Messages

I've gone as far as taking a couple of holiday days off from work, for GTA time.  Well, its not like I was going to use them for anything useful.

The Falkirkian Wastes are the ideal place to shoot.  Everyone here looks like a henchman.

My congratulations to Mark Millar on receiving his MBE in recognition of his contribution to the industry.

I have nothing sarcastic to say.

I didn't claim they intervened first.  The Russian intervention, however, is calculated to prevent western governments from becoming involved. Handing over surface to air missiles has given Russia a monopoly in foreign intervention. I find that troubling, since pseudo - democratic Russia is not a country i would feel comfortable about having more control in the middleeast.

Your argument appears to be that it is a good thing to arm oppressive regimes in order to prevent the rise of other oppressive regimes.  My argument is that foriegn weapons in the hands if the Syrian government won't just be used against mad jihadists.  They'll be used against the pro western pro democratic forces as well.  They'll be used to butcher the very same civilians your worried about.

Oh no, the political thread us back! Die, Politics, Die!

Glad to hear that the Russian missiles are the sort that only kill mad jihadists, and not the pro-democracy forces who started the fight.  Or even the planes of western armies who dare intervene in a fight the Russians have now intervened in.  When Russia is a shining example that governments aspire to, we're all screwed.

Its the only entertainment device you'll need...unless you want to play any of the games you've bought in the last decade.

When EA can claim a 'shared vision', you know it means trouble since EA's 'vision' is to churn out the same licenses every year and to try to destroy the second hand market.

Quantum break sounded interesting.  Then they showed a film with poor cgi.

Then, to end, another Call of Duty, as if its the moment all gamers have been waiting for.  Look guys! The characters look real! We've come up with a revolutionary idea- its a dog, to make you care! takes look at this real game footage!...then proceeds to show underwhelming cinematics which look the same as every 360 cod game.

Wii U it is then.  My first paypacket went on a playstation back in ye oldie 1998 (and a mag with a demo disc of resident evil 2).  Since then I've been with Xbox, but not through any particular loyalty, they just sold what i wanted to buy.  The gradual shift to "home entertainment" rather than games disappoints me. 

Been watching the xbox one release show.  It's really inspired me to buy a playstation.

I'd quite like to play some games, maybe with some friends.  Then I'll maybe watch a film...

But instead, the One will be watching me from the corner of the room, listening to everything I say.  It'll be waiting, just waiting for the moment when I might give it a command, so it can jump from what I'm doing to something that I should be doing instead.  Every image could be interrupted, resized and shifted at any point to squeeze more information into my eyes.

the little black box will be tracking my behaviour, storing my hopes and dreams in an underground server on the other side of the globe.  My life reduced to an algorithm.  It knows what i watch, who I speak to and what about.  My tastes in film and music.  My browsing history.  My favorite sports team.  It knows what games I play and how.  It wants to be my friend, it reassures with its mild american tones.  It just wants to be my friend.

I'll try to escape, try to get back to real life, but it knows.  It's silently watching the individual photons bounce against me.  It's tracking my pulse from across the room.  With its cloud based intelligence, its brain is bigger that the whole world was in 1999!  It knows what I'm thinking!

Maybe I'll get out, run from the building, screaming into the street..."it knows all about me!", I'll cry "it tracks my behaviour and adapts accordingly!".  But even after I think I've left it behind, it still knows what I'm doing.  It's linked to my phone.

Just to be clear, shouting "go back to your own country" at someone in the street - not okay.

Having it as an actual policy of your political party - that's fine.  And if you call it racist, you're a fascist.

[Smile]

Smile

The Chief Judge's breastplate gave a heavy clunk as Hershey laid it upon the table.  Who had designed this thing, she wondered?  Who had decided that, on top of everything else, she should be weighed down with this unwieldy monstrosity?

It felt good to be free of it.  To be able to shake off this burden, at least, in the privacy of her own space.  She wished that she hadn't spent so much time with the Old Man.  Maybe then she would be able to sit on a comfortable chair, sleep in an actual bed, without the guilt.  But she would have a shower, gruddammit...a real shower.  She would allow herself this little thing.

The peephole was invisible from within the Chief Judge's chambers.

He watched her, silently. 

He had watched them all, through the years, as they went about their duties.  Watched them in their private moments, when they felt sure they were alone and they stopped being Judges, if only for a little while.  Hershey was his favourite.  He watched her taut body move across the room, the shower water run over her pale skin...

They had put him in the secret place because he was special.  He was patient and he wouldn't be lonely, oh no, he wouldn't be lonely.  She was so close.  He remembered the warmth of other people.  He hadn't considered it at the time, but when she was so close, it was hard not to think about it.  After so long tucked away between the walls, squeezed it the gaps of other people's lives, other men might have gone mad.  Lesser men might have lost themselves in their own thoughts.  Not him, though, oh no, not him.  He was special.

The Secret Place was comfortable enough.  They had made sure he was provided for and would never go hungry.  There was a pretend little window that looked out onto a pretend little garden.  It was more that most people in the city had.  He had everything he could ever need.  Almost everything he could ever need.
It was his duty to watch over them, to watch over Hershey.  Watch her in these lonely moments.  He would whisper to her, whisper the secrets that after all this time only he knew.  Whisper to her in the dark, when she thought she was alone.

The years, though, they had been long, hidden in his secret place.  He ran his hands over the smooth walls, felt the cold material hard against his cheek, closing one eye to see better through his little peephole on the world.  As close to her as he could be.  For now, at least...

He loved her.  She would love him too, he was sure of it, sure of it, if she knew that he was her special friend.

He was special.  He was patient.  That's why he was chosen.  He could wait.

And watch.

And whisper.

And smile.

I now understand why call for a "devolved" English parliament weren't taken up by any mainstream party.  The whole country would be a xenophobic dictatorship by now. 

Luckily, you have your left leaning Scotch and Welsh brothers to stop you all from tipping over the edge.

...maybe you should have been nicer to us...

It works for John Smith.

What a joke, if that had been me I'd have called her out and made her repeat it in front of my wife and other witnesses. That fact alone speaks volumes about the man if you ask me.

or maybe its true. Maybe he thought that calling out a woman who was famous for not changing her mind would onlybe embarrassing for his wife.  Maybe there isn't a liberal conspiracy.

It would be much easier to allow the unemployed to live in poverty if we would just all buy into the idea that the poor choose to be poor.  They are lazy, well provided for by the state, and will quite possibly kill their children unless their benefits are slashed and they are forced into one of the large number of vacant and well paid jobs available.

Also, the wealthy create jobs, disabled people are just pretending, and North Korea are a genuine threat.  Return to your designated living area.  Your government is in control.

So, killed off by the near infinite number of possible lives never lived...

Which is apparently a bigger number if the infinite number of lives never lived by a thousand year old alien with a time machine.  I'd say the time traveling alien probably had more possibilities in his life than a twenty year old armed with a bit of dead tree.