work were three days later and we admit we were kinda amused to hear how it took 4 guys from security to deal with F_______ on the day of her orange experiment. as we say, our pov is different. HA! Good Fun!

I think you're making a big deal out of nothing. Bioware is coming across as tolerant of the LGBT community in their writing? *gasp* They have consistently pushed a socially progressive agenda, it's not new. If it bothers you, there are plenty of games out there that avoid social issues. drowsy and bioware is both silly. drowsy is silly for making a big deal over nothing. bioware is silly 'cause they is trying to fix a seeming inconsistency between sten comments from da:o regarding female roles in qunari society, and subsequent dragon age content that makes apparent that females is able to fight. enough people complain over the years about sten comments that bioware felt need to explain? either shoulda' stuck with original qunari perspective we got via sten, or shoulda' simple ignored the inconsistency they created rather than giving a silly in-game explanation-- let geeky fans come up with a resolution beyond the scope o' the game. regardless, is silly... drowsy and bioware. HA! Good Fun! He doesn't say that Qunari women can't fight he just says that they "don't fight" because their role in the Qun adheres to being priest, artisans and farmers. There are also Qunari, who are born outside of the Qun, and thus they have no obligation that prevents them from picking up a sword. That's basically your character if a Qunari is picked. nonsense. your (gaider's) explanation would be ok if there were no da:o and no sten, but that ain't the case. sten is perplexed by some female party members in da:o and their actions. sten disapproval and commentary regarding the actions o' the women in your group makes little sense if we accept dave explanation. what were point o' sten if not to be giving us the qunari pov? am expecting that sometime after da:o were developed, the biowarians came up with some nifty qunari-related ideas that didn't mesh with their original notions o' qunari. a qunari female assassin? a female qunari pc? should writers and developers have abandoned "good" ideas simple because they didn't mesh with the original biowarian qunari concept? well, we know biowarian answer and their answer is a legit answer. qunari ain't real. qunari is imaginary. lose sleep over notions o' video game canon is ridiculous. personally, we would prefer consistency, but biowarians did not feel any particular need to let the writer o' sten from five or more years ago hamstring their current efforts. fine. am ok with change. even so, dave and bioware comes up with a weak explanation to justify the change? we say: why bother with the explanation? let game geeks explain so biowarian hands could remain clean. regardless, is silly. HA! Good Fun!

well, how 'bout the following: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nIDlTGd7Y9U arguably The best sci-fi movie... evar. is nothing wrong with a sympathetic villain, but they can't be handled same as the monster-under-the-bed. is a problem chris avellone had with darth mush-mouth in kotor2. can't have a nameless and faceless evil that you then give a face and a voice to... and try to explain motivations. sauron works 'cause he is evil. grendel works in lit 'cause he is a monster. frankenstein's monster, on the other hand, had very real and understandable motivations. is frankenstein's monster sucky 'cause we know why he hates dr. frankenstein or that the monster is kinda emo? we didn't like either anakin actor and the writing for the characters were clear not helping us appreciate the performances. then again, we didn't like luke much better. is any number o' times we wanted to reach through the screen and smack luke... same for young and younger anakin. we could list relative strengths and flaws o' star wars films, but hasn't that been done a trillion times by literally millions (billions) of fans? HA! Good Fun! Roy Batty's final understanding of the humanity Deckard lost elevated the film to something truly great, but the actual monologue was excessively melodramatic. yeah, well, up to the point o' the monologue, what you got is batty smacking deckard around like a cat playing with a mouse, so... the speech itself is okie dokie in the context o' the film. the directing, on the other hand, were a bit excessive. am thinking we coulda' done without the dove flying away, but our point were about sympathetic villains rather than the delivery or the writing of the lines. oh, and for noek, it is our recollection that hauer didn't so much ad-lib as edit. the script were calling for roy to ramble on for a bit. hauer kinda distilled the wall-o'-text into something less cumbersome. HA! Good Fun!

I've never seen Blade Runner. I will now though. That scene was awesome. Then again Blade Runner I suspect is a very different universe than Starwars. I agree there is nothing wrong with anti-villains, but they don't belong in Starwars' silly universe. you may have a point. the star wars universe is simple and the simple villains may fit it best. why is mr./ms. X a villain? 'cause he/she is evil, a monster or insane... or all three. get much deeper may be causing problems. is tougher to have complex motivations when the universe seems to only allow polar morality. have a cackling evil wizard who takes a kinda perverse pleasure in watching folks squirm, and whose only apparent motivation is a lust for power works in star wars. have a literal black knight be the evil wizard's #1 henchman, a knight who will choke the life outta folks who disagree with him or fail, is okie dokie for star wars. such villains does seem ridiculous w/o the context o' star wars. then again, we thought kreia were a fantastic villain... right up until malachor v content. converse, we thought darth mush-mouth were terrible... voiced by a peanuts character and wearing a skull-motif kabuki mask? chris avellone tried to introduce grown-up morality into star wars, and while he didn't entire succeed, we believe his efforts suggest that something other than polar extremes and surface motivations is possible in star wars. we ain't a fan o' star wars, but we suspect there is fans who can identify other examples o' more mature themes handled well by the respective writers/developers/directors/whatever... or maybe not. side note: our favorite joinable npc from kotor were the grey jedi, for what that is worth. HA! Good Fun!

The first part is true, but it isn't Hayden's fault. George wanted a sympathetic villain rather than a cool bad ass villain. Can't say I blame him since there are plenty on this board who think it was the right call, and want it to be continued into episode 7. Here is what I think will be a villain you guys will like: Give him that stupid sword and he's ready to go. well, how 'bout the following: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nIDlTGd7Y9U arguably The best sci-fi movie... evar. is nothing wrong with a sympathetic villain, but they can't be handled same as the monster-under-the-bed. is a problem chris avellone had with darth mush-mouth in kotor2. can't have a nameless and faceless evil that you then give a face and a voice to... and try to explain motivations. sauron works 'cause he is evil. grendel works in lit 'cause he is a monster. frankenstein's monster, on the other hand, had very real and understandable motivations. is frankenstein's monster sucky 'cause we know why he hates dr. frankenstein or that the monster is kinda emo? we didn't like either anakin actor and the writing for the characters were clear not helping us appreciate the performances. then again, we didn't like luke much better. is any number o' times we wanted to reach through the screen and smack luke... same for young and younger anakin. we could list relative strengths and flaws o' star wars films, but hasn't that been done a trillion times by literally millions (billions) of fans? HA! Good Fun!

we played a bit of da:i on a cousin's machine over the thanksgiving weekend. am pretty sure our female elf mage ended up looking like that, purely by accident. kidding. no chance we would ever play an elf. even so, the face generator is quirky. on a more serious side, the picture actual looks rather close to the stock male qunari head #3 (maybe? our memory is excellent, but hardly perfect) w/o horns, add hook nose, wider eyes, thin lips and scars... and flatten the ears back against the head. HA! Good Fun!

ps as an aside, we would note that "setting" of star wars is less attributable to hidden fortress than is a couple o' lucas' characters and possible some plot. the setting for star wars is long ago in a distant galaxy with magic, faster-than-light spaceships and an impressive catalog o' alien species. in fact, we believe lucas' most meaningful star wars contribution were his quasi sci-fi setting. HA! Good Fun!

Basic idea for the setting, maybe. The first film is essentially a setting transposed version of Hidden Fortress. the hidden fortress inspiration is something fans and media kinda latched onto with understandable, but likely excessive vigor. is a handful o' similar characters, but as much is different as is arguably similar. in fact, when somebody finally got around to actual asking lucas, he admitted to some inspiration (droid characters), but that most similarities were coincidence or imagined into being. am recalling lucas saying that hidden fortress "sort of inspired" star wars. and you do realize that kurosawa's samurai films were themselves inspired in part by hollywood western's, no? hidden fortress likely has more inspiration from ford's the searchers than lucas got inspiration from hidden fortress. HA! Good Fun!

it is difficult to tell when folks is being serious. https://www.google.com/?gws_rd=ssl#q=teacher+jobs+lost+economic+downturn hurl honestly were unaware that teachers got fired during recent economic troubles? well, at least hurl learned something new today. HA! Good Fun! ps walsh is correct that mlk speech starts slow, so the boycott stuff is as follows: Now the other thing we'll have to do is this: Always anchor our external direct action with the power of economic withdrawal. Now, we are poor people. Individually, we are poor when you compare us with white society in America. We are poor. Never stop and forget that collectively -- that means all of us together -- collectively we are richer than all the nations in the world, with the exception of nine. Did you ever think about that? After you leave the United States, Soviet Russia, Great Britain, West Germany, France, and I could name the others, the American Negro collectively is richer than most nations of the world. We have an annual income of more than thirty billion dollars a year, which is more than all of the exports of the United States, and more than the national budget of Canada. Did you know that? That's power right there, if we know how to pool it. We don't have to argue with anybody. We don't have to curse and go around acting bad with our words. We don't need any bricks and bottles. We don't need any Molotov ****tails. We just need to go around to these stores, and to these massive industries in our country, and say, "God sent us by here, to say to you that you're not treating his children right. And we've come by here to ask you to make the first item on your agenda fair treatment, where God's children are concerned. Now, if you are not prepared to do that, we do have an agenda that we must follow. And our agenda calls for withdrawing economic support from you." And so, as a result of this, we are asking you tonight, to go out and tell your neighbors not to buy Coca-Cola in Memphis. Go by and tell them not to buy Sealtest milk. Tell them not to buy -- what is the other bread? -- Wonder Bread. And what is the other bread company, Jesse? Tell them not to buy Hart's bread. As Jesse Jackson has said, up to now, only the garbage men have been feeling pain; now we must kind of redistribute the pain. We are choosing these companies because they haven't been fair in their hiring policies; and we are choosing them because they can begin the process of saying they are going to support the needs and the rights of these men who are on strike. And then they can move on town -- downtown and tell Mayor Loeb to do what is right. But not only that, we've got to strengthen black institutions. I call upon you to take your money out of the banks downtown and deposit your money in Tri-State Bank. We want a "bank-in" movement in Memphis. Go by the savings and loan association. I'm not asking you something that we don't do ourselves at SCLC. Judge Hooks and others will tell you that we have an account here in the savings and loan association from the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. We are telling you to follow what we are doing. Put your money there. You have six or seven black insurance companies here in the city of Memphis. Take out your insurance there. We want to have an "insurance-in." Now these are some practical things that we can do. We begin the process of building a greater economic base. And at the same time, we are putting pressure where it really hurts. I ask you to follow through here. *end quote*

I do get that there should be consequences here, but it is pretty obvious that it is the entire department that needs to change in this particular case. The Ferguson PD basically put their officer in a bad position, from the lack of a partner to the lack of a taser, to a lack of proper procedures for handling multiple suspects. This was glaringly obvious when the whole department was sidelined during the protests and they brought in the Highway Patrol. some o' what is obvious to hurl isn't to us. in august we saw local and state police involved in quelling the riots. folks were angry with ferguson pd, so it kinda made sense to us that ferguson pd might not wanna be put at forefront of efforts to restore calm, yes? there had Never been riots in the st. louis area, so no local police had any practical experience with riots. *chuckle* as a matter o' fact, review this thread. in august we saw much opinion in this thread, and from pundits, that the over-militarization of cops were part o' the problem in ferguson... were obvious to many. 'course it were obvious after the recent riots that what were needed were the National Guard, and immediate and heavy-handed suppression o' any sign o' violent action. obvious? is also obvious that officers need body cams, no? is obvious to hurl that officer wilson being solo were a bad move by the police. well, what is the most obvious way for ferguson police to get the money to purchase body cams? fire folks is easiest way to free-up money. hurl is a teacher, no? with recent economic downturn we suspect you know o' more than a few teachers who were let-go from their employment. same thing happened to cops and firemen, in spite o' the dangerous situation such firings caused. blame obama perhaps... or congress, or maybe former president bush? regardless, what is obvious to Gromnir is that a crescent wrench is a marvelously versatile tool, but it is horrible at driving nails. similarly, a criminal trial is also a useful tool, but it ain't the tool for bringing about most o' the changes we see folks desiring. a criminal trial might help defuse tensions, but a judge's gavel is not harry potter's wand. am genuine not sure what folks expect from a criminal trial. HA! Good Fun!