In amongst my "busy" schedule of the last two months (especially during that week I was home with a busted wrist), I did some online archive binging and some marathon watching... I have completely gone through, in order, all of the Sluggy Freelance archives (just in time for the strip to be ending its regular schedule!) and have read all of the installments of both Things Involving Shipgirls That Are No Longer Allowed threads. Oh, and I've re-watched the original Macross.

How has everyone else been wasting their time similarly?--
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

In case you've not been reading the Forums board, well, there's some dissatisfaction with Tapatalk on my part, not to mention a lot of other people's parts.  So I'm in the process, with the help of Ankhani and Vorticity, of moving the forums to a new location.  They will eventually be hosted on my own website.

At the moment, the software is there and running, but there's no forum structure or anything there. So why I am bothering to post about it?  Well, I think it will be helpful if we have as many people registered there as possible before we start importing old threads, so we can correctly match up old-site posters to new-site posters.

To that end, if you could please take a minute and register at the new forums site using your current handle, I'd be very grateful.  

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

Kongos - COme With Me Now

Come with me now
Come with me now

Woah come with me now
I'm gonna take you down
Woah come with me now
I'm gonna show you how

Woah come with me now
I'm gonna take you down
Woah come with me now
I'm gonna show you how

Afraid to lose control
And caught up in this world
I've wasted time, I've wasted breath
I think I've thought myself to death

I was born without this fear
Now only this seems clear
I need to move, I need to fight
I need to lose myself tonight

Woah come with me now
I'm gonna take you down
Woah come with me now
I'm gonna show you how

I think with my heart and I move with my head
I open my mouth and it's something I've read
I stood at this door before, I'm told
But a part of me knows that I'm growing too old

Confused what I thought with something I felt
Confuse what I feel with something that's real
I tried to sell my soul last night
Funny, he wouldn't even take a bite

Far away
I heard him say (come with me now)
Don't delay
I heard him say (come with me now)

Far away
I heard him say (come with me now)
Don't delay
I heard him say (come with me now)

Woah come with me now
I'm gonna take you down
Woah come with me now
I'm gonna show you how

Afraid to lose control
And caught up in this world
I've wasted time, I've wasted breath
I think I've thought myself to death

I was born without this fear
Now only this seems clear
I need to move, I need to fight
I need to lose myself tonight

Woah come with me now
Woah come with me now
I'm gonna take you down
Woah come with me now

Looks like there's signs of life in the Franchise....

Godzilla's done. Anno's out of his post filming depression from 3.0......

And this appearred


________________________________
--m(^0^)m-- Wot, no sig?

So Rance Priebus is out..General Kelly is in.

Any bets on how long he'll last?
__________________
Into terror!,  Into valour!
Charge ahead! No! Never turn
Yes, it's into the fire we fly
And the devil will burn!
- Scarlett Pimpernell

I just discovered I can have any font I want in Tapatalk as long as it's Helvetica/Arial.   Bleech.
-- Bob
---------
Then the horns kicked in...
...and my shoes began to squeak.

As Jadeite's face went down, my knee came up, and something that 
didn't belong to me made a nasty crunching sound.  "How's *that* 
for ineffective, asshole?" I snarled as he cried out and fell to 
the gravel surface of the roof.  I dropped into a ready stance as 
he got to his hands and knees, then wiped one of his fancy white 
gloves across his face.  It came back smeared with blood.

"Who... dares...?" he growled around the pain.

I leaned in toward him, careful to stay out of arm's reach and
with my mage senses wide open in case he tried something magical.
"I'm the Loon," I sing-songed at him, "Ready for fun!  I wear a 
smile!"  My voice dropped to a slow rasp.  "Everybody run."
-- Bob
---------
Then the horns kicked in...
...and my shoes began to squeak.

I don't even....

http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/pos ... -military/

All I can say is that if he didn't have a fight on his hands before, he does now.

I would've put this in the "Thread of Awesome ... Quotefile," but it's not fanfiction.  This is from a short story, "The Book" by Michael Shaara, published in Galaxy Science Fiction, November 1953.  The first-page blurb reads, "A weird world — cut off from the Universe, it had universal wisdom; facing death at every moment, it had the secret of peace!"

It's a world so repeatedly bombarded by meteorites that the random striking of death and ruin are accepted as casually as rainstorms on Earth; a planet with no government, no police, no law — and no need for them.  Toward the end of the story, an explorer from Earth translates their philosophy....

Quote: “They had a man here once ... who was as good a writer as there ever was.  He wrote a book which these people use as their Bible.  It’s like our Bible sometimes, but mostly it’s just the opposite.  It preaches that a man shouldn’t worship anything.”
...
“I have translated this the best way I could,” Beauclaire said thickly, “but remember this.  This man could write.  He was Shakespeare and Voltaire and all the rest all at once.  He could make you feel.  I couldn’t do a decent translation if I tried forever, but please listen and try to get what he means.  I’ve put it in the style of Ecclesiastes because it’s something like that.”

Quote:Rise up smiling, and walk with me. Rise up in the armor of thy body and what shall pass shall make thee unafraid. Walk among the yellow hills, for they belong to thee. Walk upon grass and let thy feet descend into soft soil; in the end when all has failed thee the soil shall comfort thee, the soil shall receive thee and in thy dark bed thou shalt find such peace as is thy portion.
In thine armor, hear my voice. In thine armor, hear. Whatsoever thou doest, thy friend and thy brother and thy woman shall betray thee. Whatsoever thou dost plant, the weeds and the seasons shall spite thee. Wheresoever thou goest, the heavens shall fall upon thee. Though the nations shall come unto thee in friendship thou art cursed. Know that the Gods ignore thee. Know that thou art Life, and that pain shall forever come into thee, though thy years be without end and thy days without sleep, ever and forever. And knowing this, in thine armor, thou shalt rise up.
Red and full and glowing is thy heart; a steel is forging within thy breast. And what can hurt thee now? In thy granite mansion, what can hurt thee ever? Thou shalt only die. Therefore seek not redemption nor forgiveness for thy sins, for know that thou hast never sinned.
Let the Gods come to thee.

...
“They don’t ask for anything,” Beauclaire said.  “No immortality, no forgiveness, no happiness.  They take what comes and don’t — wonder.”

This should Cheer up a crowd. (warning Dancing may Occur in Area of Effect)