I'll just leave this here:


''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

Well, after studying the official Wiki for James Cameron's Avatar, one thought comes to mind...

Do you honestly think that the RDA is going to just stop after that?

Sure, the Na'vi, against all odds, beat them back and then sent them packing. But now that I have seen what the RDA is (a quasi-governmental entity that
has a monopoly over all interstellar resource gathering) I can't help but feel that the RDA will be back, and with more guns.

Are the few scientist left behind smart enough to realize this, and can they help the Na'vi build an effective defense mechanism that gives them the edge?
Because if the last battle came at great cost, then what will the next one do to them?

I don't have time to watch this now, but I'm reliably informed it's worth a look:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P0lwLB-xAVw

(No, of course it's a parody. They used the music from Banana Splits, after all!)
--
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

you a merry...
--
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

No, not a comic about certain Alan Moore properties.

A fan comic about Alan Moore.

As a
Japanese schoolgirl.

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

Epsilon

I didn't bat an eyelash at this. There is something wrong with me.

So I'm pretty healthy usually. For a guy my age, my only ongoing problems really are being somewhat overweight and I have the beginnings of a cataract in
my left eye. No big deal.

I just have this one thing that occasionally kicks me in the rear. For some unknown reason, completely at random, seemingly not connected to anything specific
like food allergies or environment. I mean - we've never been able to isolate ANY cause for it - I will have an anaphylactic shock attack. You know - the
kind of reaction that a person allergic to bee stings has when stung? The kind that can kill you? Not pretty.

The first one was in 1995 or so. I've had 4 or 5 others since then, seemingly spaced about a year and a half to two years apart. To the point that I'd
taken the precaution of getting a prescription for an Epinephrine auto-injector and having it in the house or the car just in case. The last one happened over
4 years ago, and I was hoping whatever it was was going to leave me the hell alone.

No such luck. Had another attack this morning. Realized what was beginning to happen, grabbed my coat, got the epipen, jabbed myself in the thigh with it, and
drove myself to the nearest emergency room. (seeing as how I hadn't had to use the Epipen in so long, it was actually past it's expiration date by a
couple of years, I found out later. But it did it's job well enough, surprisingly.) They hit me with some more epinephrine and steroids and I almost felt silly for even going as good as I was feeling within an hour. But I knew better. I might've fought it off myself
with oral anti-histimines, or maybe not. But I wasn't willing to take a chance, because this was ramping up to be a full blown attack, I could tell, not
just a case of hives or something. Shortness of breath, swelling in the face and hands, the whole deal.

*Sigh* Merry Christmas, and here's the emergency room hospital bill...

When I get a another job and have enough money to look into this, I'm thinking of getting the full investigative treatment and find out WHAT THE HELL
causes this!

Here ya go. Crossposting just the stuff relevant to City of Heroes.





For commentary see the thread over in main.

The blonde swordswoman collapsed onto her bed, exhausted. Words came back to her that hadn't made sense at the time. Power-intensive. Future
adjustments. Short combat life. The scientists had cloaked it in technical jargon, but the meaning was that she was flawed. If a fight lasted over an
hour, she would be utterly exhausted and unable to do anything with the demands of her armor on her own internal reserves. Obviously, they'd intended to
repair the flaw eventually, but there hadn't been time before she had led that disastrous escape attempt.

All of which meant that after one night on patrol, Sovereign felt herself lucky to have remembered the button that sent her armor to the armory racks in Riot
Base before she fell into bed. A broken piece of furniture would've completed her poor day. But even as she dozed off, there was only one hope in the young
looking woman's mind.

Please....please don't let me dream.

***

"So this is what they said you're supposed to use?" Rider asked, looking along the length of the hard, cold blade from behind her glasses,
throwing a tail of long violet hair over her shoulder absently. "It certainly seems to suit you."

"I'm glad this one does," Sovereign noted, turning it this way and that, feeling the weight resting comfortably in her hand. "The first
sword they gave me was some sort of large scimitar. It just didn't feel right at all, and they ran me through a few dozen other types before trying this
one."

The sky blue haired woman by the wall chuckled, getting confused looks from the two. "That could have been hilarious," Breaker noted. "Imagine
the codename if you'd actually been best suited to a saber or something. Saber Scimitar?" she sniggered. "You might get hit by friendly fire if
we ever shortened it because then we'd all be calling you Saber."

"Callin' who huwuzzah?" a dark haired figure noted, sitting up in bed behind Breaker, as Ruby blinked blearily at them all.
"Huh....s'Sove....Sove...name's t'long. Shoulda called you saybah or somethin', usin' swords. S'easier," she noted, before
rolling over and hiding her head under the covers, away from the awful burning light that was intruding on her attempts to sleep because of incosiderate
friends who should realize any sane person shouldn't be awake before ten or maybe even twelve on days they didn't have morning training.

"Say bah?" Sovereign blinked, getting a shrug from Rider and another amused snicker from Breaker.

"She has a point. Sovereign is so many extra syllables....Saber won't do, though. Something we can claim is just a random
name...Saber....Saybar....Saybiir....Seibiir....Seiber....Seiba...." she mused, before stopping as another purple haired girl, this one a bit shorter than
Rider and with less mature of a figure, entered the room before giving her a puzzled look.

"What're you doing, Breaker?" she wondered, getting a grin from the older woman.

"Trying to think up something less wordy than Sovereign's old name."

"...well, that last one actually sounded like a name," Violet considered thoughtfully.

"Seiba?" Rider said, pursing her lips in thought.

"Yeah. I like it. It's cute," Violet smiled.

"I have a name," Sovereign frowned. "I don't need to sound 'cute'."

"Oh, but you're already cute. Everyone knows it," Breaker grinned, getting an absent nod from Rider as Sovereign felt color rising to her cheeks.

"She is right," the tall woman noted. "At least, if I understand the definition correctly from how some of the personnel on base use
it. By that definition, she's not quite as cute as Archer, but close. Probably at least as much as Violet," she said finally with an unconscious nod
as she reasoned through to the conclusion, missing Violet's own slight blush.

"I still do not need to sound 'cute'," Sovereign protested.

***

"So now they won't stop calling me it when we're away from the guards," Sovereign grumbled.

Duo simply shrugged as she shucked the helmet off her heavy armor, while Ruby gave her a smile that Sovereign had learned meant trouble as she took off her
own.

"I don't know, they have a point. You certainly are cute. Maybe not adorable, like Archer, but cute," she grinned.

"I'm supposed to be the leader. I need to be authoritative. Inspiring. Intimidating, even. Not 'cute'," she said with another scowl.

Ruby grinned, playing with the strand of hair that almost always seemed to come loose of Sovereign's braid after she tied it back before suiting up.
"Well, besides that, it's a good name. It's one we gave you, not something like the numbers they call us....I like it," she said, leaning
against her.

Sovereign blinked, about to make another rebuttal before the last three words stopped her. "....I suppose you're right....if it just stays between our
group."

"Of course," Ruby smiled as she put her arm around Sovereign's shoulder and they stepped into the elevator behind Duo. "After all,
nobody's going to tattle."
---
"Oh, silver blade, forged in the depths of the beyond. Heed my summons and purge those who stand in my way. Lay
waste."

So I saw it in 3D today. I'll avoid spoilers and simply leave it at:

It is absolutely beautiful. A little tear-jerky at points, predictable at others, surprising at none. But definitely exiting and gorgeous. So go watch and have
fun.

I'll probably see it again (not in 3D for comparison)

It was also my first experience with 3D via polarized glasses. It worked surprisingly well once I stopped moving my head* and didn't focus on the edge of
the screen. My only complaint is that they turned up the 'depth of field' far too high during some of the command room scenes.

* your brain is wired to expect some parallax when looking at 3D and you shift your head. When this fails to happen it can ruin the sense of immersion as the
brain tries to figure out what is wrong.
-Terry
-----
"so listen up boy, or pornography starring your mother will be the second worst thing to happen to you today"
TF2: Spy

So... you will see by the timestamp on this email that it's 2 AM here. We just got back to our hotel from Kat and Joe's place, courtesy of
Scott's 4-wheel-drive pickup truck (in which he picked us up from our hotel this afternoon in the middle of the blizzard). The storm is well and truly
over here (tho' I hear Massachusetts is about to get hit hard), but before it passed it dumped something like 18 inches (40+ cm) of snow in this area. Our
car was completely buried (and still is), which is why we got the pick-up from Scott. It was so bad that it took said 4-wheel-drive vehicle a good 40
minutes-plus to get out of their driveway. So here we are, drinking hot beverages before we crash for the night (and sleep well into the morning), imagining
how much worse it could have been, or how much later.

So, anyone else have any stories of today's weather fun to share?
-- Bob
---------
Then the horns kicked in...
...and my shoes began to squeak.