The Master

The Natural
"Don't cry because it's over. Smile because it happened."
--Dr. Seuss

Last week someone on my ship sent out a group of photos for moral purposes. You know, the whole, "You think you've had a bad day? Check this
out!" thing. The one that caught my attention the most was a picture of the tail section of an Air Canada 747 disintegrating on landing.

Now, I would have thought we would all have heard something about this event, even if the plane had no passengers on board at the time. So, I did a quick
little google and came up with this result.

The image was a photoshop job. The reason why it looked so real, though, was because stock footage of an actual 747-100 being blown to pieces was used and
super-imposed on the AC 747, and quite excellently, too. Check it out!

I'm just curious what's actually going on with this SG. I've heard next to nothing about it in quite some time and wonder if it's still
active. Though I imagine the recent ninja surge has been quite the distraction

I have not been playing much of late, due to other duties, responsibilities, hobbies, etc.

I just upgraded my system.

The new beast is a quad4 with 8gb and a 1gb graphics card.

As Sam Jackson might say in a moment of levity, "This is one Oedipal Gerund tasty system."

The detail, speed and response on the new system is remarkable, and cutting through mobs dual-blading with Excalibastard is just a joy - I can't wait to
run an ITF or similar mission to see what that level of 8 person fun looks like.

Shayne

Thumbs up or down? I haven't seen it yet. A friend's kid gave thumbs up, but I need a more senior opinion.
__________________
Into terror!,  Into valour!
Charge ahead! No! Never turn
Yes, it's into the fire we fly
And the devil will burn!
- Scarlett Pimpernell

Okay, we got the word in email -- our laptop is finally coming from Dell. It took freaking long enough. In any case, that means it's time to move from
the old wire-bound ethernet router to a wireless one.

So... what's a good wireless hub? There's a Linksys I was looking at a few months ago, but I can't recall at the moment the model number. What
have people had good luck with, and bad luck with?

And what do folks think about USB wireless cards? I was figuring that might be the easiest way to add wireless connectivity to the desktop.
-- Bob
---------
Then the horns kicked in...
...and my shoes began to squeak.

Two updates in the last week (both at MangaFox):

http://www.mangafox.com/manga/mahou_sho ... oha_vivid/]Mahou Shoujo Lyrical Nanoha Vivid is now at http://www.mangafox.com/manga/mahou_sho ... /v01/c003/]Chapter 3.

http://www.mangafox.com/manga/mahou_sho ... he_comics/]StrikerS The Comics now has http://www.mangafox.com/manga/mahou_sho ... mics/c015/]Chapter 15. Signum and Nanoha going at one another.

Specifically, http://www.ottawacitizen.com/entertainm ... story.html]Bob Dylan's recording a Christmas album.

Which begs the question: Just how does one mumble "fa la la la la"?
--
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

Never trust a bar that feels it necessary to have an animal on the premises. It is a gimmick. It could be a snake in a tank. It might be an old, faithful, dog.
It might be a parrot. Parrots are the worst. To start with, they are loud. Unlike popular pirate culture, which pictures them as largely silent shoulder
decorations, who occasionally erupt with a cry of "pieces of eight", "beware the black spot", or "Please Mr. Silver, don't rape me
poor Jim-boy bottom again". They are loud, social birds, who will screech out, imitate or otherwise warble with the force, volume, and high pitch of a
four year old running around inhaling pixie sticks through both nostrils. If pirate parrots acted like real parrots the origin of bird-shot would be much more
obvious and the British Navy would have been prying beaks out of their hulls more often than Lady Hamilton knelt for something other than a passing monarch.

Derrick's Place had a parrot.

It was not a gimmick.

If was an affront to nature.

Thibor considered this. He considered this carefully. As a werewolf, his status as a affront to nature was already well established, but he wasn't sure
that he was entirely willing to share that status with the bird. No. The parrot was not an affront to nature. It was not even a red headed bastard step-child
of nature, to be occasionally slapped as the situation warranted. That was giving it far too much credit. Abomination. No. That didn't do it justice. It
was something far more horrible.

The parrot stared back at him, yellow and black eyes meeting his. It shuffled back and forth on its perch, lifted one avian leg, farted prodigiously, shook
itself, and then with a coughing noise, leaned forward and explosively vomited a mouse skull out onto the top of the bar. Derrick, if that was his name, snaked
an arm in gingerly, keeping as far away from the bird as possible and wiped up the skull and small pool of seed studded vomit. He drew back quickly.

The parrot was green. Well that was an oversimplification. Its wings were mostly green, with a few red highlights, the tail had some green and blue. The few
feathers that dotted the head were green. The neck and chest were bare and whitish pink, a few stubby feathers sticking out in viridian clumps. The beak was
black. It was far larger than any parrot had a right to be. Bigger than most macaws, but without the long tail to give a sense of balance. It smelled. Not
overwhelmingly so, but even without his lupine senses engaged, Thibor could pick up the hint of carrion about it.

Without warning the parrot exploded from its perch, wings spreading as it flapped across the room to where a large man was dealing with a jug of beer and a
plate of Derrick's highly questionable deep fried cheese sticks. The man froze as the parrot alit on the table. Not with the grace of a dove in a John Woo
film or a biblical parable. It alit with all the grace of a three pound stone being chucked over an overpass. The table shook and beer sloshed in the jug, the
patron having lowered the beer level enough that it did not spill. With deliberate graceless steps, the parrot stalked towards the man, who remained frozen in
place. It reached out with its beak and gently turned over the medical alert bracelet on the man's thick wrist. Then it turned its head to the side and
leaned in close, the yellow and black eye held a few scant millimeters over the writing. Satisfied, the bird turned, defecated hugely, and flapped back to its
perch. It landed heavily. Settled back down, scratched under one wing disinterestedly, but kept one yellow eye fixed on the large man. The long black tongue
reached out and explored the beak, as if licking its lips in anticipation.

http://www.champions-online.com/exclusive_specials

$200 is alot to place down on a game little have seen anything of other than screenshots