Allamorph

[FONT=Arial][COLOR="DarkRed"]Gavin[/COLOR], Pundit Kitchen is a subsidiary of Lolcats.[/FONT]

[FONT="Arial"]Turns out Naruto isn't limited to cloning [URL="http://www.pown.it/3059?r=527485"][COLOR="Blue"]himself[/COLOR][/URL]. Big surprise there.[/FONT]

[QUOTE=Korey][FONT="Franklin Gothic Medium"]Power-tripping? Ok, you keep thinking that....;)[/FONT][/QUOTE] [FONT=Arial][I]*power-trips you*[/I] [I]*trips*[/I] Yay pratfalls. :animestun[/FONT]

[FONT=Arial]I had a very good discussion with a friend I rarely see around campus today. We went over a plethora of completely unrelated topics, and just sitting and talking for an hour and a half felt great. But during the course of our chat, we'd been discussing economics for a while when my friend alerted me to this bit of news released today at noon. [URL="http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5i0670afSPpeLEmH2SgLHC51kmGJQD97NKN080"][COLOR="Blue"]Freddie Mac official found dead in apparent suicide[/COLOR][/URL]. Given the late events, I'm of very mixed feelings about this incident. On the one hand I'm not sure whether to be surprised, because as the Chief Financial Officer, David Kellerman was more than likely in control of at least some part of what led to the recent economic fiasco. But on the other hand, I simply can't imaging the sheer magnitude of hopelessness that would drive a man?with a family, no less?to take his own life. Granted, the police only said "apparent" suicide, which means they haven't ruled out foul play just yet, but I feel rather skeptical of speculating down that line of thinking at the moment. And yet.... ...ugh. I simply cannot understand feeling like death is the only surcease. Bad situation, especially for his surviving family. Five-year-old daughter....[/FONT]

[quote name='Nathan][FONT="Arial"]Also, I contest your claim to being the department for the regulation of [I]fun[/I] and [I]safe[/I'] use of italics. [/FONT][/quote] [FONT=Arial]If you think I use italics in a fun and safe manner, you my friend are sorely mistaken. [I]*guffaw*[/I] I just said it's my jurisdiction. I never said whether I used my powers for good or evil. :animesmil[/FONT]

[quote name='Nathan][FONT="Arial"]Exactly. I don't recognize anything that's being brought up here as the [U]good[/U] [U]old[/U] [U]times[/U']. [/FONT][/quote] [FONT=Arial]Oh now there's no need to be cynical, mister E Em Tee. :p Old times are allowed to be good even if the new times are just as good. Plus being snarky with italics is my department anyway. So there.[/FONT]

[FONT=Arial]It bothers me now and again that the contraction for "who are" looks very very close to the word whore.[/FONT]

[quote name='Sara]Jimin[i]y[/i']. Everyone in this thread has been here since I was active. Do new people even register here, anymore?[/quote] [FONT=Arial]We do. We just don't post in threads dedicated to time before us. Also I think I converse semi-regularly with, like, two of the people who might fall under this category. Shame on the rest of you.[/FONT]

[FONT=Arial]I'm so comfortable with my sexual orientation that I can not only make fun of it, but laugh at the same time.[/FONT]

[FONT=Arial]I often wonder if [COLOR="DarkRed"]Botar[/COLOR] is afraid of silence. If he replies to this message, does that make him needy? :angel:[/FONT]

[quote name='Stephanie][size=1']@John: no, but we do know - from watching our guy friends - just how long it lasts.[/size][/quote] [FONT=Arial]No, you really don't. What you [I]do[/I] know is how long we go before we're able to suck it up, grit our teeth, and take it like men. But you wouldn't know how to do that, not being men and all. :whoops:[/FONT]

[quote name='Afro][SIZE="1"']OC: Allamorph, I hope I didn't butcher your character. If I did, just tell me, and I'll try to fix it.[/SIZE][/quote] [FONT=Arial]Only thing I'd say is that Cephas wouldn't go out of his way to lord anything over anyone. I'm not even sure he'd go out of his way to talk to people at all if there wasn't something that immediately concerned him. Think of it this way: his motto is sort of "if you don't know how much better I am, you'll figure it out pretty soon". So no sneering or stuff like that. He's just the guy who pisses you off by simply existing. Now, if you wanted to initiate conversation by having Bedlam get set off by the way Cephas looks at him as he passes, that'd work. And then any of Cephas's responses would be reserved and just unconcerned enough to tick Bedlam off even more, as if Cephas didn't even care that Lazarus is dead. His entire reaction to that news would have been "Oh. That's unfortunate."[/FONT]

[CENTER] [IMG]http://www.halolz.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/08/disable.gif[/IMG] [FONT=Arial]No way! I don't believe it![/FONT][/CENTER]

[quote name='Stephanie][size=1']And no, I'm not, but I stand statisfied by the fact that men are cursed with kidney stones.[/size][/quote] [FONT=Arial]Not if we drink cranberry juice! No, I'm serious. It's the anti-oxidants, I think. [I]*loves cranbery-grape juice*[/I][/FONT]

[quote name='Rosencavalier']James, that was a truely exceptional post.[/quote] [FONT=Arial]And you go on to ignore the point of the whole thing and continue what you were originally doing. Which is baiting people. And now I'm going to rise to it just a little. :) [QUOTE][I]So your argument is that these passages are outdated; unlike the bible.[/I][/QUOTE] No. His statement is that these passages are part of a historical account of the nation of Israel, an account which stretches from Joshua through 2nd Chronicles, and as such reports the actions of Israel and her kings regardless of whether or not they were right in the sight of God. The first passage in Judges there recounts a retributional act by the other Israeli tribes after defeating the tribe of Benjamin in essentially a civil war. The whole incident starts back in Judges 19 with a Levite and his concubine. [INDENT]Quick aside: I've never quite understood the concept of a concubine. Far as I can tell, it's a woman by which the male head of a household bears children, but she's not his wife, and yet she's part of his household and her children are considered legitimate heirs. ....[I]what?[/I][/INDENT] Anyway, long story short, this Levite's concubine "played the harlot against him" and then ran to her dad for safety, since I think the law at the time was pretty harsh against adulterers. Levite (now called her husband; wtf) goes down to her dad's house to "speak tenderly to her" so she'll come back. Forgiving chap. Her dad starts playing the man for a dupe, attempting to delay the Levite's departure until God knows when, and after five days of this the Levite gets fed up and leaves in the evening. He, his girl (success!) and his two servants get as far as Gibeah, in Benjamin, before they have to stop, but everyone there was a jerk and they couldn't find lodging. They're sitting in the town square in the middle of the night when an old man sees them and takes them in. Then, while they were eating, "the men of the city, [U]certain worthless fellows[/U], surrounded the house, pounding on the door . . . saying 'bring out the man who came into your house that we may have relations with him'." [I](Judges 19:23, NAS[/I] Right-O. So it's not just rape these worthless fellows are after. It's homosexual rape. You know, I seem to remember a similar incident back in Genesis involving residents of a town called Sodom. Sodom was destroyed with fire, and the one person who witnessed it was turned into a pillar of salt. So the old man gets panicky and offers his wife along with his visitor's girl. Gnarly dudes take the girl and rape and abuse her almost to death. She does die after managing to crawl back to her master's (the guy who was her husband a while back; wtf?) door. He wakes up in the morning, comes out, sees her dead, takes her body back to his house, cuts her into twelve pieces (ew) and sends a piece to each Israeli tribe. EW. All the tribal leaders show up at his door in a collective state of WTF, DUDE? So he explains what happened and asks for counsel, and they decide Gibeah (the town in question) should be punished for such heinous acts. So they take up arms. 400,000 of them. For pre-King era Israel, that's a freaking lot. Anyway. War with Benjamin, Benjamin eventually loses, and then the funky stuff starts. See, apparently at the counsel to decide what to do with Benjamin, an oath had been sworn to completely cut off Benjamin from the nation, including refusing to marry any Benjamites and refusing to allow their daughters to marry Benjamites. Now they all start feeling bad about this, because they're going to lose a tribe entirely. So what to do? Someone gets the bright idea to give the Benjamin men some women. So they find this clan who hadn't sent anyone to fight against Benjamin, send 12,000 guys to kill all the men and all the non-virgin women and bring back all the virgins for Benjamin. Flawless plan.[/sarcasm] 'Cept there aren't enough women to go round. So THEN they tell all the Benjamites to go lie in wait for the women of Shiloh who walk down a particular road before a feast of the Lord, and take advantage of them there. tl;dr version: Levite's girl gets raped to death, Levite calls for counsel, rapists are killed and Benjamin almost destroyed, and the clan is told to survive . . . through more rape. [QUOTE][B]Judges 21:25[/B] [FONT="Arial"][I]In those days there was no king in Israel; everyone did what was right in his own eyes.[/I][/FONT][/QUOTE] Moral of the story, [COLOR="DarkRed"]Rosencavalier[/COLOR]: know your material. I don't like it when fellow [I]Christians[/I] quote single verses from scripture because it is so easy to take it completely out of context and remain ignorant of the surrounding information. And these are people who're supposed to read it regularly. [quote name='Rosencavalier'] Also you should read sabre's response towards me first before you so rashly try to label me as condescending.[/quote] We did. You were. Back down the tone, bucko.[/FONT]

[quote name='Botar15']Hey guys, I won't be here till tomorow, so.... do I get Web-hugs?[/quote] [FONT=Arial]For one day's absence? That's, like, normal, dude. So no.[/FONT] [CENTER][IMG]http://i195.photobucket.com/albums/z158/Allamorph/Misc/lolz/situationalz/youlose.jpg[/IMG][/CENTER]

[quote name='chibi-master']Not all of us are as tedious and willing to work as much as you, Allamorph... I'm personally just too lazy...[/quote] [FONT=Arial]There is absolutely no effort involved in opening up Microsoft Word. There is no change in the effort expended in writing the post. In fact, the only change in the amount of effort necessary is highlighting the finished post, pressing Ctrl+C, and pressing Ctrl+V in the post box. And what the devil gave you the impression that I'm "willing to work" at posting? Don't waste your time getting defensive over something like this, else you risk showcasing your age.[/FONT]

[quote name='Stephanie][size=1']...too many people believe themselves condemned to an eternal pit of pain and torture because they weren't perfect enough.[/size][/quote] [FONT=Arial]....do what? o_O [COLOR=#EDEDED] I think someone is missing some information....[/COLOR][/FONT]

[quote name='chibi-master']Hey, don't you hate it when you're about to post a really big important post for an RPG and all of the sudden your internet goes out or something like that?[/quote] [FONT=Arial]First, if you write your entire post in the postbox, once you realise the internet is out you should leave your browser on the last page you were working in. FireFox will remember everything I've typed into this box once I start to navigate away, so as long as I don't close the window I'm fine. Second, and this is a tricky concept for a lot of people... ...type your darn post in Word.[/FONT]

[FONT=Arial]SNEAKY DUTCHMEN ARE SURROUNDING US.[/FONT]

[quote name='Nathan][FONT="Arial"']However, it doesn't mean the stress is caused by the economic issues. [/FONT][/quote] [FONT=Arial](I only quote this person because it's the quickest one to quote.) I think there's been a bit of misleading going on even in this thread. What I meant by my remark was that it is not the economy that is causing a rise in domestic abuse. There are underlying factors associated with domestic abuse, and the economy is merely a catalyst for those factors. Additionally, the economic situation at present is not a [U]cause[/U] for stress so much as it is a [U]factor[/U] in stress. People who have little stress will likely find little more heading their way, unless they allow themselves to become stressed by being led by the media. Those who have moderate levels already will find their stress compounded; if you aren't good at handling life when life is easy, collapsing markets sure won't help you any. Then you have two sides to the abuse coin. On the one, there is the aspect of more openness towards reporting abuse instead of silently coping and waiting it out. (Which is good, so long as such reports aren't abused....but that's irrelevant at the moment.) On the other, you have people who did not previously abuse and now do. When a person show odd behavior changes, such as this one, it is generally because they momentarily forget themselves and act on impulse. I know from experience how easy it is to say or do something very hurtful before realising what happened; thus, with stress comes more easily-frayed tempers, and with shorter tempers come more frequent accidental outbursts. And if anger and pride (or shame) happen to get in the way, reconciliation might not always happen. I dislike behavioral statistics predominantly because interpreting behavior is never cut-and-dried. And until I see evidence that studies published through the media are using multivariate statistics, and I know enough about the field to be able to discern proper usage, I tend to take studies like these as simply an interesting note and another piece of a larger whole, instead of a definite [I]A causes B[/I]. [quote name='Korey][FONT="Franklin Gothic Medium"']... I think that violence really stems from a the individual's personality. Everyone reacts to stress differently and if you have violent tendencies, then that's what ends up being prevalent in a pressing situation.[/FONT][/quote] I feel that this sentiment is also a tad misled. For instance, I am an extraordinarily violent-natured person. Everyone in my family has problems with temper fits, actually, and I often want react to little situations by blowing them completely out of proportion?and by that I mean that even hearing the guttural consonants in whispers makes me want to start flailing about with a machete. Over the years I've learned to soften the deal by being ridiculous about it so there at least is some sense of comedy about it, like when I mess up a passage during rehearsal and start jumping up and down spouting irritated incoherent jibberish (provided we're standing up), but the tendency is still there. But that's about all I'll let myself react to. I know I'm emotional and irrational when angered, and so when something worth getting upset over happens I refuse to allow myself to display my anger openly. It's a control thing: so long as I am in possession of my body, I will decide what I react to and when I react. (The release process invariably involves about an hour of solitude with my CD player. Very effective; I highly recommend it. I suppose you could call it 'meditation' . . . if you wanted to.) tl;dr. Point there is that those who truly desire to control themselves will find a way to do so, whether it be through their own power or through seeking outside intervention. (Neither of which is better or worse than the other.) Those who are afraid of losing control . . . will typically lose control. I could go into the psychosomatic part, but I've blithered a while already, and I need a nap.[/FONT]

[QUOTE=Shy][size=1]I keep trying to break up with my beau, and he's not listening. This will be the third time in three consecutive days. I'm sick of feeling like I'm the bad guy because I don't want to be in the relationship. Why won't some people take 'no' for an answer? Bleh.[/size][/QUOTE] [FONT=Arial]If he's playing you like the bad guy, that's his problem. Let your yes be yes, and your no be no.[/FONT]

[quote name='Cat']A bit off topic.....[/quote] [FONT=Arial]You said this line seriously. Wow. Also I think I just realised that [COLOR=DarkRed]taperson[/COLOR]'s banner is an Imogen Heap theme. I happen to like that song rather much.[/FONT]

[QUOTE=Drizzt Do'urden]I was watching [B]Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring[/B] and though I've seen it a couple times I've never paid much attention to a specific part. [spoiler]Towards the end, when Sam (the fat hobbit) is chasing Frodo. He runs into the river, though Frodo is shouting about how he can't swim. Well as Sam goes underwater, which is crystal clear, he goes from being able to stand to being completly submerged. As it shows him sink deaper and deaper, there is no ground at all behind him. No place for him to have been standing on in the first place. [/spoiler] Now this is only one example of a piece in a movie that has made me go "WTF!? Can they seriously be that idiotic that they don't realize that people won't notice?"[/QUOTE] [FONT=Arial]That scene bothered me for a while after I first saw it. But I attribute it to two things. [spoiler]First, the river leading up to Rauros Falls is a very old, very deep river, and most likely very fast at the bottom. Given time (Tolkien supplies more than enough of that), I suspect the river might have worn itself a trough in the center, and Sam might have fallen off of the shelf and into it. But this is only a surmise. The second item is to remember that Sam cannot swim. And to a person who cannot swim, simply being submerged is terrifying enough, because all you can do is sink. It doesn't matter how far away the surface is because you can't get there, or how far away the bottom is because you're panicking about how to get back up and breathe. So from a distorted-perception standpoint, it makes more sense.[/spoiler] The scene in [B]Matrix: Reloaded[/B] where [spoiler]Neo pulls Morpheus and the Keymaker off the exploding 18-wheelers. Neo is animated so that he's almost undulating like a whale.[/spoiler] Although I highly doubt I need tags for the freaking Matrix. :p[/FONT]

[FONT=Arial]I'll buy that. If nothing else, heck of a way to come up with a decent excuse off the top of his head.[/FONT]