(Thank you for reminding me, Bob.)

My nephew took me for a tour of Ottawa yesterday morning, and I took some photos. "So what?" you ask? Well, my nephew's a pilot...

The best of the photos are on http://web.ncf.ca/fm536/flightphotos/]this page, which I hastily threw together so it isn't laid out very well. (For every photo that's there, another 27 didn't make it. It was hazy yesterday morning.)
--
Rob Kelk
"Governments have no right to question the loyalty of those who oppose
them. Adversaries remain citizens of the same state, common subjects of
the same sovereign, servants of the same law."

- Michael Ignatieff, addressing Stanford University in 2012

Okay, after clearing it with Kat and Joe, I'm finally posting the link to the photos I took on vacation last month. If you're at all interested in what is essentially a vanity thing on my part, you can find them on Flickr here. Oh, and a minor warning -- although I've gone through and done the geolocation thing for every pic, I haven't gotten around to adding comments to them all yet.

-- Bob
---------
Then the horns kicked in...
...and my shoes began to squeak.

After some truly bizarre delays, I finally managed to get my mits on this PDF product. I'll be trying to digest it, wrap my mind around its concepts this
evening, and then maybe I'll see what I can do with it here, if that's all right with everyone.

And having seen what they're doing with the 4th edition of D&D, Bob, I now completely understand where you were coming with earlier about this edition
of GURPS. Whatever it might be, that is not the game I thought I knew.

Chris Davies.

Posted by Truss over on the City of Heroes Live-Journal.

Quote:

I'll just let this excerpt from Posi's 4-year anniversary
address speak for itself:






"I can't tell you how excited I am for our game's future, and although we have some major announcements yet to be made, one of the things I
can talk about is a feature that we are planning. Similar in concept to our character creator, it allows you, the players, to create missions and story
arcs for your characters and others to participate in. You'll be able to pick the map, villain group, and objectives, as well as write the dialog and
any clues needed for the missions. When you are satisfied with it, you can upload it and have other players across all servers play it and rate it. Fame
will come to the players whose stories rate the best overall. It is features like these that we never dreamed of including when we first shipped, but are
excited to be able to offer players very soon."

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5psdhTGNLPc (low res version)

http://www.samuraikoproductions.com/Videos.html (high res version)

And Cyberman 8 got a prominent spot! He's in 3 scenes VERY prominently. I mean, it's not like he's "Hero #34 on the left back row" kinda
thing. I mean he's where you practically can't miss him!

Michelle's getting much better at this sort of thing. When her Issue 11 videos came out, they were done using raw footage from in-game. I actually played
through a couple of missions with her as Kara Skye in order for her to get the footage.

Now all she required was for me to send her a demofile of C8 so she could map his costume. She can make the characters do what she wants them to do and is able
to manipulate the footage and angles better.

This is a whole metric buttload of Squee! ^_^

So why does my day off have to coincide with a really LOOOONG downtime for COH? Grrr. It's a conspiracy I tell ya!

Or maybe they're doing the pre-load for I12? Anyone have news on that?

With the completion of the Numina TF thanks to the gracious assistance of Terry, Atlantea and Sweno; Emet is now full and ready to smash the Crystal Titan. This will probably have to be a 7 Eastern thing becasue some wiseass here decided it would be a good idea to have exams on Saturday so I'll be needing a few hours of sleep on Friday. Wiki article is [url=http://cityofheroes.wikia.com/wiki/Eden_Trial-->Here
---

The Master said: "It is all in vain! I have never yet seen a man who can perceive his own faults and bring the charge home against himself."

>Analects: Book V, Chaper XXVI

This short fic is something that has been bouncing around in my head for a while now. Mainly it was due to wondering what having super-powers would do to the
rest of a persons life, when they aren't showing the villian of the week the error of their ways.

-----------------------------

Gamma Emission:

Unintended Side-effects

If someone told me I would be punching freakshow in the jimmies while dressed like a streetwalker six months ago, I would have them sent to the psych ward. Now
I just hope that I don't get fined for indecent exposure in another six months.

I came to Paragon City because they needed nurses, and the pay wasn't anything to scoff at either.

Sure I knew there where risks, but you follow procedures and make sure to wear protective gear and you'll be fine. At least that was the plan. The army has
a saying about plans and enemy contact that is fits the ER just as well.

Ideally each heros powers, gear, and whatnot is kept on file. That way when they are teleported in we know if they should be sent to the mages on level 3, the
surgeons on level 4, or the mechanics on level 5. More often then not it doesn't matter what floor someone is sent to, someone from another floor is called
in to take a look at things. Mutants fighting Circle of thorns, Battlesuited normals being hit with an energy ray of some sort, the lines end up blurring real
fast. And we just try to keep them alive and get them back on their feet.

I don't know how many times I ripped my gloves reaching into some jagged metal hole in someone's side, or how many times strangely glowing goo was
spattered on my clothes. Sure, we are supposed to go through decontamination before changing levels if there is anything on us that we can't name. But with
the recent Rikti aggression there are times when I don't have 4 minutes to spare.

It doesn't really matter what the cause of was any more, just that it happened. I got exposed to one too many weird combinations of chemicals, spells, and
otherworldly energies. The end result of which is that I can beat the xray machine when it comes to millirad output.

The first few days I was a mess, convicted that I had somehow gotten exposed to enough radiation that I became 'hot' enough to trigger the sensors in
the mech lab. I calmed down three days later when I was a) still alive, and b) not suffering any of the classical symptoms of radiation sickness.

Over the past few months I have learned to control my abilities. On a good day I can keep my output below the dosage you get from handling a smoke alarm.
I'm not going to mention the bad days. The more calm and collected I can be, the less I emit.

But the ER is hardly a calm and collected place. It was strongly 'suggested' that find another avenue of employment. Hero Corps was quick to offer
alternative income. Some people may criticize them for being mercenary or profiting from a bad situation, but all I know is that they helped me get back on my
feet.

New housing (installing lead shielding in my old apartment wasn't an option); a new job (bombarding people with high energy particles for fun and profit);
and, most importantly, I feel like I am helping people people again (the doctors always did say preventive care is best).

But life isn't all roses now that spend my days (and sometimes my nights as well) introducing various malcontents to my particular take on high energy
physics.

Sure I can modulate the type of radiation I put out. Everything from low power doses that stimulate healing, to heavy particle bombardment that leaves the
person wondering which way is up. But it doesn't change the fact that I'm still outputting radiation of one form or another. And it does have a
cumulative affect on anything near me for long periods of time. More specifically anything I'm wearing. Depending on how hard I have to work, a shirt can
last three to five incidents before it starts to put out more radiation that I do when relaxed. Pants tend to last a week. Gloves and shoes can hold out for
two too three weeks. I spend most of my time fighting evils of one kind or another, but what do I worry about when I get home? If I have enough saved up to pay
for clothing this month.

When I first started out it was long pants, t-shirt, sweater, heavy boots, jacket.

Now it's short skirts, cutoff t-shirts, converses, and a long jacket that more often than not gets left at the door. The less cloth there is to absorb
radiation, the longer it lasts. Any distractions this may cause are purely unintentional.

The only thing worse than my clothing situation is my dating prospects. My current style of dress may get me plenty of inquiries at the bar, but those quickly
dry up once they learn what happens when I get 'excited'. As much as people laugh at my jokes about 'healing energies' and 'ensuring the
next generation of mutants' on missions, I have yet to meet a guy willing to expose his family jewels my tender mercies. The only guy I can think of that
wouldn't mind would be Positron, but there is no way that I'd date someone who seems to get that much enjoyment out of sending new heroes on a
glorified scavenger hunt.

I'm starting to wonder if I'll have to switch sides to get any.
-Terry
-----
"so listen up boy, or pornography starring your mother will be the second worst thing to happen to you today"
TF2: Spy

link1

more:



better one for link2

http://www.apple.com/trailers/sony_pictures/hancock/

It's out, if you pre-ordered it from Right Stuf. For anybody who hasn't seen the fansubs, the show's sort-of like Azumanga Daioh with innunendo and an otaku lead character. This is about http://www.rightstuf.com/cgi-bin/catalo ... 8559/4/0/0]the Bandai Entertainment DVD, not the series.

There are four episodes on the first DVD. (Which is a shame, because the show really starts getting interesting in episode 5, IMHO.)

The songs on the dub track are the original Japanese songs, by the Japanese seiyuu. Ah, well. Probably for the best...

The dub voices are competent - not grating, but not noteworthy. No obvious bobbles in what I heard of the first disc's performances, but I didn't listen to all of the episodes' dubs. Akira's dub voice is sufficiently "bipolar" for my tastes. Wendee Lee plays Konata, so it's possible we might get the "Konata adores Haruhi's-and-her-own voice actress" jokes localized. Amazingly, they left the Japanese honorfics in the dub.

Translation notes (including a few I didn't see listed in the show's http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/encyclo ... hp?id=7222]animenewsnetwork.com encyclopedia entry) are in a four-page insert, not on the DVD itself. Good for buyers, not so good for those watching via Netflix or similiar services.

The deluxe box is similiar in construction and quality to the Haruhi deluxe box. Besides the DVD, it has two CD-singles (the opening theme and the Konata image disc), an XL-size t-shirt with a silkscreen of the girls' winter uniform, and a "screen wipe" (whatever that is) with a picture of a choco-cornet printed on it.

Okay, I lied - one comment about the series. There's a decidedly-not-http://eyevocal.ottawa-anime.org/beingupfront/]Upfront bit in episode 4, at about time index 1:20:45-1:21:15. So now we know: The opposite of "http://www.moonie.ca/glenap/goofy/talent.html]talent" is "valuable".
--
Rob Kelk
"Governments have no right to question the loyalty of those who oppose
them. Adversaries remain citizens of the same state, common subjects of
the same sovereign, servants of the same law."

- Michael Ignatieff, addressing Stanford University in 2012