Unhelpful

Tuesday, November 28, 2000 - 10:31 PM MST

You know, after Lum’s piece (which was filed as I was parsing this log), I should probably show some moderation and give the Glitchless people a break.

[Included in its entirety in the extension for your convenience.] Read more »

All is not well in the land of Dereth. In fact, some things are horribly, horribly wrong, and are doomed to relegate Asheron’s Call to a “legacy” game if not addressed soon - if it’s not too late already. Read more »

First Lieutenant William J. Clinton, a platoon commander in Company C of the 5th Battalion, 42nd Infantry, landed in Saigon, Vietnam today.

Reportedly, he was not able to locate his unit, nor for that matter, the US base he was assigned to. Although he was scheduled to report to his unit just outside Saigon, he was accidnetally misrouted to Ho Chi Minh City. He was optimistic, despite the confusion.

“I think the American presence here is clearly encouraging the government and troops of South Vietnam, and I’m confident we’ll defeat the Viet Cong in no time.”

Representatives of the government of South Vietnam and the Johnson administration were unavailable for comment.

I’ve been listening to a lot of the punditry regarding the presidential election. I would like to take this high-profile moment in our nation’s nistory to propose that we retire certain words and phrases from our political discourse.

Lockbox

This metaphor for “untouchable money” is a bit tired, to say the least. Let’s just give it up now before it replaces “breadbox” as a unit of measure in 20 Questions.

Mandate

Here’s a pet peeve: A president or other elected official declares his or her election a … you guessed it … “Mandate from the People”. Whenever I hear this phrase, it brings to mind the official propaganda of “Revolutionary” governments (hence the capitalization) such as China, Cuba, and until quite recently, Mexico. To me, “mandate” represents a true groundswell of political rapport, a real message from the people, as it were. When one wins election at a 48% vs 44% of the vote, this is not a flag-waving, marching band “mandate”. Go get at least 65% (and preferably 70% or more) of the vote before you take the word “mandate” out of its lockbox.

Divine the Intent of the Voter

I have to admit, this “manifesto” style of capitalization is fun in its own perverse way. This is one of those thorougly emotional phrases that may be great in winning debating points, but really grates in the mind of people who prefer a higher level of rhetorical discourse: one that assumes people are intelligent enough to see through the divination of political hacks. We trust our system to “divine the intent of the voter”, that’s how it works.

The People’s Business

Why is it that the only time it’s important to do the people’s business is precisely when there are twenty microphones and fifty cameras surrounding the speaker? Do these people ever wake up in the middle of the night and say to themselves “I’ll stop all this political posturing and party pissing matches so I can get the people’s business done?” I suspect that if they did, Congress could spend the last half of its yearly sessions watching reruns of the formative 70s TV sitcom “Good Times”.

and isn’t that exactly the way J.J. would have wanted it?

You know, I’m sure there’s some cutting social commentary that would be appropriate here, but … I’m nearly speechless.

Someone who doesn’t even follow MRPGs showed me this. I can’t figure out if this is hilarious, sad, bizarre, or just plain disturbing.

Discuss: But I’m sure you can. (Comments) [dead link]

[Note: This was an image of Firona Vie on amihotornot.com, long since expired.]

Turbine has a convenient player/dev Q&A page, so they can avoid answering the same questions over and over.

This one particularly amused me:

Question Title: Where are the Dragons?

Question: I understand why you have not picked up some of the traditional “D&D” type monsters. The game is fresh in this regard and I applaud you for your innovation…

Any chance of Dragons entering the world anytime soon?

Name: Jason Booth

Answer: none what so ever.

I have a suggestion. If you want cliché “traditional fantasy”, there are plenty of other games which cater to that brand of generica. Fight dragons with your drow elven princess warrior priestesses there.

Discuss: Sorry, “FIRST POST” has already been made. Continue on with your day. [dead link]