Princess Maker-like strategy game and Oh my god does the protagonist have the cutest death scenes.
At some point I'm gonna hafta do the note-taking, min-maxing route... because RP-ing the Queen-to-be properly gets you dead.
I'm having fun, but YMMV.
Warnings: Visual Novel, JRPG-like, etc etc.
''We don't just borrow words; on occasion, English has pursued other languages down alleyways to beat
them unconscious and rifle their pockets for new vocabulary.''

-- James Nicoll

If you're not a football or more specifically a Southern College Conference football fan: You would not be aware of this.
University of Alabama (UA) Crimson Tide football team has a rivalry with their Auburn University' Tiger football tm counterparts. In 2010, a UA fan took it a little bit too far: He destroyed one of Auburn's landmarks after the Tide's loss of the Iron Bowl to the tigers:
 
"On January 27, 2011, a caller to the Paul Finebaum Radio Network
who identified himself as "Al from Dadeville" claimed to have poisoned
the oaks at Toomer's Corner with Spike 80DF, a potent commercial
herbicide containing tebuthiuron, after Auburn's defeat of Alabama in the 2010 Iron Bowl.[7] Subsequent soil tests showed high concentrations of the poison around the trees, and experts did not expect them to survive.[8] There was also some concern about the possibility of the poison affecting the groundwater,[9] but, on April 19, 2011, the University announced that tests of the groundwater had determined that it was safe.[10]

After an investigation, Auburn city police, on February 17, 2011, arrested Harvey Updyke Jr., a 62-year-old man from Dadeville, and charged him with criminal mischief, a class C felony in Alabama.[11] A grand jury subsequently indicted him on four felony charges and two misdemeanor charges.[12] Updyke originally pleaded an insanity defense, but, on March 22, 2013, as part of a plea bargain
with prosecutors, he pleaded guilty to a charge of criminal damage of
an agricultural facility. The prosecutors dropped all other charges.
Updyke was fined $1,000 and was given a three-year "split sentence"[13]
of imprisonment. Under the terms of the split sentence, he had to serve
six months in jail and would then be on five years of supervised
probation. He was given credit for 104 days of time already served. The
conditions of his probation included a 7 p.m. curfew and bans on talking
to the news media, entering the Auburn campus, or attending a college
sporting event.[14][15] Updyke was released from jail on June 10, 2013.[16]"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Auburn_Uni ... traditions is the link.

Now this is not the end of the story:

Judge orders Updyke to pay $500.00 dollars for the next 132 years.  That's actually $796,731.98 in restitution costs.

So my question is, he's not going to be able to pay the full amount, even assuming he lives to be 100. So, when he dies, what happens to the restitution?

[url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Auburn_University_traditions#cite_note-16][/url]
__________________
Into terror!,  Into valour!
Charge ahead! No! Never turn
Yes, it's into the fire we fly
And the devil will burn!
- Scarlett Pimpernell

The Independent: The truth IS out there (above Cheshire, that is): British scientists claim to have found proof of alien life

Quote:Professor Milton Wainwright told The Independent that he was "95 per cent convinced" that the organisms did not originate from earth.

by Type O Negative
duration 7:04


This Halloween
So unlike any other
Her final words
Don't be afraid
Of the green light

On muddy ground
I'm lying drunk on her grave
Where I must wait
Until she wakes
The soil splits Greenwood's
Ground will quake beneath me
And so shall take
Into the earth
To the green light

The autumn air
Thickly fills my lungs
So sweetly
Reminds me of
Her smoky breath
With wine and this
Bouquet of maple
And oak leaves
In death or life
We'll always be

I find myself drawn to her
Shadow domain

This moonlit night
Late October's swirling
Fog-gloom
And as promised
My love did rise
From the green light

Effect: either it makes clouds of glowing green light appear within Doug's AoE that he can direct into shapes (like a cheap knockoff of a Green Lantern, with no physical effects) or just let his subconscious form into creepy stuff, OR raises undead, which remain under his control until the song ends. The latter can be useful under Godzilla Threshold circumstances, but in general would bide on the Do Not Play list given Doug's morals and previous experience with undead, especially given that the song specifically makes mention of a loved one rising under its effect.
--
"Anko, what you do in your free time is your own choice. Use it wisely. And if you do not use it wisely, make sure you thoroughly enjoy whatever unwise thing you are doing." - HymnOfRagnorok as Orochimaru at SpaceBattles
woot Med. Eng., verb, 1st & 3rd pers. prsnt. sg. know, knows

And that's the official description from NASA, apparently.  Something in the asteroid belt is http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/11/08 ... s_baffled/]emitting multiple jets of stuff that are pushing it around.
-- Bob
---------
Then the horns kicked in...
...and my shoes began to squeak.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/11/08 ... _campaign/]No, really.  She even looks like she got her outfit at Sailor Mercury's yard sale.
-- Bob
---------
Then the horns kicked in...
...and my shoes began to squeak.

Quote:The bells are ringing again.
Everything started in 2060, with the first Corporate Territory Act.  Seems the politicians thought they could attract businesses if they just gave them more power.  It worked... for a time.
Businesses flocked there in droves, bringing with them wealth and jobs.  Some called it an economic boom.  Others called it a new Renaissance.
The smart ones called it the beginning of the end.
At the time, you couldn't really see it.  Business was good.  Science was better.  
With the engine of commerce behind it, technology soared to heights only dreamed of before.  The corporate think-tanks and research labs turned out innovation after innovation, year after year, each one greater and more impressive than the last.  It was a time of optimism- a time of possibility.
...a time of endless ambition.
Under the CTA, the corporations had prospered- but the CTA had limits.  The governments that passed them... the politicians that ran the governments... were hungry for more wealth, more power.  The CEOs who lived under them wanted more land, more customers.  They weren't so different, really.
Everybody has their theories on who fired the first shots.  The megacorps will tell you that the politicians launched raids, trying to seize everything.  Propaganda, if you ask me.  If you can find a nationalist, they'll tell you the megacorps crossed the borders first... fired the first shots.  Nobody really knows, anymore.
We all know what happened, though.  Big Business beat Big Government.  The corporations expanded, became megacorps- and the old nations diminished.
This wasn't the end- not yet, anyway.  Still, you could see it from there.
The megacorps quickly found that Earth was too small for them.  Resources were running low.  Space- space to live... space to work... was at a premium.  Something had to be done.
The first colony bunch at Side 1 was seen as a triumph- for the megacorp that constructed it, for the concept of space colonization, and for humanity as a whole.  'January 1st, 2101 was the day when Man freed itself from the shackles of Earth- the start of the First Universal Century', they all say.  Gran heard the bells then.
The next sixty years lived up to the hype.  Everybody- corporations, nations, even a few private investors- had their eyes on the stars.  Sides began to pop up all across the Earth Sphere, as they called it, and the people followed.  By 2160, Earth was down to two billion of us, and starting to recover.  Will it last?  Prop says yes.  Most honest people say no.
Megacorps fight.  Fact of life.  Corporate war was a thing well before the "Liberation"; after it, it was literal... and bloody.  Most of the time, the wars run cold- a little hacking here, a kidnapping there, and espionage everywhere.  Sometimes they go warm.
People die.  Things explode.  If you're lucky, you're not one of them.
The vids talk about 'colonial defense forces', or 'corporate security', or 'private police organizations' all the time.  They never call them what they are- private armies.  Every 'corp has one- but they don't get used.  Catch an Anaheim soldier in a Zimmad bunch?  The whole Sphere'd go to war.
When businesses go to war, war becomes a business.
If the 'corps couldn't hit each other, they'd get somebody else to do it for them.  So they hired mercs.  Private soldiers, not tied to any one company.  Deniable assets.
Top of the group are the shadowrunners.  Some call them an urban legend.  I know better.  Sister saw a group of toughs break into a VersaLife embassy one night, when we were kids.  Slipped through the security like it wasn't even there.  In, out, and gone.  Mom heard the bells that night.
For the right creds, 'runners will break into anyplace.  Steal a prototype?  Sure.  Blow it up instead?  Why not?  Trash some files?  Of course.
Change is coming.  I can hear it, like flashes of ringing bells.
Sibs and I are going to Side 3.  Johnson wants some data from a Zeonic testing grounds.  Everybody but the testing team has the night off.  Get in, get some blueprints, get out.  Supposed to be an easy job.
Too easy, almost.  If it's worth stealing, it's worth guarding.  If it's worth guarding, it's worth guarding well.  What are we after?
I get the feeling it's something big.

... other than the warning it's giving me, I detect nothing wrong with how it's performing. I have made a back-up to my terrabyte portable drive (GOOD GOD 14 HOURS to copy!!). And I've done a de-dusting with compressed air and I'm going to give it a thorough de-frag and checkdisk if I can. But how can I tell -really- if the drive is failing? 
If I do need to get a new HD, I suppose I'll have to get a commercial version of Windows to go on it. In which case it's Windows 7 for me (none of this Windows 8 crap) so is Win7 still available retail, and if so, has the cost dropped any?

No, the sub is not all up at the usual places. It is half up. However, I happen to have a bluray copy of disk #7.

I'll just say, damn, all the feels for the last episode. And Kodai....well he's back to a triangle, the ASB faction were left behind on Iscander.

Still, aside from the one sighting of a large framed female figure, who has not noticed that all the women on board have pretty much the same general body shape with set degree variations of ur hum 'talent'. Must make the uniform stores somewhat easier to manage. But I think it makes the laundry a nightmare.

It also boils down to now what's left. I suppose I can start building the models, watch the live action movie and wait for the next voyage of this version of the Yamato. If they decide to go on.

--Rod.H

Name your favorite science fiction authors, please. Already listed are:

Asimov
Bova
Burroughs
Gibson
Heinlein
Lem
Lucas
McCaffrey
Niven
Pohl
Roddenberry
Smith
Stackpole
Verne
Weber
Wells

(I'm tempted to include Schroek, Hutchins, Rose, Meadows, Mui, and ... whatever the hell Megazone's actual name is, too, honestly. Not that the project this is for is as likely to see the light of day as even Flashback 1942, but meh.)
--
"Anko, what you do in your free time is your own choice. Use it wisely. And if you do not use it wisely, make sure you thoroughly enjoy whatever unwise thing you are doing." - HymnOfRagnorok as Orochimaru at SpaceBattles
woot Med. Eng., verb, 1st & 3rd pers. prsnt. sg. know, knows