Amentep

I can't say I had problems with this, but it was a very close call from not missing to missing. Don't really look forward to trying it on the replay. I hate repeated button mashing in games, they're just not fun to me.

Veronica Mars - thought it was really well done. Went with my brother who never really watched the show (he was familiar with the basics though) and he enjoyed it as well. Like most of the episodes, its not really a "who dunnit?" so much as a "how will/can Veronica solve it?" so it is very much like an episode of the show, but bigger and with a gratuitous PG-13 F-word (which IMO pays off with Logan's PG-13 line at the end of the film). Great seeing the characters again, kinda wish Wallace and Mac had bigger parts (even though they play important roles) and I always can use more of Veronica and her Dad. And again Mr. Casablancas (since his first name got caught in the filter) reveals why he's a fan favorite (rendering the gag I placed in these parenthesis nonsensical). And yet it was also pretty much the best thing I could expect, and definitely pleasing for this fan of the show. I hope it won't be 7 years before we get to visit the characters again (in film, since there's a novel coming in a few months from Rob Thomas).

Arguing the inaccuracies and incorrectness of the morphemes used to create the blend word of "homophobia" is about as productive IMO as arguing that anyone who is happy is a gay person. The language changes whether the etymology of the words make sense or not. (As I recall homophobia - coined in the 60s - was originally ascribed as "dread of being in close quarters with homosexuals" by a psychologist to describe his colleagues who were particularly anti-homosexuality; although there are several competing origins and a few different uses (including fear of a man of being thought to be "gay" by his peers) so its origins are at least somewhat in keeping with the idea of phobias.).

I'm expecting a movie length episode of the show, with maybe a little higher production values. But essentially the show but with me in a theater and not on my sofa. At least until I get my DvD at which point it will be with me on my sofa. Watching the DVD, not creepily cuddled up with the DVD on the sofa. Hopefully you'll get what I meant, at least.

Not disputing that, but it sounds like the case would be naturally repetitive, at the least, because they were repetitive!

I'm going to see it in the theater tomorrow so I'm holding off watching the download.

"Can" and "are inclined to" are different things, and while you already addressed this in your post, I think the problem is that the data used to "identify" gender equality problems glosses over this fact. Underlying the issue of gender equality is also the question of whether men and women are actually equal, value judgments notwithstanding. Your pointing out of differences in verbal skill development rates is a good hint that this is a problem that is, at best, oversimplified. I'm sure someone more intelligent and insightful than me could find more faults with this sort of social engineering initiatives, but that's enough to give me pause. In terms of "can" / "inclined to" I'm a big believer (when you get past foundational skill building) in the "you can bring the horse to water but you can't make it drink". A boy and a girl with no significant cognition problems should have the potential to direct their skill and focus where they want in terms of areas of study. If they choose not to follow a particular path (say STEM) internally after having ensured there are no external pressures that would influence the decision then there's nothing else to do. That said, while I support, for example, our efforts to increase women and minorities in STEM majors, I think the focus needs to be on - as always - educating students on their choices, what those choices mean for them, ensuring access and then letting people make up their own mind. My problem is when we have ideas that are only realistic if you start pushing people towards options instead of allowing them to choose what they want to do (or eliminating options so people have to do what you want them to do). Essentially, even assuming a "high level" equality (because, lets face it, individuals are inherently un-equal), the only equality achievable without forcing people to take roles regardless of inclination (or skill) is equality to access. As an aside, just the fact that we know boys and girls attain intelligence (however we quantify it) though, typically studies show the differences don't create huge differences in total learning over time (albeit if it did, I'm not entirely sure our current educational system would be willing to admit it). I'll disagree with you on two points. Of course this is my opinion and my experience is with the US system and international education is a different ballgame, really. One, education should have a duty to support someone's talent and proclivity. Someone with natural ability with numbers, someone with a natural talent in art - if their interest lies in that direction - are going to go farther quicker if studying in those areas. Note I'm not advocating that students with talent in particular areas be forced to follow those paths - if you're good in physics but want to pursue basket weaving (or vice versa) this should be encouraged. Engagement in the material that interests you is better than having a natural talent for something in the long run. Second, your assertion that modern education (and here I'm working on the idea we're talking about higher education, not primary/secondary education) is about providing standardized job qualifications doesn't follow through. While this does differ internationally to varying degree, the US is built around a liberal arts model whose goal is - generally - not about teaching a skill in a one-to-one relation with a job. The inherent goal of a liberal arts education is to create a person who is well rounded in a variety of areas of critical, scientific or artistic thought. While there are "technical" educations (which is more skill and job/career focused - like HVAC training and the like) the vast majority of people graduating from a 4 year college in, lets say business, are not being prepared with specific skills to run a specific type of business - they have broad overview (and some specific) knowledge of accounting, economics, legal issues, management, communication skills, etc. that would help them in a position at a business. If the education is good, in theory, the person with the business degree should be able to slip into the managerial role and with company specific training and succeed, but again the goal isn't job training; it creates a background of field related knowledge and critical thinking skills as opposed to a specific skill set like, again, a degree in HVAC or plumbing would.

It chaffed my hide when Nalia would complain "How are we helping the less fortunate..." when I was in the D'Arnise Hold HELPING HER on the quest to liberate the hold. I do agree that forcing all the relevant dialogue to the hub felt unnatural. I believe it was Star Ocean 2(? and I know jRPG) that had the player's party break up and do their own thing when they hit town allowing the player to then find them if they wanted to have dialogue with party members, have some drinks, buy some stuff or whatever. Or the "Tales" system that puts up prompts that character dialogue is available. There should be some way to better integrate dialogue into western RPGs so character can offer timely or relevant banter (without having your companion's dialogue interrupted by another companion's dialogue which is immediately interrupted by a quest giver and then that is ultimately interrupted by exploding gibberlings).

This. The BG2 romances worked because they didn't end once you did the deed, they continued and had a lasting effect on your relationship with that person. Sex shouldn't be the goal of the relationship, it should just be a side effect. Eh, I can't see much difference between bg2+tob and ME2/ME3, for instance, in this department. The problem with BG2+TOB is (IMO) it started off on the wrong foot; the romanceable characters (except, maybe Jaheria) are cyphers if you don't romance them. The player shouldn't have to romance the companion to have an interesting companion, IMO. The romance should be a specific (arguably) special relationship tree that acts parallel to the normal friendship/rivalry relationship with the companion. This does mean it'd HAVE to be more work to do, and IMO that's okay because contextually romance doesn't make sense in every scenario, every plot, with every character or in every game.

Do I think that girls are treated differently than boys at the macro-societal level? Yes. We have studies that indicate subtle factors in education (some even mentioned in the BanBossy material) can lead girls away from achievement in areas of math and science.1 Do I think there is value in discouraging bossy behavior in children? Yes. There's a real tendency in modern thought to feel that negative reinforcement is valueless and I'm not convinced it is. Bossy behavior should be discouraged - boy or girl. Note I disagree with the precept of the BanBossy campaign that the same action in a boy called "leadership" is called "bossy" in a girl. "Bossy" is a very specific set of negative behaviors and if people are using the word incorrectly it is not the fault of the word (again, treating the symptom - missuse of a word - rather than treating the reason why people might be misusing that word or even attempting to spread understanding about the word, its meaning and how that relates to negative behaviors we don't want to encourage and to positive behaviors we very much want to encourage). Studies over the years have shown that as boys and girls develop, girls develop verbal ability much quicker than boys. This will lead to a tendency for girls to interact with their social world through words more so than boys (which is why boys will demonstrate more physical aggression while girls will demonstrate more relational aggression, typically). This is, probably, the reason why there is a perception of girls being labeled as "bossy" more than boys (as boys will be trying to assert their will over their peers through their physicality, not having the verbal acuity to attempt imposing their will through verbal methods).2 Ideally, though, I think we'd want to discourage both forms of aggression and channel those efforts towards something constructive. Having said that, plenty of boys will be bossy during their development (just likely hitting it at a later stage of development) and if we feel that this attitude/action set is to be discouraged than we need to be able to "call it out", otherwise we'll either be transferring the bossy label to another word (as the negative traits would still need to be distinguished) or encouraging the behavior to continue (if we drop any concept of the "bossy" traits being negative for fear of discouraging "leadership"). Which gets back to the campaign; if the campaign is really about encouraging girls to be leaders and/or to not be discouraged from pursuing being positively assertive I'd argue they'd be better off campaigning positively than negatively (and while I'm sure they think they're being a positive campaign, I see any campaign that stacks itself against3 something to be inherently negative). If the goal of the campaign is to establish that women have fine leadership skills that can be nurtured and grown - which I think it is - I think they're going about it entirely the wrong way. Because what people are going to take away from the campaign isn't going to be the positive message they're trying to deliver but the negative one they are delivering (even if it is unintentionally, as I think it is). ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1There's also a devaluing of education as important - somehow - in high school that leads boys away from education which is why our college populations in many schools are overwhelmingly female - outside of the STEM majors. Sometime in the 1980s women overtook men in higher education. The question we in higher education face is "how do we encourage men to pursue college degrees" and "how do we encourage women to consider STEM majors as viable options for them". Anecdotally, I can't tell you the number of times that I've talked to a young woman who has shifted away from a medical/pharmacological/dental major to "nursing" either because of factors OTHER than the challenge of the coursework. And similarly men who place no value on education, soon to drop out because making money now if more important than making more money years from now. 2Note though that while I agree that boys and girls learn differently and learn at different rates, I do reject the notion that men or women taken as enormous groups (as opposed to individual vs individual) can't compete equally in education - unless there are some other cognitive factors at play (like dyscalculia). Experience teaches us otherwise. The problem in the educational system is that, honestly, it tends to be "one size fits all" which IMO is a terrible way to operate if your goal is to identify individual talent, skill and/or proclivity. 3Unfortunately society has embraced the idea that if you're not against something you are for nothing. So its not surprising that the "net meme" summation of the campaign is negative - #BanBossy

Lionheart starts as an interesting solo RPG and then ends up a bad Diablo clone. And I say this as someone who likes Diablo and a lot of its clones. But I think one of the biggest things about it is, following the development at the time it was being made it really felt like it was going to be THE game to beat. The setting is one that I really liked and wanted to see how they explored it, and then I got it and Barcelona was boffo...until it wasn't. There were some good story elements, but I found the combat (which the game pretty much is outside of Barcelona) to be tedious. All that said, I do sometimes think I might try to replay it someday soon...

If they can just fix that neck thing going on (see Morrigan in DA:O) so that I'm not creeped out when it comes to nappy* time, I'll be okay. I'm not sure the only way to make romance work would be to make it integral to the plot (although that would make them have to make it work). I do think that if romances are to be a less perfunctory portion of the game, then developers need to get away from a few things, like resolving them in a single story or requiring that all of them end in some form of consummation (or, for that matter, that all of them succeed unless the player rejects the romance). Part of why they're - as they exist now - problematic is because they exist as a player ego stroke where the NPC in question stops being a character and becomes an object puzzle that the solution results in a horizontal mambo cut scene and some sort of bonus somewhere (quest items, relationship bonus, etc). *nap·py1 ˈnapē/ noun Brit. noun: nappy; plural noun: nappies 1. a baby's diaper.

I bought mine off the back of a truck, no questions asked.

Now I have visions of die-hard RPG fans dusting their shipping labels to see if they can identify which developer's fingerprints are on it...

I'm sure someone will be offended by the words "unicorn"* and "rainbow" and you'll be left with nothing in your land but like minded people. *True story: I actually typed "Unicron" and the thread was in danger of being derailed by the Transformers.

Valeska the Actress There was no role she could not play. So natural in talent, so powerful in conviction. So good in fact was she, that we are not entirely sure she's deceased.

Actually when I was being bossy as a kid - ordering people to do things and being petulant if they didn't do as I said - my mom called me bossy. Not a leader, not assertive. She called me what I was being and if I persisted I was punished. Maybe things have changed radically since I was 6 or 7, but I don't think *that* much. As to not being about banning the word - "BAN BOSSY" is on every page, so...

Given that The Bling Ring is based (however loosely) on the real Bling Ring thefts, and given that - from what I've read - they burglarized Rachel Bilson's home multiple times in April/May of 2009 it sounds like the quoted bit above is actually close to what actually happened.

Once again its not about the word but what the word symbolizes around this campaign. The campaign is about the word. Oh they have other stuff too, don't get me wrong (some of it a bit of a headscratcher to me), but they wouldn't target the word if it wasn't about the word. But as you say, the word is a symbol (and not really a symbol of what they say - a bossy person is a bossy person and has never to my mind indicated gender) and the problem isn't the word or really what it means and in that sense I think they're terribly misguided in their approach. Like many social movements they attack the symptoms in the hope that they'll damage the root cause when they should be attacking the root cause which will render the symptoms meaningless. IMO.

Oooo, just remembered Secret of Evermore and Final Fantasy: Mystic Quest

The word isn't the problem.

The only SHE I saw was the 80s B-movie with Sandahl Bergman. Decent movie altogether considering the budget. There's several versions filmed of the story, including an 1899 adaption directed by Méliès, a 1911 one with Marguerite Snow, this 1935 one, a 1965 with Ursula Andress and a 2001 version with Ophélie Winter. The Sandal Bergman film (from 1982) ... I'm not sure if it is an adaption of the book. Never seen it but the descriptions sound more like early 80s post-apocalyptic fantasy fare.

Here lies Mr. and Mrs. Findangle It was love at first sight Love still in last light His golden codpiece matched her golden booplate and the world was made right.

She did the news locally here for awhile. At one point she was the biggest draw for that station.

In that case, I'll just tell you that the coda of Underworld 3: Rise of the Lycans is predicated on Rhona and Kate looking similar (it ends up being "why" Vampire Lord Viktor spares Beckinsdale's Selene when he kills her family - she looks like Mitra's Sonja who is Viktor's now-deceased daughter)