John

I myself don't see a girl that has tattoos all over her as very attractive, but a few tattoos is fine with me. I also don't think that putting something beautiful on something else beautiful, as elfpirate put it, always enhances the beauty of both things. Instead, I think it often detracts from the beauty. A little like putting a copy of Starry Night in the middle of the Mona Lisa.

[quote name='Annalisse][color=#404142']"And here ends your first lesson: Do not attempt to rob Jet Li; he'll throw down."[/quote]Heh, you should win just because it's so damn true.[/color]

I just finished Darkness Visible today, and I'm starting to reread 1984 for a book report. A synopsis of it has already been given in this thread, so I'll just add another recommendation instead. ^_^ I was also recently performing a short play for my Forensics class called The Three Step method, by Scot Auguston. I swear I looked for the dang thing almost every day for weeks before I could get ahold of it. Since it took me so long to find it, I suppose it'd be easier to post it as an attachment instead of leaving anyone who wants to read it out to hunt it down for themselves. Essentially, the play is about a psychiatrist who demonstrates to his intern his practice of breaking down his patient into a limp, mindless dependant. Not sidesplittingly funny (well, not if you don't see it performed), but it's at least worth a read, I'd say.

[QUOTE=ChibiHorsewoman][color=darkviolet]I just thought of another super power that [i]nobody[/i] thought of and [i]nobody[/i] has. I want the power to make money-[i]real money[/i] not that fake stuff- appear at will in the palm of my hand. Or at the very least in my savings account. Then I could go out and but what ever I wanted[/color][/QUOTE]Wouldn't that just throw the federal reserve out of whack? Unless I'm mistaken, they only print money depending on the amount of gold and silver they mine. With you creating billions on a whim, wouldn't that deflate the dollar's value a lot? Now, if you could create gold, that'd be a surefire idea. Of course, everyone would probably start calling you No-Face pretty quickly. (Or at least all the anime geeks would. ^_^)

[quote name='ThatOneOddDude']Don't worry, they can't ban them, that would go against fredom of speech, (or one of those freedoms). What they CAN do is make it so no one under a certain age can buy video games.[/quote]Freedom of speech? Nay, I don't think that would be a very good defense. After all, giving secret information to terrorist groups is excersizing your freedom of speech, but it's also treason. Even though there's been absolutely zero hard evidence found that video games cause violence (because there's no evidence [i]to[/i] find, lol), the idea has been ingrained for so long that many people just accept it as a general fact. Maybe if the people who will ultimately make the decision actually knew something about this situation, the odds of that bill failing to pass would be that much more in our favor.

[quote name='ChibiHorsewoman][color=darkviolet']But I don't think I'd want to have wings like Arc Angel from X-men they'd rip my clothes and people would look at me funny.[/color][/quote]If I could fly, I wouldn't have it any other way. Wings = babe magnets. Telekinesis would easily be the most useful superpower I could choose. Hell, if you knew what you were doing, you could even pick up every leaf in your yard so you wouldn't have to rake. The possibilities are quite endless. That Multiple Man thing sounds awesome, but I think that my first alternative would have to be bullet time. I can be a pretty big oaf at times, so being able to slow time to catch the glass of wine that I just knocked into my date (who I picked up with my wings ^_^) before it has a chance to hit her would be supremely useful.

As a result of unavoidable circumstances, the Extreme Makeover: Home Edition construction crew was forced to abandon a project for a needy family immediately after the greater part of the demolition phase was completed.

Hmmm, I'm probably addicted to any sort of ball. Bouncy balls, in particular, are amazing. It's just great to be able to throw one in a small room and watch it go everywhere. I also have a baseball-sized ball of duct tape, which is surprisingly heavy and good for throwing. Ironically enough, though, I hate baseball. o_O Another thing is a jumbo-sized wad of green silly putty (would "wad" be the right word?). It's actually rather homeless, since its cheap-*** egg broke. It resides in any clean, concave container I can find, the current one being a crappy clay pot I made in Basic Art. I think the last thing I could really say I'm addicted to is Homestar Runner. Without a doubt, my older brother and I are the biggest Homestar addicts we know, lol. It's just so damn quotable.

I'm currently reading Darkness Visible by William Golding, and have been doing so for months now. Even worse, it's only a 250-300 page book. I've really only read it during any free time at school, so I've just barely been creeping along. Nevertheless, it's a great book. In the first part, it talks about the life of a boy named Matty, who was a victim of the WWII London Blitz, and recovered from it with half of his face burnt away. It covers his life -- the spiritual aspect of it, most of all -- up to his twenties or thirties, and talks about his encounters with spirits telling him of his duties to God in the upcoming Apocalypse. The second part talks about a pair of twins, Sophy and Toni, and their gradual fall from morals and the ordinary world, also through their twenties or so. (Or at least Sophy's twenties.) The third part so far seems to be bringing all the characters together for something. I haven't gotten too far into it, yet. It's a good book, and even though it's really pretty far out there sometimes, the philosophicial and psychological issues it deals with still seem somehow very grounded and relatable.

[quote name='Panda'] I find many vegetarian receipes very tasty.[/quote][img]http://www.jyotibihanga.com/Images/Neatloaf.gif[/img] Know what that is, Panda? That's neatloaf. Let that name sink in for a minute. [b]Neatloaf.[/b] On that note, I don't really have much to say that hasn't been said already. Just that the issues on Christianity and the Bible are wrong. People did indeed eat meat before the flood, and if they worshiped animals, then I think that particular group of people weren't exactly devout followers of the Bible, lol. And I don't know where in all hell you got the idea that it's a Christian practice -- a Christian [i]stereotype[/i], even -- to say eating meat is bad. Most Christians do eat meat, and only those of us (I'm a Christian) who are both out of touch and knowledge with their faith and are total whackjobs will do what you say we all do. Oh, and as a final note, joining PETA will take your influence down, and only down. They're a horribly ignorant organization ([i]for the larger part[/i]. They do have their competent people), and joining them will only make you a part of jokes and media fodder, not an organization that will help anyone or anything. If you really believe in saving animals, you'll be better off on your own or with a less radical organization.

Numerous? I really don't recall. *signals the mods* Hey, look! A helpless thread producing no discussion. Do your thing.

Eh-- _> [i]Of course[/i] I knew it was a joke. Do you really think I'm that stupid? Geez. I mean, come on...

I myself am not much of a webcomic fan. I've got a few that I read periodically, and that's pretty much it. However, I very recently became aware that Penny Arcade (the biggest name in gaming comics, and probably even webcomics [i]total) [/i]recently sealed the deal to - you listening to this? - [b]gain exclusive rights to write comics about the electronic entertainment industry[/b]. Here's how one of the authors put it on the PA main page: [QUOTE]One can hardly keep up with the level of consolidation and treachery in the industry anymore. My interest lies more in what these companies produce, so by and large I'm content just let them slink around in the dark and kill each other. Product, not production. To cite just one example, I'm interested in fruit - but not botany or agriculture. So there you have it. Eventually, it's not going to be the kind of thing I can avoid, because I'm going to walk into an Electronic Arts retail location here in a couple years and purchase a white box with the word "Game" on it, and that's going to be the industry. EA just snapped up DICE, as [url="http://www.gamegossip.com/comment.php?id=11694"][color=#0000ff]I'm sure you saw[/color][/url]. Before that was the much ballyhooed NFL thing, to which Take Two responded by securing MLB exclusivity, [url="http://money.cnn.com/2005/01/24/commentary/game_over/column_gaming/index.htm"][color=#0000ff]of a sort[/color][/url] - and their recent acquisition of Sega's Visual Concepts sports studio will gird their loins for the coming battle. It's madness. I don't even have time to jot down an ironic comment on the state of things before the constituent [i]things[/i] have been entirely reconfigured. That, more than anything else, is why we sought to secure "[url="http://www.penny-arcade.com/view.php3?date=2005-01-26"][color=#0000ff]rights in perpetuity[/color][/url] to any and all humorous comic interpretations and/or situations arising or inferred from the electronic entertainment industry and/or the products thereof." The fact of the matter is that with strips like [url="http://www.ctrlaltdel-online.com/"][color=#0000ff]Ctrl-Alt-Del[/color][/url], [url="http://www.vgcats.com/"][color=#0000ff]VG Cats[/color][/url], [url="http://www.pvponline.com/"][color=#0000ff]PvP[/color][/url], and that ****** [url="http://www.reallifecomics.com/"][color=#0000ff]Greg Dean[/color][/url] (congratulations on the engagement!) nipping at our heels - and the black day of the single, hydra-headed Ultrapublisher ever hastening - the air's getting a little thin. You might be wondering what recourse is available to you, the disenfranchised web auteur. Honestly? Dig a hole and die in it. I have crafted these bleak circumstances, and I have set them upon you like dogs. Your exertions will only make you more delicious to them. They will find you cast in blue light, huddled in the subdirectory where you shiver with your .gifs, and they will end you.[/QUOTE]As I understand it, the authors of PA have always had egos of incomparable size, and have always been pretty much some of the biggest ***holes in the webcomic community. But at least they [i]kinda[/i] tried to hide it before, whereas now that their position in webcomicry is secured (as if it wasn't before), they let all pretense fall and let their intentions be known. What's worse is, they were already getting paid incredibly hefty sums by game companies just to write a comic about a particular game. They were making some crazy money just by drawing pictures and writing punchlines for an hour or two. However, now they feel that they must screw everyone else out of the deal, readers and all, even though some of these authors write their comics [i]for a living[/i]. So people like Tim Buckley, of Ctrl+Alt+Del, are getting ****** over to keep PA's pockets overflowing. I'd like to go more in-depth with this, but there probably needs to be some material left to the conversation. So on that note, take it away.

Aw, crap! I missed my turn, and I had a good one, too! ;_; Ah, well. Let's party. [img]http://otakuboards.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=22168[/img] Even when using highly trained laboratory dogs, scientists still fail to determine just who is supposed to feel the effects of the notorious "sleeper hold". [img]http://otakuboards.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=22169[/img] "And in other news, the Armed Services have begun to admit Senior Citizens into their ranks."

"And of course, one of the biggest problems the Wachowskis encountered when speculating the casting of pokemon in The Matrix was the undoubtable awkwardness it induced upon any flight scenes in the film."

[font=Trebuchet MS][size=3][color=black][b]Yo-ho.[/b][/color][/size][/font] [font=Trebuchet MS][size=2]Pirate Bruce wasn?t happy. He hadn?t filled his quota of plank walkers, and Captain O?Scruffy was about to check the numbers. So when the captain went into his cabin below deck, Pirate Bruce did what any other pirate would do.[/size][/font] [font=Times New Roman][font=Trebuchet MS][size=2]That night, Captain O?Scruffy noticed a strangely smaller crew aboard than when they set off.[/size][/font][/font]

[color=black][b][size=3]Coming Home At Night[/size][/b][/color] [color=black][size=2]The train slipped through the gate. The streams of light on the background of a blue city tried lulling me into sleep, unsuccessfully. The malfunction in the track up ahead did it, though, and more abruptly.

[quote name='Baron Samedi][size=1']The preciousss...give it to me![/size][/quote][i]Yes![/i] I knew I wasn't the only one who thought of Gollum when I saw that. "Dammit, Jennings! First come the unbalanced girls, then come the unbalanced girls with knives."

There's a band called H Is Orange, and one of the members has this... (I don't want to say disease) condition. Specifically, he has the variation where he sees spoken words in form and color, and when he sees a word with an "h", the letter is seen as orange. Hence the name. Duh. Also, in the book Rumblefish, the main character (was his name Randy? Rusty? I didn't get very far, since the book was my sister's.) says that before he gets into a fight, everything is sharp and clear, and he notices every little sound and faint detail. But once the fight starts, everything goes red and blurry for him. Furthermore, his older brother, the Motorcyle Boy, is completely colorblind, but he can still see only one thing in color - a fish in a local pet shop. I'm thinking maybe the author herself - S.E. Hinton - was a synaesthete, now that it comes to mind.

I just recently started to break further and further away from the main avenue of music I listen to, rock, and have started to find myself becoming increasingly interested in electronic music. Not any of the uber-perky customary techno or, Godforbid, J-pop, but more ambient, mellow house tunes. Since I've never exactly been anything of a music mogul in the first place, I know of hardly any artists that I think would appeal to me. So here's what's it at: who would you recommend? What kind of electronic artists do you like? Do their names spell anything funny when you rearrange the letters? If not, bugger off.

My sister loves Rooney. She went to a concert and got to meet them in person (damn her reportership). I myself don't think they're half bad, especially Blue Side. Very Beatlesy. Beatlesy. I'm going to use that word nonstop now.

[quote name='ScirosDarkblade']I didn't really read all of the above posts, but has anyone mentioned Equilibrium? That film has some of the best action scenes I've seen in a long time. As BS-ish as the premise of the combat system in the film is, it looks really cool. The choreography in that movie is very impressive, and Christian Bale pulls it off quite well. I can't wait to see what he does in Batman Begins.[/quote][i]Word.[/i] Equilibrium was a great movie, even though the plot wasn't all that original (it reeks of The Giver, Farenheight 451, and 1984). I think their combat system is actually fairly plausible, given that people have no emotion and therefore no reason to back out of their training just because it is tiring; they know, logically, that it will be a better choice in the end. And it makes for some awesome fight scenes, even though Christian Bale's character seemed a little too invincible. Also, The One had some supremely kickass fights in it. I think a major contributer to that was the music, which can really make or break a fight scene. [i]Of coure[/i] The Matrix trilogy (and The Animatrix, to be sure) had some awe-inspiring fight scenes. I especially liked the Neo-Seraph fight and the Neo-Smith real life fight.

I want to go in one of those awesome two-person horse suits; of course, I'd be the only one in it. That may be awkward. Or maybe I'll put my cat in the back end. But she'd probably just get stuck in one of the legs, and I'd end up walking around the neighborhood looking like a famished horse, dragging itself around with its front legs and with its back end sliding along helplessly, one unusually lumpy leg hissing at people. I hope noone shoots me. (They'd better not steal my candy, either, because I'd have to dangle it around my neck what with the absence of arm holes.)

[size=2]There's no way to describe how happy I am that I'm too young to have an obligation to vote, lol. If everything that's been said recently was true, both of the candidates are insanely evil, anti-American ******** who bumble through their political careers thinking only of how to further screw up the nation.[/size] [size=2][/size] [size=2]Have fun at the booths![/size]

[QUOTE=Godelsensei][color=gray][font=Courier New]Then, there are people who want to read the bible during "silent reading time" during English class. A teacher tells them that he does not think that this is appropriate, as the school is not an environment that is supposed to have anything to do with religion and that even if it is important to the student, certain religious items can be used as weapons, because that is what they are (the daggers I mentioned before). The student argues that the book isn't hurting anybody. I agree with the teacher, simply because you need to draw the line somewhere. Religious headgear that does not obstruct the face is the only kind of symbol that should be tolerated in a school environment (you're supposed to wear turbans all the time, as far as I know), simply because people will start to argue that their "religious" weapons etc... should be allowed, also. You can read the bible on your own time.[/font][/color][/QUOTE]It's not that schools should ban any religious articles simply [i]because[/i] they're religious - that would be discrimination. It's not the school's responsibility to ensure that nothing religious occurs, just that nothing religious is forced upon the students (morning prayers, etc.). If a religious item conforms to school rules, then how could you keep the student from having it? I can understand not allowing the dagger or even the headgear if it was against rules, but telling a kid what and what not to [i]read [/i]is taking it more than a little too far. [quote name='Godelsensei][font=Courier New][color=#808080]Also, flaunting one's religious beliefs in such a diverse society can lead to tension between less mature members of whatever group, something that budget dollars simply shouldn't have to deal with.[/color'][/font][/quote] So following religious beliefs on how to dress or simply reading to yourself is "flaunting your beliefs"? [quote name='Godelsensei][font=Courier New][color=#808080]How do you know that the nice lady wearing the head- and body-covering isn't a man with a gun, playing host to all intentions to hold up the next bank he walks into?[/color'][/font][/quote] How do you know the kid next to you in the computer lab isn't about to bomb the school? You can hardly ever make even an educated guess about someone or their intentions based on appearance, and someone in a garb is no more suspicious than anyone else out there. And Icarus, that had nothing to do with the topic at hand. Godel directly said she didn't want any religious bashing (or anything that would start it), anyway.