The DM Corner's Friends
[Most Recent Entries]
[Calendar View]
[Friends View]
Below are the most recent 25 friends' journal entries.
[ << Previous 25 ]
| Friday, July 25th, 2008 |
lonevettar
|
8:51p |
From the Times: He ventured forth to bring light to the world
And it came to pass, in the eighth year of the reign of the evil Bush the Younger (The Ignorant), when the whole land from the Arabian desert to the shores of the Great Lakes had been laid barren, that a Child appeared in the wilderness.
The Child was blessed in looks and intellect. Scion of a simple family, offspring of a miraculous union, grandson of a typical white person and an African peasant. And yea, as he grew, the Child walked in the path of righteousness, with only the occasional detour into the odd weed and a little blow.
When he was twelve years old, they found him in the temple in the City of Chicago, arguing the finer points of community organisation with the Prophet Jeremiah and the Elders. And the Elders were astonished at what they heard and said among themselves: “Verily, who is this Child that he opens our hearts and minds to the audacity of hope?”
In the great Battles of Caucus and Primary he smote the conniving Hillary, wife of the deposed King Bill the Priapic and their barbarian hordes of Working Class Whites.
Background
And so it was, in the fullness of time, before the harvest month of the appointed year, the Child ventured forth - for the first time - to bring the light unto all the world.
He travelled fleet of foot and light of camel, with a small retinue that consisted only of his loyal disciples from the tribe of the Media. He ventured first to the land of the Hindu Kush, where the
Taleban had harboured the viper of al-Qaeda in their bosom, raining terror on all the world.
And the Child spake and the tribes of Nato immediately loosed the Caveats that had previously bound them. And in the great battle that ensued the forces of the light were triumphant. For as long as the Child stood with his arms raised aloft, the enemy suffered great blows and the threat of terror was no more.
From there he went forth to Mesopotamia where he was received by the great ruler al-Maliki, and al-Maliki spake unto him and blessed his Sixteen Month Troop Withdrawal Plan even as the imperial warrior Petraeus tried to destroy it.
And lo, in Mesopotamia, a miracle occurred. Even though the Great Surge of Armour that the evil Bush had ordered had been a terrible mistake, a waste of vital military resources and doomed to end in disaster, the Child's very presence suddenly brought forth a great victory for the forces of the light.
And the Persians, who saw all this and were greatly fearful, longed to speak with the Child and saw that the Child was the bringer of peace. At the mention of his name they quickly laid aside their intrigues and beat their uranium swords into civil nuclear energy ploughshares.
From there the Child went up to the city of Jerusalem, and entered through the gate seated on an ass. The crowds of network anchors who had followed him from afar cheered “Hosanna” and waved great palm fronds and strewed them at his feet.
In Jerusalem and in surrounding Palestine, the Child spake to the Hebrews and the Arabs, as the Scripture had foretold. And in an instant, the lion lay down with the lamb, and the Israelites and Ishmaelites ended their long enmity and lived for ever after in peace.
As word spread throughout the land about the Child's wondrous works, peoples from all over flocked to hear him; Hittites and Abbasids; Obamacons and McCainiacs; Cameroonians and Blairites.
And they told of strange and wondrous things that greeted the news of the Child's journey. Around the world, global temperatures began to decline, and the ocean levels fell and the great warming was over.
The Great Prophet Algore of Nobel and Oscar, who many had believed was the anointed one, smiled and told his followers that the Child was the one generations had been waiting for.
And there were other wonderful signs. In the city of the Street at the Wall, spreads on interbank interest rates dropped like manna from Heaven and rates on credit default swaps fell to the ground as dead birds from the almond tree, and the people who had lived in foreclosure were able to borrow again.
Black gold gushed from the ground at prices well below $140 per barrel. In hospitals across the land the sick were cured even though they were uninsured. And all because the Child had pronounced it.
And this is the testimony of one who speaks the truth and bears witness to the truth so that you might believe. And he knows it is the truth for he saw it all on CNN and the BBC and in the pages of The New York Times.
Then the Child ventured forth from Israel and Palestine and stepped onto the shores of the Old Continent. In the land of Queen Angela of Merkel, vast multitudes gathered to hear his voice, and he preached to them at length.
But when he had finished speaking his disciples told him the crowd was hungry, for they had had nothing to eat all the hours they had waited for him.
And so the Child told his disciples to fetch some food but all they had was five loaves and a couple of frankfurters. So he took the bread and the frankfurters and blessed them and told his disciples to feed the multitudes. And when all had eaten their fill, the scraps filled twelve baskets.
Thence he travelled west to Mount Sarkozy. Even the beauteous Princess Carla of the tribe of the Bruni was struck by awe and she was great in love with the Child, but he was tempted not.
On the Seventh Day he walked across the Channel of the Angles to the ancient land of the hooligans. There he was welcomed with open arms by the once great prophet Blair and his successor, Gordon the Leper, and his successor, David the Golden One.
And suddenly, with the men appeared the archangel Gabriel and the whole host of the heavenly choir, ranks of cherubim and seraphim, all praising God and singing: “Yes, We Can.”
Clearly a satire, but, well, fuckin' a. YES, WE CAN. |
mouseferatu
|
6:44p |
Well, it's public now... A while ago, I posted a friends-only post saying that I'd gotten some really bad professional news, but not going into detail. Here it is. Wizards of the Coast is canceling some of their novel lines. What does that mean for me? It means that Shades of Grey and Crown of Ashes are both off the schedule. I cannot overstate how bummed I am by this, particularly in terms of Shades, which is still the best novel I've ever written, and was going to be my first non-game-related fiction publication. I hold no malice toward any of the folks I worked with--this decision goes beyond them--and I will happily work with them again, on future books that are part of WotC's "core" lines. But in the meantime, two of my career highs that were supposed to happen next year... won't. I'm currently talking to my agent about finding somewhere else to sell Shades, but of course, it's far from a sure thing. Wish me luck. Current Mood:  disappointed |
mpanther
|
2:24p |
humm, not what I expected, but I am satisfied with it. Your result for The Steampunk Style Test... The Explorer15% Elegant, 52% Technological, 23% Historical, 56% Adventurous and 54% Playful! 
You are the Explorer, the embodiment of steampunk’s adventuring spirit. For you, clothing should be rugged and reliable, and just as functional as it is attractive. You probably prefer khaki or leather, and your accessories are as likely to include weapons as technological gizmos. You probably wear boots and gloves, and maybe a pith helmet. Most of what you wear is functional, and if you happen to wear goggles people had better believe that you use them. In addition to Victorian exploration gear, your outfit probably includes little knickknacks from your various travels. Above all, you are a charming blend of rugged Victorian daring and exotic curiosity. Try our other Steampunk test here. Take The Steampunk Style Test at HelloQuizzy |
jeryk
|
4:18p |
When it comes to The X-Files movie reviews, as usual, reviewers miss the point Minor spoilers ahead: ( Read more... ) Current Mood:  aggravated |
|
urbanknight
|
12:15p |
|
tons0phun
|
9:26a |
The Trough So as things get closer to the date of my departure they also get busier. So Wednesday I went by McKinley Park to check out how the folks from the dojo are doing now. I must say, the park is not a bad place to train by any means. The weather is nice and the terrain isn't too soft or too hard. I do find it funny though just watching the people who run by taking glances in our direction. They might have a look of interest, wondering perhaps just how applicable our teaching is, or maybe they know some martial arts themselves and are trying to see what we're about. The muscled-out guys have the look of, "Lol they move so slow, I could pound them to a pulp with my MMA" kind of look. Either way though I got to see some familiar faces; apparently Nick is going to be moving south near L.A. within the next couple weeks, so hopefully I'll get to see him again before he takes off. Once it got late though I had to take off because the annoying blood-suckers came out from nowhere, but I think I'll drop in the next couple of sessions. Yesterday I hung out with Ben, Sam, and Joe (and later Anthony & Company)to geek-out on some D&D stuff. Joe's campaign is hard though; we're all terribly average people, and throughout the game Joe has consistently gotten good rolls while we've consistently gotten bad rolls. This makes for a difficult game. Difficult, but still fun at least. I also got to eat some food from a restaurant called Tres Hermanas, man their food kicks ass. I now have a greater love for tamales. So today I'm going to be hanging out with my cousin Ryan for a good part of the day, and later in the evening I'm gonna drop in to hang out with my cousin (Ryan's brother) Keith. I haven't seen him in a good while, so it should be a pretty fun night. And then there's just a bit more to do, so I'm gonna hop to it. Current Mood:  contentCurrent Music: Kenna - I'm Gone |
dulthar
|
6:23p |
From the Gaming Room: The Usual Stuff Well, quite a lot has happened in the 2 months since last I made a D&D roleplaying update. Needless to say, this will be brief to try and quickly fit everything in (although I've just posted about the D20 Modern stuff, so I'm already lying). ( Two months of gaming, in brief ) Current Mood:  a little tiredCurrent Music: Freak - Silverchair |
dulthar
|
6:00p |
From the Gaming Room: Look ahead to Halloween Well, I've been pretty slack with my posting recently (I can't even remember what my last post was about, or when) so time to backfill with some brief gaming posts (there'll probably be two). Just after Friday the 13th (was that last month or the month before?) I decided that, since Halloween was on a Friday night this year I should definately run a special horror roleplaying night. I asked the regular group of gamers and they all agreed that it sounded fun and so I began planning a D20 Modern adventure. Then, because it made more sense (and we had a week when only a few people could make it to gaming) I got everyone to start making their characters. I figure that, should they survive, these characters can also be used for the Friday the 13ths coming up in Feb and March next year. So far we've had two Monday night sessions devoted to character creation (nights when we would have been unable to roleplay). So far, are we know is that: the adventure will be set in America; the characters will be 4th level; and there will be zombies (:D). Cast so Far:Dirk: Charismatic 2/Dedicated 1/Strong 1, played by ![[info]](http://p-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) muppet_driver. Mac: Fast 3/Tough 1, played by jeklik. Un-named Smart Hero: Smart 1 (so far), played by idaeus. Un-named Fast Hero: Fast 1/Strong 1/Tough 2. As-yet-unstarted-character. Current Music: Devil's Dance - Metallica |
lonevettar
|
1:07a |
Dwarf Fortress: possibly the coolest game ever. If you've seen me recently, I've probably yelled at you to get this game and play it. Why? Because it is easily the most detailed, complex game out right now, even if its graphical quality is shit. Why? Because it's Civilization, the Sims, Sim City, and Warhammer Fantasy all rolled into one game. Currently, my newest fortress has 76 dwarves. This is a paltry sum, and will soon be augmented when Spring hits and brings the next three waves of migrants. This fortress, Limulnanir, or Goldrhyming, is a good one. I've built in a steep-sloped valley where the river forms a canyon between mountains, and fenced off my fortress within the valley with the good old Roman mura et fossa, originally filled with sharpened stakes, then filled with water--thus, even if there were a monster in the game capable of fording my moat, he'd be impaled anyway (yeah, suck it programmers, I'm thinking ahead). I've made the walls three tiles thick, with hard diorite on the exteriors and talc on the interior, studded with towers two z levels higher than the walls every six tiles and crenelated with ballistae on top. The interior of the fortress grounds is divided into three sections by more walls and ditches, with trade depots furthest out from the core, barracks in the second partition, and core community in the center. My shit is impenetrable. Given the nature of my fortifications, it should come as no surprise that all of my military is comprised of marksdwarves, all armed with adamantine crossbows. Fuck yeah. So, with this redoubtable redoubt built, I've decided to experiment with exactly what I can do in the game as far as community management and engineering. Pet Projects: ( Read more... )TL;DR: Dwarf church?, Pyramids fuck yeah, outdoor farm w/waterfall, Goblin slaves?, Boots of Asskicking +5, lonely goatherd?, mad genius armor, dwarven WalMart, dwarven credit cards, Hammercave, Diablo crypts. I love this game. |
| Thursday, July 24th, 2008 |
adamdray
|
5:41p |
|
downtym
|
2:19p |
On Politics One thing missing from both campaigns is "Crowd Shots" showing the view from behind the candidate. These can be interesting as they sometimes reveal the populace in play. So, yeah. Holy shit, the Germans love them some Obama. |
mpanther
|
7:04a |
Happy Birthday, Ravenared!
I hope you day is filled with Love and Joy.
*snug*
>^..^<
. |
neuroxin
|
8:10a |
pool.jpg  pool.jpg
Originally uploaded by neuroxin.docjohnboy took this last night |
megarandom
|
1:26a |
Damn. I sometimes wish I could read Cyrillic or the greek alphabet the way they were meant to be read. I am trying to come up with a good name for a Death Knight for the Wrath of the Lich King expansion, and I have a funny feeling that some of the words I am translating would sound really cool if I could read them and turn them into something able to be typed into the naming field. By the way, you World of Warcraft types on my friends list: http://wotlk.wowhead.com/Check that out. I am liking the pet talent system and the new talents in the classes. There is also a death knight talent calculator for the expansion beta. |
irascignavojo
|
2:41a |
Tempus Fugit...
...that my first daughter is out of primary school already and officially a high school student now... Time runs in weird ways...
I swear I just turned around... just a moment ago she had her first day in school... and now: High school, learning latin...
Next time I turn around she'll be at the proms... |
| Wednesday, July 23rd, 2008 |
downtym
|
7:08p |
?
Playing EVE Online and D&D 4E has gotten me asking the question:
What is fun?
Hm. |
megarandom
|
8:52a |
|
| Tuesday, July 22nd, 2008 |
ainufelmeo
|
9:07p |
Silly. I went to post a screen shot on my old islander forum. ( Screenshot )I haven't ever really had good luck with scrolls, maybe because I only use 10%s, but today I used 4 10%s and all of them worked in a row. Anyway, I went to see what else was happening on the forum and lvlapleiland (this freaking idiot kid that pisses everyone off with everything he does) had posted a thread that said an "An ISLANDER made maplestory myspace?" So I clicked it and he said he found me on there. I'm on the top 16 of MapleStory's official MySpace page. Crazy, huh? I'm surprised I haven't been barraged with spam. I just got one guy spam me telling me to get free NX at gamelagoon.com or something. I thought that was a little funny. http://www.myspace.com/maplestory Current Mood:  hahaCurrent Music: Futurama |
megarandom
|
4:54p |
I think I may have forgotten to mention this, but if anyone's going any direction through southeast Arizona on I-10, I have a free place to cop a squat instead of paying for room. I might have been able to use my discount at Motel 6 for people, but I just quit that job. |
| Wednesday, July 23rd, 2008 |
irascignavojo
|
12:29a |
Club Med, Club Dead? French daily "Le Figaro" calls it an important "milestone". German conservative daily FAZ calls it "a diplomatic triumph". The Economist calls it a diplomatic success: The main achievement of the summit was to assemble such an improbable cast of leaders. Only Libya’s Muammar Qaddafi boycotted the event on principle, arguing that it smacked of colonialism. Algeria’s Abdelaziz Bouteflika threatened to stay away; but, after frenzied diplomacy, he turned up on the day. So did Turkey’s Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who has been cool to Mr Sarkozy because of his opposition to Turkish membership of the European Union. Israel’s Ehud Olmert and Syria’s Bashar Assad even sat at the same table—although they did not actually meet. BBC's Mark Mardell in his Euroblog reminds us of the origins of Sarko's Club Med:  The Romans knew the sea in the middle of their world as "Mare Nostrum" - Our Sea.
Sarkozy's grand vision of a Mediterranean Union is on one level an attempt to remind Europeans that it is not just "Our Sea". The Med, formed by the clash of European and African tectonic plates, has given its name to a climate, a diet and a temperament that largely stresses a common bond between the people of its northern shores - the French, Spanish, Italians and Greeks - rather than those of North Africa and the Middle East. Perhaps at the back of Sarkozy's mind is a noble effort to stress the basin's common heritage.
Bilderberg-member and Bushist Josef Joffe of my favourite liberal german weekly paper "Die ZEIT", is much less positive. The fact that Bashad Al-Assad, the president of Syria, was even invited is a mistake in his eyes, and the fact that Assad left the room when Ehud Olmert spoke is a proof to this, in his eyes. I nicked this blog title from Joffe inm order to ask your opinion: What do you think of this union, as a diplomatic effort or as a possible political entity? In my German blog I gave the historical evidence with the presentation of famed historian Prof. Dr. Frank Kolb (the one who fought his own battle of Troy with archaeologist Manfred Korfmann about where and what Troy once was) of 'ancient globalization' with the Roman Empire. ( Wer deutsch lesen kann - es lohnt sich, finde ich). Here I'll give you a glimpse on Rome as the first global village: Romans extended the Greek conception of citizenship to include all free men (such as freed slaves) in their empire, but allowed the people to operate in their local cultures (Gardner, 1993; Heater, 2004), as long as the people observed the Roman Laws. They broadened the conception of citizenship because the Roman Empire was the first global village that comprised various nations and diverse peoples (Bauman, 2000). Romans were the first to associate human rights (also called humanitas in Latin) with citizenship. For example, political rights gave government the obligation to protect its citizens in the empire. However, as Barbalet (1988) correctly observed, states create rights for people to exercise them. Hence, the adult males performed duties like paying taxes, joining military service, and voting, in return for the state’s protection. This was the conception of active participation during the Romans times, but the usage of participation in modern times is much broader (Jones & Gaventa, 2002; Mohanty & Tandon, 2006). (Source) So what do you think? Will this Club Med take off and fly? Is the Sarko-Sea a good idea? Or is Sarkozy a new Napoleon to be wary of?   |
| Tuesday, July 22nd, 2008 |
megarandom
|
2:18p |
|
tons0phun
|
1:27p |
Today and yesterday my Grandpa has been over to help us install some new fans into the house. It was pretty fun and educational hanging around with him. Learned how to set up a fairly complex junction box, and got to see a more mischievous side of him; he'd said maybe we should consider turning just one fan-blade over to have a different finish than the others. It was nice being a productive though, it's refreshing. I also rode my bike today. That cheered me up substantially. Current Mood:  OkayCurrent Music: Cake - The Distance |
| Monday, July 21st, 2008 |
mouseferatu
|
10:34p |
Dark Knight Finally, finally saw it today. Talk about a nearly pitch-perfect movie. There were a few scenes where Bale's "Batman voice" felt a little forced, and there were one or two scenes that I felt could've been trimmed a tiny bit. Other than that? No complaints--performances, plot, nothing. The people who say that this is the best comic book movie ever? That Ledger plays the best Joker, and possibly one of the best villains, ever? They're absolutely, 100% right. I'm not sure you could ask for a better Batman movie than this. (Though I certainly hope they try. There really needs to be at least one more with Nolan, Bale, and crew.) Current Mood:  impressed |
downtym
|
6:07p |
Batman: Dark Knight
Best.
Movie. |
downtym
|
11:16a |
|
[ << Previous 25 ]
|
![[info]](http://p-stat.livejournal.com/img/community.gif){kind=small}
dms_corner