Cantousent

We don't celebrate beating the English. We celebrate having our freedom. I get a bit tired of "freedom fries" and other such nonsense, but I'm not tired of my freedom. I don't mind reminding folks every now and then that what we hold most dear is our freedom.

Odysseus plays a rather important role in the Iliad. In fact, I write extensively concerning the Iliad since it provides a foundation for Odysseus' starring role in the Odyssey.

Please take this discussion to another topic. ...Or you can even derail my Odysseus thread. I don't care. The thing is, I can't continue this interesting discussion in pixies thread. Move it elsewhere before I'm forced to delete my own posts.

Okay, that's just the beginning, but I didn't want to post something as huge as the whole thing. That's about 24 pages worth of work, and it would be a pain to read. Should we have a good discussion going about this, then I'll post more or excerpts from the larger work. Hopefully, we have some folks interested in Homer. (...And I don't just mean Simpson.)

When Priam, standing at the high walls of Troy, asks Helen to tell him of the Achaean man he sees off in the distance, she responds

I was mostly joking anyhow. One system is good as another when the object is to rate other members. :D I might actually spend the time to rate jaguars' avatar, but it scares me.

I'm not really interested in authorship so much as Odysseus himself. The whole debate concerning Homer doesn't hold much interest for me. I believe you're attending college up north, Calax. Had the chance to read either work yet for school? Great stuff! Anyhow, we'd better stick to the topic at hand. It's really just that the whole discussion of mods seems to have dwindled and now we are just gabbing in a thread. I really don't mind, but we should respect pixies and not derail the thread any more than we already have.

I have high hopes for publishing that paper as an article eventually. I've taken a little break from academics for the summer, however. I still find Odysseus role as the embodiment of human metis fascinating. It's also, I believe, rather under represented by current scholarship. I don't know if I posted any of my previous paper, but I've decided to place the whole concept into a four tiered structure for the purposes of my argument. Just working on the use of epithets alone is a massive undertaking.

Here is the "spiritual successor" by Peter Schilling: Standing there alone, the ship is waiting. All systems are go. "Are you sure?" Control is not convinced, but the computer has the evidence. No need to abort. The countdown starts. Watching in a trance, the crew is certain. Nothing left to chance, all is working. Trying to relax up in the capsule "Send me up a drink." jokes Major Tom. The count goes on... 4, 3, 2, 1 Earth below us drifting, falling. Floating weightless calling, calling home... Second stage is cut. We're now in orbit. Stabilizers up, runnning perfect. Starting to collect requested data. "What will it affect when all is done?" thinks Major Tom. Back at ground control, there is a problem. "Go to rockets full." Not responding. "Hello Major Tom. Are you receiving? Turn the thrusters on. We're standing by." There's no reply. 4, 3, 2, 1 Earth below us drifting, falling. Floating weightless calling, calling home... Across the stratosphere, a final message: "Give my wife my love." Then nothing more. Far beneath the ship, the world is mourning. They don't realize he's alive. No one understands, but Major Tom sees. "Now the light commands this is my home, I'm coming home." Earth below us drifting, falling. Floating weightless coming home... Earth below us drifting, falling. Floating weightless coming, coming home... home.....

Space Oddity by David Bowie. Ground Control to Major Tom Ground Control to Major Tom Take your protein pills and put your helmet on Ground Control to Major Tom Commencing countdown, engines on Check ignition and may God's love be with you Ten, Nine, Eight, Seven, Six, Five, Four, Three, Two, One, Liftoff This is Ground Control to Major Tom You've really made the grade And the papers want to know whose shirts you wear Now it's time to leave the capsule if you dare "This is Major Tom to Ground Control I'm stepping through the door And I'm floating in a most peculiar way And the stars look very different today For here Am I sitting in a tin can Far above the world Planet Earth is blue And there's nothing I can do Though I'm past one hundred thousand miles I'm feeling very still And I think my spaceship knows which way to go Tell me wife I love her very much she knows" Ground Control to Major Tom Your circuit's dead, there's something wrong Can you hear me, Major Tom? Can you hear me, Major Tom? Can you hear me, Major Tom? Can you.... "Here am I floating round my tin can Far above the Moon Planet Earth is blue And there's nothing I can do."

Inspired by Kumquat, I'm listening to David Bowie -- Major Tom. Sorry, it's actually space oddity. I'm just used to calling it Major Tom. Peter Schilling had a song by the name of Major Tom. That's another good one.

Kids, calm down. No fighting, kicking, screaming, or otherwise abusing your fellow members. Anyhow, Kumquat is just jealous, pixies. Now, don't make me close down the thread. Especially since I'm one of the guilty parties. I'll have to give myself a warning. ...Well, maybe an unofficial one, but a warning nonetheless.

That's our true dirty little secret.

Whoa. That takes lots of patience. Could your wife be older than you by any chance? <{POST_SNAPBACK}> 4 1/2 years older. She didn't have much interest in me when we first met, but I'm persistent. In fact, nothing works better than separating a girl from the herd and wearing her down. Remember, most women are herd animals. They derive strength from their fellow women. To wear them down, you must corner one on the sly and then your manly charms will do the rest of the work for you.

HA! I can't. I'm not a mod in this forum. heh heh. Wait, should I have said that? :ph34r:

I prepare all my campaigns extensively in advance, although I'm good at modifying the stats on the fly. I usually have several contingencies in terms of monsters, puzzles, and locations. When it comes to gameplay, I provide puzzles, role-playing opportuities, and combat in more or less equal amounts. I try to tailor the experience to what I know the players will enjoy. I'm willing to play an entire session without combat, which I sometimes provide for players. Unfortunately, the players tend to desire a good amount of combat. They see non-combat games as a fun break from time to time, but get irritated if they can't bash heads most of the time.

The rating system sucks. I say you guys lock this thread and create a better system without bukkake references.

I'm not the fastest person in the world. I think my best mile was... 5.30? Somewhere around there. That was back when the earth was still cooling. My dirty little secret is that I met my wife when I was thirteen years old, wed her at 26, and loved her the entire time.

No, I believe that's right, julian. I did a lot of training with Army pukes whilst at combined commands. The Navy PT test is geared for a lot of desk jockey types. That's reasonable, as the test verifies a certain minimal standard. For the Navy PT test, I believe the pushups are all two count. As the Jar head will tell you, there is no such animal as a two count push-up. I once failed a marine PT test because I doubled back to help out one of my fellows who had fallen behind. I can't remember what exactly was wrong with the guy, but he was in bad shape. I came in late on the run component, but the commander, when he heard why, dropped the whole matter. I've spent time with all sorts of armed service types. The problem is, I'm really a rather whimpy sort of fellow at heart. Once I purged myself of all of my teenage agression, I basically decided the quiet life of the academe was for me.

hahaha. You know, I'm a mod and the person who started the thread and between us we've completely derailed the whole thing. Pixies, you're my favorite mod!

You know, I had three of my former students come up to me after church a few weeks ago to tell me where they're going to school next year. Two are going to USC and one is going to UCI. I told them that I'll be commuting to UCLA in the fall and the USC brats (actually, they're both very nice girls) started making fun of the UCLA football team. So, private school didn't hurt their academcis, but it didn't instill kindness to old teachers either.

I think the ashtray is quite clever. I don't know how effective it is. I'd be just as happy to see smoking go away completely, but I don't see it happening soon.

Not to get into the odd argument regarding tuition, but I would like to comment that many private schools give a tuition break for active members of the church. Most of the time, parents and children need not be active members of the church, only supportive of various charitable undertakings. The church itself carries the expense. Children who attend Christian schools tend to do well in college. I have taught at a private school. I don't fancy teaching children. I like them. They like me. ...But they're a pain to teach. Finally, Whatever Anderson did in the past, one of the main tenets of Christianity is forgiveness. If she's on the straight and narrow now, why shouldn't she sponsor a Christian school?

Just plain bad.

non-sense. MnM VII was a great game. I still prefer MnM VI, though. VIII wasn't so bad, but it was a lackluster effort.