Cantousent

Come on, man! Where the hell are your priorities. You'd rather go for a little nookie than a weekend of uninterupted gaming? I mean... well.... I guess I'm with you on that. Just now getting ready to down some booze. Like Pavlov's dogs at the end of the day. Got to be careful not to drunk post, though. :Cant's wry grin icon:

A thousand pardons. ...And my wife speaks Spanish. She'd be sorely disappointed. Beats disco. I mean either the dancing or the music and I speak from experience, having lived through the onset of both at the time. Although, like a lot of folks my age, I've been to a lot of discoth

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EdWo8lGLDgI...feature=related Guantanamara. I couldn't find the version I have on my playlist, but this one has the same sort of upbeat feel to it. The song is actually kind of sad. Cuban bastard. lol But I love the song and it's definitely fun for dancing.

Keep up your health, tarna. Don't give in, man.

Getting ready for mass. Worship a little, have a little lunch, and thence to run a few errands.

Geez, making the pizza dough is far worse than making the spaghetti sauce. :Cant's tongue in cheek smile icon: ...But I do like homemade pizza quite a bit, especially with Jalapenos. I use Jalapenos in cooking quite a bit. I even made chicken cacciatore once with Jalapenos in a red sauce. I used a nice local blended red grape wine. Wonderful stuff.

I've been reading CS Lewis' Signature Classics. It's a compilation of his great works on Christianity. Wonderful stuff. I do get a kick out of... I guess it's the 'Mere Christianity' part. Apparently, the short chapters come from his weekly radio adresses. I try to imagine listening to him on the radio. I've got to tell you, some of the priests I've heard could really use a pointer or two from him. Granted, not everyone can be a CS Lewis. He was a fascinating man who, like a lot of British men of that time, fought in World War One. Anyhow, what is with the Russian invasion? I guess it's Russian. The alphabet looks Cyrillic to me at least. I see that location on the latest fellow is Israel, so maybe not. It's a real downer though. Clogs up the pages something fierce. EDIT: Aw, I see I came to the party late. Someone deleted the Russians spam before I posted. Still, we've been getting a lot of it lately as it seems to me.

I wanted to enjoy my Saturday by doing nothing, but I figured I would go get some air filters for the air conditioner since we needed them. I have two observations. First of all, the stores are already playing Christmas music, which I think is insane in early November. Second of all, they're also selling some of the large Christmas house decorations and one of them was an outhouse that had a sign that said 'occupied.' Every now and then Santa pops out of the door and goes, "Ho Ho HO!" It's just wrong.

EDIT: Just too depressing. There's no need for me to contribute to such a depressing topic. ...But I have had a lot of fun reading it.

Hey, that's not a bad idea, Shady. I've been to one of the estates around here where they've done that and it's weird to see grapefruit on an orange tree and the like. Alas, I just have two trees. :Cant's pathetic gardner icon:

yetch. All this pig talk. It's been rainy here. Slick roads. Low visibility. wet. Not enough hot coffee.

You goofs, I have a lemon tree and an orange tree in my backyard. Damned typos. I eat a lot of lemons to balance out my sweet personality. My blood is pure lemonade.

Excellent! I've been a Yo-Yo Ma fan since before I was married. I remember the head of the Indiana University library gave me one of his cassettte tapes. Fun times, man. Thanks for bringing it back for me. I was watching Shutter Island a while back and fell in love with this rather depressing tune: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DBxRp3pqwgo The original is much more upbeat, even though the lyrics are the same as far as I can tell.

...But that doesn't make sense. I mean, if the government doesn't give you more, they haven't taken something from you. They've simply not given something to you. Anyhow, I don't want to get into a big argument with you, Super-Cal. I've always liked you even thought I think you're a reactionary bastard. :cant's wry grin icon:

My life took a crazy turn right after New Vegas came out and I had less and less time so I only picked up one of the xpacs before I basically couldn't play any computer games. In a way I was kind of lucky in that I can get a lot of new content. I know I might be better off getting the dlc independently, but I don't mind making another purchase. My wife has had fun playing PS:T with me, slowly to be sure, but still having fun. She might really enjoy New Vegas also, and it has to look a million times better high def than PS:T does. I'm just glad it's coming out on PC. As far as achievements go, I'm a bit ashamed to admit that I actually got all the achievement for Portal. Great game. In a lot of ways, I liked it better than Portal 2, although on balance I think the sequel advanced the franchise nicely. I didn't really pay attention to the achievements for New Vegas. They're kind of cool, but a bit like dessert. I'm a steak and potatoes sort of player. Dessert is nice, but by and large meanigless if the meal sucks.

I've had a headache all morning, so I was going to write something snarky. hehe Snarky, I said, not personal. After some thought, I decided I didn't want to get beat up. :Cant's rueful grin icon: You've got it right, Wals. Can we spread out the bad effects over a long enough period while sufficiently dealing with the problem. We're going to have some pain. It's just a matter of how much pain and for how long. ...And my previous post, while perhaps a bit on the flambouyant side, won't look excessive if we have a literal world wide depression.

I am, as I prefer to say, a tad bit disoriented right now, but I would like to point out a couple of things. First of all, I agree with yoiu, Wrath, but don't misunderstand. Even if the so called 'contagion' of banks doesn't reach the United States, the depression that would undoubtedly ensue in Europe would still stick it to the US in a bad way. It is not writ in stone that there would be a domino effect as the banks most invested in Greek debt fail and therefore make it impossible for some of the other at risk countries to secure the credit extensions they need to meet their obligations. Sure, it might not spiral, but it probably will. We probably would be looking at the sort of Armageddon that the more colorful commentators cite when talking about the Greek default. I think Enoch does a commendable job of explainging things, as he always does, but it's too easy to say that Greece is a third world economy stuck with a first world currency and therefore without any recourse to dealing with debt. Yeah, there's really nothing they can do. ...But Ireland was, even moreso, the supposed poster child for the EU and it's not but a step or two in front of Greece. Ireland was the example of how entering the union and adhering to the principles of the larger economic block would bring a country into the next century in a mutally beneficial cycle of growth and prosperity. That cycle is not supportable without some sort of exportable industry, eitehr in manufacturing or service. The countries that have done best in the EU have been the smaller countries that have some sort of niche export markets that benefit from the Eurozone structure. Some of the countries would probably have developed some sort of decent exportable industry to keep them afloat for a while, but the EU has seen it's share of the global economy shrink for years, which is inevitable considering their fiscal and monetary policy. I don't doubt that Enoch and I would disagree on a variety of points, but I'm perfectly happy to yield the floor to him for the purposes of explanation. For my part, partly because of fatigue and partly because of my 'disoriented' status, I want to limit myself to comment to folks who believe as I do that we should let the chips fall. Let the real estate market in the US fall, let the banks fail (the ship has sailed on that one unfortunately), and let the car companies go under if they cannot turn a profit (ditto). The point is, don't think it's all roses and sweet perfume. If we go down that road, there will be a reckonning. We. will. suffer. Now, I know a thing or two about suffering, folks, and it's not what a lot of peoplle think it is. It's long nights of pain and hunger, and that's what we're looking at if we take a crash course in a real free market solution to this problem. I think the alternative, such as using monetary and fiscal policy for short term stimulous and the like, is a loser in the long run, but at least it won't be ruinous in the short term. We can probably count on the next decade or longer being absolutely unbearable for a great chunk of folks if we reset and some countries, such as Greece, will be screwed not matter what. Austerity in terms of both spending and tax increases in Greece will be disasterous. The best thing they could do right now is cut themselves loose from the euro. The euro has hurt the Eurozone far more than anything else over the past several years. ...Anf if the Greeks try to stick it out and it devalues the euro, everyone will be screwed, from the Europeans to the US to the damned Chinese, who won't be able to devalue the won sufficiently to keep up exports to a number of devastated markets. of course, this is all a bunch of lubricated rambling, I will admit, but just saying, all you who want an easy sultion of 'just let them fail...' I agree with you. Let them fail. But get ready for long sleepless nights of sweat dripping off your face from the pain and suffering we're all going to feel.

Niiice. I should take up yoga. The day is almost done and I look forward to my own way to untense, which involves a wee bit o' whiskey and maybe some wine. For the mortals among you, don't mix those.

Someone showed me this picture. I thought it was histerical and so I thought I'd post it. Granted, it's actually quite terrible, but I can't help but laugh at it. Definitely wouldn't do it myself, though. Total comedy. http://www.twitpic.com/775tpw

There's an echo in here.

Hey, Lady in Red, we've been thinking about getting a new cat. Two of our died over the past couple of years. One died literally as I was trying to get her to take medicine. It would be unseemly to go on about it, but it wasn't fun. Anyhow, we have one more cat and she's older, like 15 years, and I don't want to get a new cat for her to get used to at her age. Plus, and I'm ashamed to admit, that I liked the other cats better. We loved them all, but she just was more of a pest than the other two. Now that she gets all the attention, I don't want to bring in another cat. When she dies, we'll probably get two more cats. All of our cats have been strays, but we might go to the shelter next time.

I don't understand why it's an issue that the Chronicles of Narnia are, as you say, 'hamfisted.' The entire work is didactic in nature. C.S. Lewis wasn't a fantsy writer. He was primarily a Christian thinker. The point of the Chronicles of Narnia is to promote Christian thinking and belief. If you enjoy the work, enjoy it for what it is. After all, many Christians (especially ones who don't know the self avowed atheist motives of the author) enjoyed the Golden Compass. I mean, I could say that the Golden Compass is pretty transparent in terms of being anti-religious, but that's like saying water is wet. The motive behind the Golden Compass is to promote atheism. The point behind the Narnia books was to promote Christianity. If it weren't for the frantic anti-Christianity that I find on this forum, I would be surprised that it's an issue since the overall more lessons are by and large the same for believers of any stripe and non-believers also. Be a steadfast friend. Be willing to stand up for yourself. Be brave and honest. These values are shared among good people of all times and all places. There was even a movie about Lewis. I think it was called Shadowlands and, if I recall it right, Anthony Hopkins played the signature role. I haven't had a lot of time to see movies recently, but I did get a chance to see 16 blocks not long ago. For some reason, I really like it. Probably something about it being about a middle aged drunkard coming to grips with his life. lol

You know, I ran a short campaign here and blank was in that one. I had to step down, but, in my defense, I'd told everyone before hand I could only start it and they'd have to find a permanent DM. As to Tale's: you've always seemed to be pretty quick on the draw. At least I remember you being pretty quick with clever arguments when we've had disagreements, which leads me to think you'd do a fine job. I think it's far more of an issue if you haven't run any campaigns at all. That would be tough, but if you've DMed before, you'll do fine online. I managed it and I had Llyranor and nick_i_am in the game, and they're absolutely insane. hehe

Bastard started a forum compaign and left? The swine! Seriously, I saw this thread and hoped to catch up on Blank. Alas, he's awol. :Cant's bummed icon:

My God, man, I leave for a while and when I get back you've got a new kid! Congrats! As for Halloween, I used to love giving out candy, but the kids got older and older until, the last year I handed out candy, I had 18-20 year old kids coming to my house and they weren't even all that friendly. Now, I'm a born again Christian, and so I want to do the right thing, but the sight of surly adults coming to my door for free candy pisses me off. They wanted to reach in and look through my candy and take a bunch, to which I told them to take one and hit the bricks. I decided, at that point, to stop handing out candy before one of them made me angry enough to put my foot in his backside. So, I didn't use to hate the holiday, but I guess I've just gotten older and more jaded. :cant's patented scowl icon: