Tired As Fuck Too



Man, I drank and ate a bunch today... BURNT ...

Jon, I dunno if you saw the beta version of RW, but it's here:
here (so tired) Maybe it's really an alpha and/or helluv old, but ya. That d/l page gives a link to an alpha version also, so perhaps this IS a newer version. Hit me up tomorrow if u wanna try.

I got HERO on dvd and I'm thinking about watching it right now (hear its good) but my body aches from too much booze - but its that BBQ style boozed-out, so I'm not even buzzed or anything.

- torgo

I'm tired as fuck. I probably walked for about 2.5 hours today. All to look at a bunch of unsatisfying apartments:

1. I went back to this place I looked at the other day to meet the other roommate. It's in a great locale (near where I am now)... the room itself is nice... but... the guys who live there are kind of just slobs in a grim way. A vaguely depressing air to the place. Shitty couches, mold on the ceilings. Both of them were hungover, maybe that had something to do with it.

2. Then I walked down to an area called Bernal Heights. There are "artistic," quirky parts and there are shitty parts. "A lot of people say we're on the wrong side of the hill, but we're not," said the leaseholder, the sweat on his face and the fine glassy sheen of his eyes indicating his appreciation for heroin. A guy wandered by wearing only a towel. I met the guy who inhabited the garage with his broken motorcycle, watching kung-fu DVDs on a filthy television. I stared out the window of the tiny room at the view of the security door.

3. A little later I took two buses and walked up a big-ass hill to get to the Presidio. The Presidio is this mammoth tract of forested federal land. It's where the Blair Witch would live, if there weren't so many Garou. The house was in pretty sad shape with a tripwire-like cable pulled across the stairway. The leaseholder was a friendly but slightly off-kilter fellow. You know that weird aura some guys who were in the military have? Friendly, but... weird? This guy had it. Somehow I would've known even if I didn't see the Navy hat.

I am beat.

Bonus link of the day! I love the picture.

I rule at Pick Em FF

Rude: I ran across the Jon Stewert video clip at a link on slashdot. It's a Bittorrent link, so you have to have Bittorrent. Its about 97MB.

Johnny & Art: Damn. You guys have some sort of mindless game addiction. You need help. Seriously. Really though, I can not play that damn snake game. I always end up head long in the wall once I get to about 300 pts.

All: Do not forget to set you FF teams. I got screwed on the Pick Em again. WHy the hell do you have to pick by friday afternoon? WTF. I missed another deadline which mean I am totally over that league. two weeks of that sucks ass. Fuggers

D>M>

Im off to mini Magic Mountain. Six Flags Great America.

Jon Stewart's a Gangster!

I didn't see it, but on Crossfire tonight, they had Jon Stewart, and I guess he just went OFF on them on being such hacks! Here's the transcript: HERE

A choice quote, and if anyone's tivo happened to have picked it up, I gotta see it!
[I guess during the entire show, stewart is being dead-serious and just reaming these guys]

Tucker Carlson (he's that little right-wing prick who always wears a bowtie): I do think you're more fun on your show. Just my opinion.

STEWART: You know what's interesting, though? You're as big a dick on your show as you are on any show.

Yikes! I love it.

Ya eric - i'm down to buy teh game. What's up with your game store? Are you looking for investors or something? I can help out with the cash register or something, but I ain't got shit for money pay the rent or anything.

ADD: If you have bittorent, here's where u can get the crossfire vid: http://bitflood.org:8080/?file=791b2f5d95a54d1381b85f271b51f71e73964185 (Don't worry - it doesn't lead to a direct download)

Heroscape is Decidedly Fun!

NP selling teh other copy to you R00d, howsabout $23? It cost me 44something, so we'll split the cost with you covering the rounding up, sound good? Good, its a deal.

Fun game! I played the first retarded mission designed for children, but with all the special rules instead of none, and last night the baddies decidedly destroyed the good guys.. the T-rex rampaged through the Vikings and made short work of them with his tricky lil 16+ roll = dead figure before combat specialty. The second game tonight came down to one Viking warrior with the benefit of the +1/+1 from the dead heroes cutting a swath through the T-Rex and all three samurai. He was kicking ass!

It is encouraging that there is a game like this being made and mass marketed at Toys R Us and others. It is a legitimate wargame, albeit nominally dumbed down and a bit more "toy" oriented than a traditional wargame, but still, nice to see something like this out there for public consumption.

SIDENOTE: Anyone want to partner up for buying a game store? Anyone want in at the ground floor of the gaming empire that will be created?

Man..


I have been thoroughly flash-humbled in both ability to stare mindlessly at a screen for hours of repetetive action and in keyboard dexterity. My fragile ego may never recover and for that I bow to you as the master of teh internet. I was so stoked at my 2800 score and thought that would take weeks/months for someone to best.. LOL

A half day later and a thousand points later.. that's what I get for thinkin', hoss!

=]

Dude, and what's with that video poker score? Back to back royal flushes or something? Hehe..

I demand a recount!

Late,

~O.

Definitely a combination of luck and timing

I have to say that it was a bit of luck as well as playing on the money. I have the same problem with the lag on my windows explorer where the keystrokes just won't acknowlede the stroke. I think it has to do with timing and execution, the keys have to be pressed just at the right time for the strokes to not lag.

But I think also my snake management strategy in combination of almost flawless execution, allowed me to get the high score. It's important to coil your snake so that the screen is really organized so you won't have to make crazy turns or take unecessary risks.

I don't think I could duplicate that score and if you somehow beat it, I think that is pretty much all she wrote. I wouldn't blame you if you called it at this moment.

Good gamin!
Jael

Yeah..

I play on medium speed too.. but I tell you what kills me 99% of the time is unregistered keystrokes when you have to do the quick double-entry to change 180 degrees in a hurry. I think it might have something to do with the "shout" app on the left hand side of the screen and I was trying to figure out a way to play with just the 'snake' game in my explorer window but I can't get it to work right.

I may give it a futile attempt once in a while, but I just can't see holding on for that long without my snake taking a nose dive into a wall for that long.. ever.

=/

Wow, though.. Good job!

The speed is medium

slow doesn't work because it takes too long for the snake to get to the apple to maximize on the points.

Bleh.


3768 points? Jesus Christ, that's rediculous.

=(

You playing on the slow or medium speed, out of curiosity?

Sorry O' man...

my competitive spirit just couldn't allow you to have a record in snake for over a day. 3768 my man. I played the game of my life. My snake grew so large (hehe double pun) that eventually I ran out of screen space. Snake management. Good fun

Jael

Should I try to run a moderated session, or do people want to get hacking and slashing out of their system for a couple of weeks?

I've been thinking about how to do it DM-style. ("DMs do it with groups of players.") I've noticed in the single-player game you have the ability to pause the game and you can queue up moves... which slows play quite a bit, but improves the tactical element. I guess that really helps the feat- and spell-heavy characters.

On a multiplayer server, by default, the DM has the ability to pause, but not the players. My question is: would you guys prefer to keep it that way to keep combat quick, or enable player pausing? (Maybe with some restrictions... like pauses are for one minute max, every two minutes or so.)

I'll try and set up Roger Wilco. Hopefully it'll work... my whole internet connection/microphone situation will definitely be better in a couple of weeks.

Should I try to run a moderated session, or do people want to get hacking and slashing out of their system for a couple of weeks?

I've been thinking about how to do it DM-style. ("DMs do it with groups of players.") I've noticed in the single-player game you have the ability to pause the game and you can queue up moves... which slows play quite a bit, but improves the tactical element. I guess that really helps the feat- and spell-heavy characters.

On a multiplayer server, by default, the DM has the ability to pause, but not the players. My question is: would you guys prefer to keep it that way to keep combat quick, or enable player pausing? (Maybe with some restrictions... like pauses are for one minute max, every two minutes or so.)

I'll try and set up Roger Wilco. Hopefully it'll work... my whole internet connection/microphone situation will definitely be better in a couple of weeks.

BTW.. Myke..

Great job on getting the PhD paper cranked out. I remember my wife getting through her Masters thesis which was (in my mind) huge at a little over a hundred pages, but I imagine that a PhD paper has got to be upwards of at least a few hundred pages, no?

On a related note, I have a friend that just passed her RN boards (enroute to her LPN in another couple years) and another friend that just took his MD board exam.. hehe.. doctahs everywhere!

=]

Late,

~Cap'n O.

Nizzle


Any ideas on what module we should all try to download? Moreover, should we all try to download roger wilco so we can all be on voice comms together?

Update

I know you're all on the edge of your seats, so I thought I'd announce that the First Draft (really really super rough, but finished) of the thesis is done! Weighs in at about 103 thousand words, plus an appendix of about 65 thousand. Now the fun part will be reading it over and over every day for the next 2 months!
Yeeeeehaawwww!

Myke

i'll buy it off u eric! we just gonna split the cost in half? lemme know!

Heroscape x2

Toys R Us is having a sweet sale right now where if you buy and game by Parker Bros, Hasbro or Milton Bradley, you get a second game of equal or lesser value for free! So I picked up Heroscape and got a second Heroscape for free! I dunno what to use it for, should I open it or does someone here want one?

Also, there should be some disclaimer that there is NO WAY that once the box is opened all the goodies will ever fit back into the box. I'm okay with that cause there are so many cool pieces! And with two sets there is SO MUCH TERRAIN!!!!!

Looks fun, I'll probably be playing myself tonight.

FREE AT LAST! FREE AT LAST!



I had just pulled a 2800+ score but wasn't logged in.. F#$#*$#&#@@!!!!!!!!!!!1!

Replayed and immediately got a new score of 2700 something.. but man, you should have seen me here at my desk all kinds of surly when the 2800+ score didn't register after all these days/weeks of taking shots at that now and then.

Hehe..

Chatty chatty Anderson

Yeah, don't know why I wasn't chatty before, probably because I was working on stuff and reading rather than writing. I can only produce so much text, either writing it or editing it before my brain packs in and needs a break, so that means I have more time to post than I did before. OpenRPG sounds kewl, even if it would mean I'd be role playing at 4 in the morning or something, keep me posted, though remember that I don't have my own internet connection, or even a moveable laptop anymore. Not sure the Cambridge server will let me install anything - actually I know it won't, still could be doable.

As for GenCon SoCal, must admit that it doesn't look promising that I'll be there. I really want to go and to see you guys, but unless some sort of miracle occurs in the next 50 days, I'll probably be frantically getting ready to submit the final thesis to the BOGS (board of graduate studies... BOGS get it, get it? Don't worry if you don't, it's an English thing.) I will be most sad to miss out on that, but we'll see.

PhD Update:
STILL trying to finalize Chapter 5
STILL trying to finish writing Chapter 6 (the last one)
Draft one of entire thesis ETA: Tomorrow Afternoon
Current Length: 100,345 words.

Myke

I'm down for sticking with NWN for awhile. I don't know what this other madness is all about, but I'm just getting into NWN lots, and it seemed pretty smooth last time. Let's plan our game for this weekend!

OpenRPG sounds like a good possibility for the future, but can we play NWN instead on Sunday? I have played with it and played with it and it will absolutely not work on my computer, period.

It seems that moving to the new Mac OS would fix some problems, but that won't be until I get a new computer, which won't be for approximately 2d100 days.

Beyond NWNizzle, enter OpenRPG!!!

Jon complained about it previously, and maybe the Mac version is different than the Windoze version, but I installed Python, and the extended Python libraries, and OpenRPG with no problems. And I think it is pretty cool. I think that combined with the chat server, it could be a kick ass RPG-over-teh-net option for gaming! At long last we have a way to play D&D with Mike overseas, only 2 years too late!

I think it could be done easily and could be fun. Reserve the Teamspeak channel for the DM and room descriptions, the players type their actions, etc. move their mini's on the shared map, roll the dice, etc. It looks like it could be pretty cool. I am toying around with it and I might come up with something soon that could be tested and toyed with sunday instead of NWN.

Seems cool... and I could run The Worlds Largest Dungeon pretty easily....

NeverWinter Nizzle


Everyone still up for some NWN action again this Sunday night? I think I might just have the green light from the wife to make this a weekly event if you guys are up for it as well. Weeeeeeeee! Shall we plan a little bit in advance what we want to do for our adventures, and what characters/classes we want to have for some balance in the party?

Late,

~O.

News and Notes From Around the League

- Bubba Smith the Team: 4 - 0. WTF!?!?

- Star Wars: Battlefront is a fun game! I am playing the single player "missions" right now, which really just amount to massive AI battles against each other, and me shooting the bad AI guys all to pieces. I can't wait to play online, but first I want to complete all the single player crap first. Something really cool about being a scout trooper with a sniper rifle, or a Rebel Commando laying mines, or flying a TIE fighter doing strafing runs or driving and AT-ST blowing to hell everything in your path!

- Our house just entered escrow today so finally we get to live normal lives again! Until we actually move and then unpack...

- 4 - 0? Jeebus....

ADDED: Speaking of GenCon, can we still get that SWEET room through you and your insider trading connections, Johnny? If so, we should book it ASAP. I'll pay for it if you make the reservations! Kewl! The Worlds Largest Dungeon awaits!

Oi, Dat's me Leg!

Elrock still hates me for trying to play the trolly tunes. Boooo!

Crack'n'tosh. I gotta say I love them. They are really nice machines. They cost a bit, but really to a comperably equiped PC they really don't cost much more. Then when you factor in TCO (Total Cost of Ownership), Macs have parity with PCs or are cheaper. A big plus for Mac purchasers is that now that Intel and AMD have cooled the war between themselves and performance increases/price drops have slowed dramatically; thus, the performance delta between PowerPC chips and x86 chips has shrunk considerably. Personally if I could own both I would. Or if a commercial recompile of Mac OS X was available on x86 I would run that. But neither are true. Booo... Besides PCs are ugly. People hide PCs in the corner, under a desk, or inside cabinets. Mac users put their machines on display, proud of the fine design. There are only a few PC case manufactures that make a descent looking case, none nearly as nice as an Apple design. The new iMac is sweet looking.

Dr Futbol, really good to see you are chatty these past few days. I feel for you in the writing department. I am ot really a lover of the writing process. I get so frustrated sometimes. It is just mentally draining. You certainly did pick the academic path of masochistic punishment for yourself. But, "Soon you will die!" I mean, Finish! Right, finish.

I am sorry that I keep missing out on the whole NWN thing. I hope soon I am able to get myself outta this job and get a 9 to 5. Because I have been working f'd up hours, driving miles aplenty, and staying in hotels I feel like I have no life at all. By the time the 36 hours of weekend come around I am roasted. The worst part is the compensation sucks for this job. Oh well you gotta do what you gotta do.

Hey Mikal, will you be about for the GenCon SoCal? Dec. 2 - 5, 2004... I hope you can make it. Fitty days away.

D>M>

ere we go, ere we go, ere we go!

Jon.. to Mac or not to Mac?

=]

I understand your thought process! Hehe.. Now, your rationalization is sound in a manic depressive phsychotic kind of way, but live a little man! =] Don't new Macs cost close to $50,000 these days anyway?

Throw a few bones towards ole Billy G... he needs the cash (and your soul).

Late,

~O.

I hate writing

Trying to make chapter 5 into something good today - why am I so bad at writing? Clearly I picked the wrong field - Jon, want to write my PhD thesis for me? I'll buy you more Planescape stuff!

NWN sounds cool. Can't wait to be back and playing stuff with you guys again. Ok, I'm going home to write more there (lab has become loud today!)

Myke

Well, I just like Macs. But my opinion is that in the long run the price difference between Mac and PC ownership is not that big, for the following reasons:

1. When I have a PC, I buy a lot more computer games (and I tend to buy, rather than pirate);
2. When I buy a lot of computer games, I notice that my computer is falling behind more often;
3. Therefore, I upgrade my video card and RAM and shit more often.

I've owned my iBook for over 2 years and basically put about $150 in upgrades into it; last time I had a PC the upgrade cost over 2 years was probably more like $400-600. So I dunno, I think it works out in the long haul.

Dude, build/buy yourself a badness PC rig for about a third of the cost (if that) and live happily ever after in gaming wonderland.

Coffee + Soy Milk = WTF?

As soon as I put in the soy milk, it immediately dispersed into thousands of tiny little bulbs floating just beneath the surface of the coffee, like unstirred miso soup, or thousands of termite droppings. They are clustered along the rim and sides of my mug now. Help! Holy shit, what's going on?

NWN was fun last night, although next time I'll eat first so I'm not frantically forking down delicious Singaporean food while running my naked gnome though a chugging landscape. We also need to a) not have Johnny run the server, or b) figure out how to run the server through the router.

That campaign, agreed, is not too fun. We can find better options, both for all-PC groups and for a DM.

I am burning with desire to go and buy an iMac. It is both profoundly economically unwise and irresponsible, which I think is part of the reason that it is so appealing. I hung around with Aaron today, and somehow just being near him fed my interest. This is how I started buying console systems, too. I got a friend to rah me on to it.

But man, it would just not be a good idea.

Fuck!

NEVER

Game was pretty fun last night. Good chattin' with Art before the actual game - I don't think we've ever met in person, so was cool to get to know you a little bit. I think NWN Online has a ton of potential. I think getting everyone on voice chat is essential - really makes a HUGE difference as far as commands and crackin' jokes, etc. Screw playing the original campaign again - too many npcs barking shit at us we've already heard. I think we should either find a kick-ass mod to play or have someone (Jon) run us through an original. I played a bit of the Ice and Fire mod last night, and although I appreciate all the work the guy put into it, overall I wasn't too into it. It's hard and wasn't all that impressive.

Sorry for yelling about the headphones thing all night - it's just an old trick I learned from my recording studios days. If you yell into the diaphram (sp?) of headphones that are plugged into a mic-in, they transmit sound - albeit all distorted I think. I got my crap mic from Frys for 4.99 and they work beautifully (although it looks like ASS.) For your mac jon, I dunno if they have mic-in's like PCs do - you might have to get a USB one like Eric did.

So, I say we make real characters as if we were gonna play some PnP rpg and jump into a good solid module. Like I was telling Eric on teamspeak, someone made Tomb of Horrors, (And here's a NEW version by a different guy - who knows which is better HERE but I think that might be a little too epic for us.

So, maybe lets all get voice going (roger wilco if jon's running it on his mac, or if he's at Jael's house, they can share the mic I guess) and make some good guys and play next weekend - I'm down to be a cleric - I swear I'll heal you guys.

And Mike, when you're back in town, you're in!

BTW, you guys can still run Teamspeak without a mic, so at least you'd hear the other peeps.

Superman, rest in peace.

The fun thing with NWN is that you can make it as hack/slash as you want or as RPG as you want and there are modules out there that fall anywhere from either extreme end of the spectrum and/or inbetween. I've played offline-singleplayer for the past few years and really enjoyed it immensely. Playing online with folks looks to be a little different of a dynamic in terms of organization and keeping everyone together. Whereas in a table-top/paper game everyone is generally assumed to be travelling together unless otherwise specified during a session, online it is more or less the opposite. Everyone must make a conscious and continuous decision/action to remain with the group online and to keep their "position" in the party.

That being said, I think that we'll be fine and get used to the whole thing quickly.. it will likely just take a few sessions of trial, error and practice to get into the swing of things but I believe it will work out well and be a lot of fun.

The fun thing is that we can download a scripted module and play as a group within the structure of the game, or someone can take over DM duty and make the giant spiders talk shit about eating us.

(Still chuckling over that one.. thanks Jon!)

What else is nice is that the DM can assign XP and/or gold/goodies to party members as they see fit for solid role playing or whatever instead of people trying to be the best scavenger hunt winners (which was kind of a low-point in gaming night last night, in my opinion).

Overall, I like the ability for the community to develop whatever experience they want for the player.. there is an amazing and diverse offering of modules to chose from. Anything from funny tongue in cheek stuff (Penultima) all the way to very dramatic and serious character-driven plotlines as in the Twilight/Midnight/Dawn Paladin series.

I'd really love to go back and try out some of the "Hall of Fame" modules with you guys and see how they play as a group.

~O.

Three for Three

Wow, this must be a record, three posts for three days. I'll bet you are all thrilled. Sitting here in the lab waiting for a process to finish, it occurs to me that I wonder how many hours of my life I've wasted watching that little bar fill up as the computer cooks on something or other - scary!

So, NWN is where it's at eh? Well, I'll be happy to join in the fun once I submit, as I've promised myself a fancy new computer as the prize when I do. Hopefully Christmas will be very NeverWintery. I've a mate here who has played it a lot and swears by it (but only in single player mode) so I'm interested in what you guys have to say. Is it just like Diablo+ or does roleplaying have anything to do with it?

Isn't it the one where a DM can create modules etc?

Ok, sorry to be so behind the times, but maybe you'll get a good laugh.

PhD Update (like you care)
Finishing final comparison analyses tonight.
Begin final, easy 'Future directions' Chapter where I will attempt to take my Quake III reconstruction stuff and make it part of my dissertation
First complete 'draft' should be completed by Friday-Sunday.

Myke

NWN fun!


Hey guys, that was a blast tonight, even if a bit disorderly and whatnot. Can't wait to get a big campaign going with a good sized group! Off to bed.. my first day back at work tomorrow.. ugh.

Late,

~O.

EDIT: OK, Johnny will have a server up in about 10 minutes.

Game type: Action (what else would the Action Team use?)
Game name: Johnny Napalm
Password: destroy123456

Call me if you're having problems... Johnny's cell phone is non-functional.

eric sez:

Okay, so I setup a dynamic IP update account with the fine folks at No-IP, and we now have a server running.

Name: The Action Team
Address: actionteam.no-ip.info:8768
Pass: actionjackson
Type: Clan

Jon, get jael's working so we can talk 2 yous both.

go to :

goteamspeak.com

and download the client (6megs) :

ftp://ftp.freenet.de/pub/4players/teamspeak.org/releases/ts2_client_rc2_2032.exe

Then run the program - takes a second. Then, plug in your mic into the pink input in the back of yer comp, open up your windows sound controls, go to properties, check off Microphone, unmute it and turn it up, then run teamspeak and set a key that will be your push-to-talk button. do it!

Neverwinter Nugs!


I'll cast my vote for starting out 'vanilla' with the standard module and then building up from there in subsequent weeks as we get more and more familiar with the process?

Anyone else want to get on teamspeak and give it a try-out before 8pm? I'm going to be making dinner for a little bit, so I'll be on teamspeak but AFK now and again. Sauteed orange glazed chicken over herb mashed-potatoes and asparagus.. and I'm making enough for about four portions so Michelle has enough fuel to feel herself and the baby.. hehe.. she's drinking something close to 2 gallons of water a day!

Haylee is now in her fourth day of life and doing awesome. The initial 'baby jaundice' is fading quickly as her liver kicks into gear and cleans out all the billy-whatever stuff out of her system. I just don't have words for how cool it is to be a Dad.. a very amazing and powerful thing, that.

Can't wait for tonight! Should be fun.

Best,

~O.

edit: Jon, all you have to do is go to www.teamspeak.org and download the smallish client app, punch in Eric's server IP & PW (which I don't have handy.. sorry) and that's really about it. I thought I remembered something about you using a laptop or.. something? Maybe we aught to skip the teamspeak for tonight then if not everyone is up to speed.

(buzzer just went off.. gotta get to the kitchen.. brb)

Would anyone like to try connecting to Johnny's server? The server name is JOHNNY NAPALM and the password is destroy123456, because we are fucking punk rock!

As for teamspeak (?), Johnny doesn't have it set up. I'm on my Mac which doesn't support it. So, there you go.

What do we need to do to set it up on Johnny's machine?

I should be on for tonight at 8pm if everyone else still is? If you fellas haven't done so, make sure you punch the UPDATE button on your NWN launcher between now and then to get the latest goods.

Eric posted the teamspeak addy and password a ways back and I plugged them into my saved preset server list... so I don't know the p/w anymore. I'm sure he'll be popping in after his open house is over here right-quick.

Weeeee! gaming night!

=]

~O.

Here's what I recommend:

1. Let's play either Chapter 1 of the campaign, or try the Diablo conversion. It looks fun!
2. Go to this page to set up the Diablo conversion: click here. You need to download three files (plus the optional music file); two of the files are over 100 meg, so put some time aside for it before the game.
3. I'm trying to get a server set up on Johnny's machine. I'll blog shortly with details.

how and when are we meeting up tonight for the nwn action? is it still on? you guys all still got icq or somethin? lemme know!

I'd like to learn more about photography.

Do any of you know of some good online resources or books to learn about photographic techniques? I see so many amazing things in this city, it's inspired me to start learning more about photography.

Last night Aaron, Aimey and I went to a really great bookstore. I picked up a humor collection called Created in Darkness by Troubled Americans.

From my favorite section so far: audio commentary by Howard Zinn and Noam Chomsky for "Fellowship of the Ring":

CHOMSKY: The film opens with Galadriel speaking. "The world has changed," she tells us. "I can feel it in the water." She's actually stealing a line from the nonhuman Treebeard. He says this to Merry and Pippin in The Two Towers, the novel. Already we can see who is going to be privileged by this narrative and who is not.

ZINN: Of course. "The world has changed." I would argue that the main thing one learns when one watches this film is that the world hasn't changed. Not at all.

CHOMSKY: We should examine carefully what's being established here in the prologue. For one, the point is clearly made that the "master ring," the so-called "one ring to rule them all," is actually a rather elaborate justification for preemptive war on Mordor.

The publisher is also the group that runs the pirate store I mentioned the other day. So, you see, we have come full circle.

How Post-Modern

Ahhh.... I see. But have you considered that what you would have done could you 'hear' the sounds as I spoke them would have been to reinterpret that string of signifiers through your own socio-cultural interpretive framework in order to give them meaning? So would you have "heard" me even if you had experienced them on an auditory level? DOHHHHHHH!!!!

Thanks for your wishes of sanity everyone. Yes, it's been hard work here, but wow, it will be good to be over with it. It will sort of be like being born all over again (but not in the Christian sense!!) into a world with colours and flowers and games etc. Looking forward to it.

Of course, I don't want you guys to think being here has been totally awful. I have had lots of fun, and well, it's Hogwarts after all. It just takes up every second, fun and work, and makes contact with the outside world a real problem.

Sorry to have been so blue the other day, my laptop has broken and I've been writing up on a PDA, so that should tell you a bit about it. Also being kicked out of my comfortable room etc. didn't help my mood either.

Right, back to it again... writing, not maturbating that is.

Myke