The 'Frostiana' thread inspired me to ask of this. Leslie Fish has done a bunch of Kipling poems to music. Wonder what Doug could do with a few of those...
Pict Song, for instance:

Quote:Rome never looks where she treads.
Always her heavy hooves fall
On our stomachs, our hearts or our heads;
And Rome never heeds when we bawl.
Her sentries pass on--that is all,
And we gather behind them in hordes,
And plot to reconquer the Wall,
With only our tongues for our swords.

We are the Little Folk--we!
Too little to love or to hate.
Leave us alone and you'll see
How we can drag down the State!
We are the worm in the wood!
We are the rot at the root!
We are the taint in the blood!
We are the thorn in the foot!

Mistletoe killing an oak--
Rats gnawing cables in two--
Moths making holes in a cloak--
How they must love what they do!
Yes--and we Little Folk too,
We are busy as they--
Working our works out of view--
Watch, and you'll see it some day!

No indeed! We are not strong,
But we know Peoples that are.
Yes, and we'll guide them along
To smash and destroy you in War!
We shall be slaves just the same?
Yes, we have always been slaves,
But you--you will die of the shame,
And then we shall dance on your graves!

Quote:Shove off from the wharf-edge! Steady!
Watch for a smooth! Give way!
If she feels the lop already
She'll stand on her head in the bay.
It's ebb--it's dusk--it's blowing--
The shoals are a mile of white,
But ( snatch her along! ) we're going
To find our master to-night.
For we hold that in all disaster
Of shipwreck, storm, or sword,
A Man must stand by his Master
When once he has pledged his word.
Raging seas have we rowed in
But we seldom saw them thus,
Our master is angry with Odin--
Odin is angry with us!
Heavy odds have we taken,
But never before such odds.
The Gods know they are forsaken.
We must risk the wrath of the Gods!
Over the crest she flies from,
Into its hollow she drops,
Cringes and clears her eyes from
The wind-torn breaker-tops,
Ere out on the shrieking shoulder
Of a hill-high surge she drives.
Meet her! Meet her and hold her!
Pull for your scoundrel lives!
The thunder below and clamor
The harm that they mean to do!
There goes Thor's own Hammer
Cracking the dark in two!
Close! But the blow has missed her,
Here comes the wind of the blow!
Row or the squall'Il twist her
Broadside on to it!--Row!
Heark'ee, Thor of the Thunder!
We are not here for a jest--
For wager, warfare, or plunder,
Or to put your power to test.
This work is none of our wishing--
We would house at home if we might--
But our master is wrecked out fishing.
We go to find him to-night.
For we hold that in all disaster--
As the Gods Themselves have said--
A Man must stand by his Master
Till one of the two is dead.
That is our way of thinking,
Now you can do as you will,
While we try to save her from sinking
And hold her head to it still.
Bale her and keep her moving,
Or she'll break her back in the trough. . . .
Who said the weather's improving,
Or the swells are taking off?
Sodden, and chafed and aching,
Gone in the loins and knees--
No matter--the day is breaking,
And there's far less weight to the seas!
Up mast, and finish baling--
In oar, and out with mead--
The rest will be two-reef sailing. . . .
That was a night indeed!
But we hold it in all disaster
(And faith, we have found it true!)
If only you stand by your Master,
The Gods will stand by you!

Quote:Gold is for the mistress -- silver for the maid --
Copper for the craftsman cunning at his trade."
"Good!" said the Baron, sitting in his hall,
"But Iron -- Cold Iron -- is master of them all."
So he made rebellion 'gainst the King his liege,
Camped before his citadel and summoned it to siege.
"Nay!" said the cannoneer on the castle wall,
"But Iron -- Cold Iron -- shall be master of you all!"
Woe for the Baron and his knights so strong,
When the cruel cannon-balls laid 'em all along;
He was taken prisoner, he was cast in thrall,
And Iron -- Cold Iron -- was master of it all!
Yet his King spake kindly (ah, how kind a Lord!)
"What if I release thee now and give thee back thy sword?"
"Nay!" said the Baron, "mock not at my fall,
For Iron -- Cold Iron -- is master of men all."
"Tears are for the craven, prayers are for the clown --
Halters for the silly neck that cannot keep a crown."
"As my loss is grievous, so my hope is small,
For Iron -- Cold Iron -- must be master of men all!"
Yet his King made answer (few such Kings there be!)
"Here is Bread and here is Wine -- sit and sup with me.
Eat and drink in Mary's Name, the whiles I do recall
How Iron -- Cold Iron -- can be master of men all!"
He took the Wine and blessed it. He blessed and brake the Bread.
With His own Hands He served Them, and presently He said:
"See! These Hands they pierced with nails, outside My city wall,
Show Iron -- Cold Iron -- to be master of men all."
"Wounds are for the desperate, blows are for the strong.
Balm and oil for weary hearts all cut and bruised with wrong.
I forgive thy treason -- I redeem thy fall --
For Iron -- Cold Iron -- must be master of men all!"
"Crowns are for the valiant -- sceptres for the bold!
Thrones and powers for mighty men who dare to take and hold!"
"Nay!" said the Baron, kneeling in his hall,
"But Iron -- Cold Iron -- is master of men all!
Iron out of Calvary is master of men all!"

Some folks here might remember Usenet... Specifically, some folks here might remember the Usenet anime-announcement group rec.arts.anime.info, and how it went dormant some months before the group's moderator, Steve Pearl, passed away in 2007.

As of today, rec.arts.anime.info has a new moderation team (of two, one of whom is, well, me) and is back in operation.

So I have a favour to ask: If you're still using Usenet and you have any sort of anime-related announcement to make (anime convention announcements, anime FAQs, anime reviews, anime news, and so on), please post that announcement to rec.arts.anime.info as well as wherever you're already posting it. The group needs the content... but it doesn't need any noise.
--
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

anyone else having issues with page timeouts or other wonkyness?

it started late last night for me and has yet to resolve itself.

Given that their 'site temporarily down' message last night made mention of vague dns propagation issues I'm not sure if this is something local that is just effecting me, or if other people are seeing it too.
-Terry
-----
"so listen up boy, or pornography starring your mother will be the second worst thing to happen to you today"
TF2: Spy

While getting ready to go to bed, this
started to bounce around my brain so there you have it, people, a
quick little thing about Yukiyo's return to Paragon City.

---

Apparently, in hell, temporary
reassignment didn't mean, as Yukiyo had thought, that you were sent
somewhere else for several weeks and then sent back to where you had
already done quite a bit of good work so you could finish the job.
No, apparently, they meant nearly two years. Still, that was done
with and she was finally back to Paragon city. Apparently, the only
reason she was even getting sent back was that, suddenly, the amount
of people summoning demons and daemons had suddenly increased.

Whatever the reason, though, it was
really great. The war walls were as shiny as ever, the city as noisy
as ever and Statesman was on a rooftop with the rest of the freedom
phalanx in new costumes and was cackling evilly and saying something
about Praetoria, whatever that was. Wait... that was new... Oh well,
things were bound to change after all, “Hey Statesman, love the new
outfit!”

As she flew off, the firey mage didn't
see Emperor Cole's flabbergasted expression or noticed the barely
restrained chuckles from the other Praetorians.

---

By the time Yukiyo managed to take care
of all the paperwork related to her sudden return, night had already
fallen. Really, the mage felt it had been far too long but apparently
there had been an invasion of some kind in progress and that had
delayed the already slow bureaucracy of Paragon city to a glacial
crawl.

She'd eventually been given all the
equipment and identification she'd need to continue her heroing
career and, looking forward to some sleep, the mage returned at last
to the Legendary's base. It had changed so much though and Yukiyo
simply had to explore, marvelling at all the new things, there was
even a POOL now. Still, once all was said and done, she really needed
some rest and, yawning, she went to where her room had been and hit
her first snag.

The tiny room she'd used to sleep in
was gone, replaced by an office of all things. True, it was a very
nice office but still... Dejected, the mage wandered the base for a
time, trying to think of a solution when she noticed a room she
hadn't explored yet. Curious, Yukiyo peeked in and was greeted by a
well stocked library. Her lips stretched to the sides nearly on their
own as a wide grin split the firestarter's face and, before long,
she'd set up a collapsible bed in a corner, lit a lamp and had begun
to read, determined to see everything this new source of always
treasured knowledge had to offer.

It wouldn't be before people began to
move around the base that she'd realise that she'd spent the entire
night reading instead of sleeping as she'd intended.

MiniMac 3
Processor: 2.26 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo
Memory: 4 GB RAM
Graphics: NVIDIA GeForce 9400 w/ 256 MB of VRAM
Display: Sony 40-inch digital TV running at 1920x1080 resolution.
Recommended graphics settings?
--
Sucrose Octanitrate.
Proof positive that with sufficient motivation, you can make anything explode.

Is this Satire? Somebody please tell me this is satire. San Francisco discusses law to ban the sale of pets

Quote:The ban was put on hold last year after animal advocates broadened it to include anything with fur or feathers. Now it's back, with a new name and a new strategy: More is more. The Humane Pet Acquisition Proposal is on its way to the Board of Supervisors, and it hopes to protect everything from Great Danes to goldfish.

Yes, goldfish. And guppies, gobies, gouramies, glowlight tetras, German blue rams. No fish, no fowl, no reptiles, no amphibians, no cats, no dogs, no gerbils, no rats. If it flies, crawls, runs, swims or slithers, you would not be able to buy it in the city named for the patron saint of animals.

Because he said to make a new thread about it.
So anyway, when I said 'tips' I didn't mean on the Senshi.  I was speaking about what I was consciously thinking about when I was writing the fight.
I'll summarize, and you can ask about anything in detail.
1: The fight does not exist in a vacuum.  People WILL react to it.
2: The environment is a character, treat it like one.
3: Write assuming the fighters are smart and everyone is trying to win.
4: Keep track of all threads of combat that aren't being seen as if it were a tabletop game.  (IE: Everyone is doing something.)
Number four can be a bit daunting when you're applying number three to it and have more than four or five people going.  Because even if you don't see it, the people in the background are still trying to win.  A lot of fights I've seen in fiction: Movies, Books, whatever...  seem to be centered around duels/superduels.  Where in the fight you're watching is important, and all the rest of the fight is treated as 'background effects' at best.  It does not take into the account that Joe Random can snipe the main character at any time, and in fact, would be attempting to do so at any given oportunity.
As a result, the fight you watch isn't a battle, but a collection of duels with 'battle effects' going on around them.  After you've seen it enough times, you come to notice it and just get bored with the same old formula.
Of course, it's understandable because quite frankly.  Writing an honest to Washu BATTLE is... Rather hard.  For the battle in this latest chapter I released, I only had eight combatants, but spent a month just figuring out who goes where and does what.  And that's before adding in reactions to the environment.  For that, I actually used google Earth to pull a map, trace distances, and get the location of buildings.  And the entire time I was writing, we had a running discussion as to what the local response would be like in Tokyo.  And just as a hint... The response is coming, it just hasn't arrived yet.
In contrast, the superduels are exceedingly easy.  As people can just keep track of two people (or sets of two people independently) and handwave anything else that goes on offscreen.
Welcome to GP Aerospace Academy.  I will be your instructor.
Please read the course silybus...  You will need to know the basics of flight,
and orbital mechanics before we can continue.

Just thought I'd let everyone know, White Wolf is producing a pair of special 20th anniversary editions of Vampire the Masquerade that compile (and occasionally update) ALL of the info on Clans, Bloodlines, Disciplines, etc. from the old World of Darkness. One will be available at September's Grand Masquerade in New Orleans (but must be pre-ordered beforehand) while the other is available online (must be preordered by July 1st). Both sell for $99.99. More info at: www.vampirethemasquerade.com
----------------------------------------------------

"Anyone can be a winner if their definition of victory is flexible enough." - The DM of the Rings XXXV

The finance law in question works like this: if you are a publicly funded candidate in an election, and one of your privately-funded opponents gets a hold of a large source of cash which he starts using in his campaign, be it his own stockpiles or a wealthy corporation, you get an amount of money equal to the amount by which his source of cash exceeds your public funding. In other words, publicly funded candidates have monetary parity with privately-funded candidates. It didn't do anything to prevent that privately funded candidate from blowing a bunch of cash on his campaign, it just removed his ability to massively outspend publicly funded ones.
Sounds like a good idea, right?
http://www.kansascity.com/2011/06/27/29 ... z1QW4JdlCx
Not according to 5/9 of the Supreme Court.

After more than a year (getting close to two) stuck with a computer that couldn't run City of Heroes, I've recently upgraded and am returning to this game once again. I was a bit surprise, upon logging in as Yukiyo, to find out that she's still in The Legendary. I'm quite thankful about that, this has to be my favorite guild/supergroup/thing on any MMO I've ever played.

I look forward to seeing old faces again and meeting new faces.

And now, for the call for help. I started drifting out of the game way back during the time when Ouroboros was new. I remember talk of a soon to come thing, I think it was called Midnight Squad, but never actually saw it. Since then, the game has probably changed a great deal, so I'd like to know if anyone would be kind enough to tell me about it.

Things I've noticed while reading around this forum but have no idea what it is:
-Leveling Pact
-Incarnate rewards, merit rewards, maybe even incarnate powers? (No idea what the whole thing is/means)

Oh and, any architect missions to recommend?

Hoping to see people around,

The Hunterminator
@Glalev
a.k.a. Yukiyo