Another one courtesy of Rob Kelk:

Competition #3: They Fight Crime!

Quote:He's a human who turns into a duck when splashed with cold water.
She's a duck who turns into a human with a special necklace.
They fight crime!

A healing song, but not for gross injury, this one handles more long term issues. May or may not be effective on depression and similar mental disorders, but infections are a snap, cancer or poisoning/radiation damage is probably not much harder, and even genetic/congenital defects could be within its scope depending on interpretation. Not the kind of things superhero stories usually deal with except in "superpowers can't solve everything" terms, except now they can!


(non-embedded)

Lyrics:
You've been to the doctor, you've been to the medicine man
No one could tell you the condition you have
You went to the preacher to drive the demons out of your head
But nothing could reverse this spell

If you're just sick and tired of feeling down and lonely
Well let me tell you I've got just the thing for you
I've got a recipe that's sure to get you going
And it ain't about sex, no
No it ain't about drugs

[Chorus]
R.O.C.K that's what you'll get from me
It's my medicine. all that you need's a little R.O.C.K
It's a guarantee. yeah it's the cure
All you need is some rockin' baby

You don't need no miracle, no laying of hands
You don't need an x-ray or a full body scan
This ain't no sickness, this ain't no common disease
Babe, you need some expertise

If you're just sick and tired of feeling down and lonely
Well let me tell you I've got just the thing for you
I've got a recipe that's sure to get you going
And it ain't about sex, no
No it ain't about drugs

[Chorus]
R.O.C.K that's what you'll get from me
It's my medicine. all that you need's a little R.O.C.K
It's a guarantee. yeah it's the cure
All you need is some rockin' baby

If you're feeling down
You gotta' turn it up come on play it loud
Move it to the sound, a little rockin's what it's all about
It's the remedy. you don't need no pill 'cause it's all for free
So when you feel like you've caught that fever baby
Come on rock with me

non-embedded

lyrics

To ride the storm, to an empire of the clouds
To ride the storm, they climbed aboard their silver ghost
To ride the storm, to a kingdom that will come
To ride the storm, and damn the rest, oblivion

Royalty and dignitaries, brandy and cigars
Grey lady giant of the skies, you hold them in your arms
The millionth chance they laughed, to take down his majesty's craft
"To India," they say, "magic carpet float away," an October fateful day

Mist is in the trees, stone sweats with the dew
The morning sunrise, red before the blue
Hanging at the mast, waiting for command
His majesty's airship, the R101

She's the biggest vessel built by man, a giant of the skies
For all you unbelievers, the titanic fits inside
Drum roll tight, her canvas skin, silvered in the sun
Never tested with the fury, with the beating yet to come

The fury yet to come…

In the gathering gloom, the storm rising in the west
The coxswain stared into the plunging weather glass
We must go now, we must take our chance with fate
We must go now, for a politician he can't be late
The airship crew awake for thirty hours at full stretch,
But the ship is in their backbone, every sinew, every inch

She never flew at full speed, a trial never done
Her fragile outer cover, her Achilles would become

An Achilles yet to come...

Sailors of the sky, a hardened breed
Loyal to the king, and an airship creed

The engines drum, the telegraph sounds
Release the cords that bind us to the ground
Said the coxswain, "Sir, she's heavy, she'll never make this flight."
Said the captain, "Damn the cargo! We'll be on our way tonight."
Groundlings cheered in wonder, as she backed off from the mast
Baptizing them her water, from the ballast fore and aft

Now she slips into our past…

Fighting the wind as it rolls you
Feeling the diesels that push you along
Watching The Channel below you
Lower and lower, into the night

Lights are passing below you
Northern France, asleep in their beds
Storm is raging around you
A million to one, that's what he said

Reaper standing beside her
With his scythe cuts to the bone
Panic to make a decision
Experienced men, asleep in their graves

Her cover is ripped and she's drowning
Rain is flooding into the hull
Bleeding to death and she's falling
Lifting gas is draining away

"We're down, lads!" came a cry, bow plunging from the sky
Three thousand horses silent as the ship began to die
The flares to guide her path ignited at the last
The empire of the clouds, just ashes in our past
Just ashes at the last…

Here lie their dreams as I stand in the sun
On the ground where they built, and the engines did run
To the moon and the stars, now what have we done?
Oh the dreamers may die, but the dreams live on

Dreams live on
Dreams live on

Now a shadow on a hill, the angel of the east
The empire of the clouds may rest in peace
And in a country churchyard, laid head to the mast
Eight and forty souls, who came to die in France…

We bought our first Arcade1Up. Well, preordered, then waited agonizingly for release, then dicked around with UPS not being really set up to handle weather setbacks.

“So, Lynn, why buy an Arcade1Up when you already have Legacy of the Stick?”

This is why:
   

There wasn’t any way we were going to set up Legacy of the Stick to DO the games in this machine. Even worse, I doubt I could have BUILT something like this machine for anything less than $1K, and this came in at $530 after shipping. And let’s not speak of the wallet shock that is trying to get a real Star Wars (and that’s only one game at that).

I’m already working on achieving high scores. Jedi is the hardest game on here, I haven’t cleared more than one stage on that one thus far. I think I’ve managed to more than double my lifetime play time on Empire at this point. And Star Wars is still a finely focused classic of arcade goodness.

For the record, the yoke is mostly plastic, but I don’t anticipate any issues.

Unless they do something else this crazy, though, it’ll probably be our only Arcade1Up. We don’t really need anything that’s pure stick (that’s what Legacy of the Stick was built for), or four player (see previous), and I added a Taito spinner to that cab on top of it, so we don’t need the Asteroids cab. Plus, well, we have some plans to build something trackball related. I think they’d have to put out an Outrun cabinet for us to buy a second.

We're past Halloween - may as well get the ball rolling. Starting with the new stuff.

I am - without exagerration - staying in Tokyo-3

It's currently a load of Golf courses.
It's a very touristy area so English is common
In Episode 1, Misato is meeting Shinji in Odawara Station - which is the gateway to the area. A train normally goes from here to Hakone-Yumoto - which then becomes a seperate switchback train that goes to Gora (Wich is down due to landslides at the moment)
The road in one direction from my hotel leads directly to where Misato's apartment should be - at the foot of a steep mountain - and has the Sengokuhara Junior High listed as an evacuation route.
Shinji takes an odd course when he runs away. The grass fields he walks past are very close to his apartment - about 15 minutes walking time. This is after he appears to end up in an area built up large enough to have a cinema. This could either be Gotemba which is to the North near Mt Fuji, or Odawara to the South (Called New Yokusuka in the anime). It looks like he walks in circles aimlessly.
Hakone - Hakone Yumoto is very much a tourist town with a lot of food shops and souvenir shops.
Speaking of Episode 4- the misty valley Shinji runs to is at the top of mountain and - is actually a popular local tourist attraction called Owakudani that is normally teeming with people. It's a volcanic valley that is the source of the local hot springs. It was closed today due to volcanic activity. It also smells the the devil's arse.
This is a hot-spring area - and all the local hot springs are fed by a network of pipes from Owakudani - any collateral damage to the network will be noticed in the local economy and result in *paperwork* and *protests*.
Misato's drive from her apartment to the Station to pick up Shinji is really treacherous at the best of times. The road is steep, winding and narrow, and also lined tightly with houses, shops and people climbing between home and shops. Oh, and probably the best bus drivers in the world hammering up and down it with city route buses loaded with tourists.
The road where Misato stops in that episode is actually a busy tourist bus station serving Hakone Yumoto train station. There's a river running down the centre of the town behind the main strip of buildings with heavy flood and landslide defences. The Camera in epsiode 4 where Misato arrives and we look from her back is in the centre of the river. Normally you could walk across it.
This whole area is really a cluster of villages just sort of built into the mountainsides. wherever there's a momentary level bit of ground. Otherwise it's hellaciously steep.
There're more than a few old and abandoned looking places - especially on the Yumoto side of the mountain - some of them either Onsen or inns that've fallen on hard times. Would Doug's training centre have its own hot-spring bath?
Sengokuhara - at the North end of lake Aishi is the proposed location of Tokyo-03 - and it's the only area that's remotely flat. It's mostly golf-courses and hotels
The whole area is hemmed in by steep mountains - it's a natural compact amphitheatre. Tokyo-3 is only a couple of kilometres long and wide. It's a dense city - a few strides for an Eva at most.
It is very easy therefore to cut off road access to the area because almost every route crosses a mountain. Some roads are currently blocked due to landslides.
God knows how anyone gets a tank along these roads.
The old Tokaido road runs along the bottom of lake Aishi.
There's a brewery in Gora - the other side of the mountain to Tokyo-3 - and it makes good beer.
Just getting too and from places on the Hakone-Yumoto side of the mountain makes for good physical training - something that looks close by on Google maps is actually a bloody steep climb.
The Fifth Angel probably incinerated a resort and everyone who was staying there - if they didn't bother to evacuate. It's right in the firing line.
The Tenth Angel obliterated a town of thousands with one of its misses.
The Togendai to Moto-Hakone sightseeing cruise is a faster way from one end of the lake to the other than the local bus. Tokyo-3 is at the Togendai end.
You could probably see Mt Fuji from an Evangelion's perspective in Tokyo-3 - and it's actually a really pretty sight.

There are currently no Angels - but the evacuation point for this hotel is Ex-Sengokuhara Junior High School.

I recently came across the most fascinating thing: an autobiographically account of one of the men behind the evolution of rocket science in America. 

But what's really great about it is that it was written in a manner that is very accessible to the layperson.

Even the introduction by the dearly missed Isaac Asimov was hugely entertaining, where he uses the following bit to describe the author of this book:

Quote:Now it is clear that anyone working with rocket fuels is outstandingly mad. I don't mean garden-variety crazy or a merely raving lunatic.  I mean a record-shattering exponent of far-out insanity.

Quote:This book is dedicated to my wife Inga, who heckled me into writing it with such wifely re-marks as, "You talk a hell of a fine history. Now set yourself down in front of the typewriter — and write the damned thing!"

Starting new thread.  Previous thread is here.

We had about six hours of downtime on the forum where the whole domain wasn't accessible, including the Drunkard's Walk website.  Not really sure if you need to take any action, but we only have three nines left for the year.

Montreal has postponed Halloween because of the weather.