Pete_the_Viscous

Oh, we have sunshine... only it's so faint due to its passing through so many layers of cloud cover. Reggae I like, but not as much as other types of music. I would recomend Sublime and Bob Marley, but it's been done.

Pulp Fiction is good, yeah. I'm not usually a fan of QT, as I find that he uses shocks (that is to say, shocking things, not "BOO!" sort of shocks) to get the reaction he wants far too often, as in Resevoir Dogs and things like From Dusk 'Til Dawn. Pulp Fiction, however, is great. That part where Bruce Willis's character is looking for a weapon to kill the rapists with is hilarious. Also, I thought the music on the film was quite well chosen.

I looked at this and thought: "Hmm. There passes another person I've never heard of and don't care about." Then, I looked at the quotes, laughed for a bit, and rephrased what I thought into: "shame, I'd have liked to have encountered him before. Oh well. TTFN"

Well then, if another company wants to mess google up, then all they need do is get ll their friends to create accounts, then tell them all to send each as many emails as they can, each of the largest size possible. I wouldn't do it, but I did do that at school once, to rebel against their ridiculous space allowance. Every time I logged on, I'd create an Excel spreadsheet with "all work and no play makes jack a dull boy" coppied and pasted into all cells (several times, mind) down to (IV,65536), or whatever the maxima are. Then I'd copy this document a load of times, do whatever work I had to do on the computer, then go away. Needless to say, it achieved nothing, :)

I think people are getting confused because of this: whilst most religious people in the world aren't Christian, Christianity has the most followers of any given religion. At least, I think that's what it is.

Jelly fish are the primary reason I won't swim in the sea. Certain places I'm fine with: the east coast (of England, I mean) seems jellyfish free... perhaps it's the north coast of Scotland that has them all.

:) Somewhat off topic but: one thing to try on BG2 is to be a bard. I always thought that they'd be carp, as they used to be on all the old games. Still, as they advance in levels the fastest and can cast such and such level mage spells, they can cast tenser's transformation... so it's like having an insanely high level fighter in your group. Oh, did you ever get the pickpocketting business to be worthwhile? It always seemed to go wrong for me.

I forget: can sorcerers use scrolls? Oh.... I thought, for a moment, that they couldn't use them at all, as opposed to just being unable to learn from them.

That google one is funny. It reminds me of something, but I've, in the process of writing this post, forgotten what it was. Never mind.

(*NOTE: if these images I'm going to post are annoying people, get a mod to remove them, or tell me to.*) Ah... if only Baldur's Gate one had been remade using all the new stuff from Baldur's Gate two; as with the old Half-Life being remade in the new one. Also: ah..... if only Baldur's Gate 2 had been bigger. I know it's big, and each time I've played through it I have actually found new sections that I didn't know existed. It's also a shame that one has to go through the lengthy opening dungeon (as with Planescape: Torment), which, whilst it was essential to the plot, was a bit tedious after the second time. Baldur's Gate 1 & 2 were two games that I thought acheived the correct ballance of open endedness v storyline; morrowind, on the other hand, whilst great (and with, admittedly, a good story) was a little too open in my oppinion. I'll tell you one problem I noticed in BG2, though: if the protagonist is a mage or sorcerer, they start off with lower HP than they should, as the game assumes you're going to get a familiar. Unfortunately, the sorcered, in choosing "Find Familiar" as one of their lvl1 spells, loses out on another spell on that level, and can only cast the spell ONCE in the game. !!! I forgot to add X-Com: Apocalypse to my list. Silly me. That's one of my favorite games, certainly. This game had the perfect blend of tactics (which are still more complex than any game of its type to date) and... I don't know, lots of other things :). One thing about this game was that the graphics had that sort of quality that means they'll never look too old, just like old cartoons don't look bad: they're not meant to look totaly realistic. Three main parts, had the game: 1) a city view, in which all sorts of things happened; the city was like a real city, with all the vehicles moving about and fights between gangs/police, etc. This could be viewed isometric like, or from an overhead map with symbols on. Day and night; futuristic buildings; parks; alien spaceships invading through dimension gates: what more could you want? 2) another aspect was the base building feature. On this screen you saw maze of grey tunnel lines on which you could build base facilities, etc. There was really stategy involved here, too, as you needed to place the security stations next to the entrances, etc. I can't quite explain this part adequately, but it was good. From the same screen one could access the resource management aspect of the game. There were several screens to get to, including hire/fire (for in this series of games you need to have agents, scientists, and mechanics; that sort of thing); agent equipment; vehicles; vehicle equipment, amongst other things. One could customise SO MUCH on this game that it was amasing. Also, the "equip agent" type screens let you pu... dyaknow, I'm just going to post a few pics, as it's going to be all night if I keep trying to explain it. Buy the game now, I'd suggest. I can't believe I didn't mention this before (in retrospect, I probably did). Another game that showed a lot of potential, I thought, was Divine Divinity. What a good idea that was, and quite well executed... it's a pity that the problems were there. Anyone played Beyond Divinity and want to recomend it to me? I'm not sure it's going to be worth getting, on account of my problems with the first one, but I hear that it's been fixed, somewhat.

What a terrible thing that the pope (by definition) has to be catholic. Not that I have anything against catholics, but when it's his time to die, (Ie. soon, by all accounts) he should be able to go with a little bit of dignity. Keeping him alive (and in the medias' eye) will be a monsterous thing to do. I don't know enough about that woman to comment, but what I saw on the news was hilarious: these priests standing outside the place with bibles clutched to their hearts and expressions of rapture on their faces, hands outstretched. I hope that ll the people at that protest were also at ALL anti war protests and ALL anti death row protests: one life v all the lives lost by the two other things... Also, I noticed that Mr. Bush (in his last speech on the matter) didn't actually say anything; he just fobbed everyone off by saying that all americans should be cared for, or something... a wise move, by my estimation.

I'd make more topics, but I'm not sure that people would be interested in what I have to say/have similar interests. The problem might lie in this area: interesting topics are often somewhat controversial. This itself isn't the problem; it's that some people can't take a proper argument without getting offended. One of the major things seems to be quote-fests that put everyone else off reading conversations; while these are enjoyable for those involved (especially if each thinks him/herself right), they are really boring for me (for I am never right).

April fools day is about FOOLING people, not injuring them. Practical jokes yes, but violence no. It's like walking up to someone and hitting them, saying "april fools". I've never been one to fool people, asside from family members with the old "oh, you know prince charles is dead" sort of thing. Lucky for me I stayed off all media until this afternoon, as I've been travelling.

While I'm not debating FFVII's greatness (for it is great), I don't think it should be named the best RPG of all time. Certainly one of the best games of all time, but the RPG elements aren't a patch on other RPG games, some of which have been listed by people further up (inc. me). One might argue that it's very RPG-ish because you play such a big role in it (ie. there's so much involving story), I would class that as an adventure game, as there's only one possible route to take. Obviously it's an RPG, not an adventure game, but the story isn't as RPGy as games like Morrowind or Baldur's gate, where one has much more freedom as to what to do, story wise. Oh, Deus Ex too: that's the sort of RPG I'm talking about: one where what you decide has more than just aesthetic effect. Once again, I'm not trying to badmouth FFVII, which I'd number amongst my top favorite games. Feel free to correct me, as I'm probably missing the point.

Another thing to take into account is what echelon of society you want to fit into. I'm not sure... are you talking about being taught by your family, or by private tutors? If the latter, then you're still bound to fit in amongst a certain group of people; if the former, then perhaps you'll fit in well with the people in your own little community, I don't know. I suppose it's all about what extremes you take it to; for instance: I saw, on a documentary one time, a group of neo-nazis who were teaching their children about racial issues (according to their own, rather unique beliefs) at home. They are going to fit in with their own type (can I generalise racists like that? I mean, being racist, they'd be hypocritical to object to my stereotyping them), but not with the rest of the world. On the other hand, you've got the sort of person who is taught at home for educational purposes; this usually (to my limited knowledge) is more about the standard of education and not the subject matter, so the people are still likely the sort who can get along with normal people, given the correct circumstances. If these people are alienated, then it's their own fault, if you ask me (which, of course, you don't), as they have ample oppertunity to meet people through extra-curricular activities. I, myself, am glad I'm not home-schooled (by which I mean both taught by family and privately tutored), as I wouldn't have become as socially adept as I am (and I'm still not very socially adept); this is not to say that all people are like this: I am just not the most social person, so wouldn't likely meet people through other means. Perhaps I would have recieved a higher level of education (and I again mean by both methods of home-schooling), but I can go and get that for myself later in life.... if I don't get it already. Nor would I likely decide on home-schooling for my children.. but if they turned out to be the sort of person for whom it would be best, then I'd reconcider.

I myself don't like the idea of swimming in the deep sea, but I always find it perfectly fine once I'm in. It's the same with deep lakes. I think it has to do with not being able to see what's underneat; animals, plants etc. I remember not being able to swim, but it was never a big problem, as I was always able to float and push myself about. Wow... I've not been swimming for ages, maybe a year or so.

Ah but it did: I gave a legitimate view of the future, whereas you two have just been complaining about each other's views and arguing about what's likely to happen, using your own political viewpoints. Besides which, I said that it was far removed from today, ie I am not being hypocritical for flaming; I said that in the future IJ won't do it.

Yeah, and Diablo 2 is still going, isn't it? It's got loads of new things; I went on it again about a month ago and discovered, to my surprise, a whole new thing: they've added synergy to skills, which really does improve the game. It's nice when people add things like that for free.

I envisage a futuristic world, far removed from today; one in which nobody flames, and everyone adds something new to the conversation.

Here follows a list of games that I deem to be baddazz... In no special order: Baldur's Gate 1, 2 Doom games Half-Life games Total Annihilation Kingdoms Final Fantasy 7 Heroes 4 (I actually think that this one is better both graphically and tactically) Tetris Warcrafts 1 and 2... maybe 3 Civilisation: Call to power (I've tried 3, and, no matter how much they claim to have made it more tactically advanced, it's not) Carmageddon 1 & 2 Command and Conquer: Tiberian Sun Thief 2: the metal age System Shock 2 Deus Ex 1 Majesty Starcraft Quest for Glory V Tribes 2 Zork: Grand Inquisitor Dungeon Keeper 1 and 2 Diablo 1 and 2 Soldier of Fortune 1 then 2 Unreal Unreal tournament UT 2003/4 The Elder Scrolls: Morrowind Hexen Heretic Requiem: Avenging Angel Fallout 2 Extatica 2 (I think it was called that; let me check... Oops: Ecstatica 2.) Grim Fandango Worms games, though not the 3D ones. Various old games that I forget the names of. I might add Planescape: torment to this list, but I've not played it in a while, and it didn't work all that well when I did play it... That's what comes of trying to buy it for about 7 years and then trying to use it on a far too fast machine. (I plan on getting an old pc to use old games on) All of the above are games that I would buy right now, did I not already own them.

Here I am; insofar as I may be represented by such a system:

I was going to post my playlist, but when I previewed it at size 1, it not only took up too much space, but also, at the end of every few tracks, was a smiley. In stead, here is something I got recently: ... 3631. R.E.M. - Leaving New York (4:49) 3632. R.E.M. - Electron Blue (4:12) 3633. R.E.M. - The Outsiders (4:15) 3634. R.E.M. - Make it All Ok (3:44) 3635. R.E.M. - Final Straw (4:07) 3636. R.E.M. - I Wanted to Be Wrong (4:35) 3637. R.E.M. - Wanderlust (3:04) 3638. R.E.M. - Boy in the Well (5:22) 3639. R.E.M. - Aftermath (3:54) 3640. R.E.M. - High Speed Train (5:03) 3641. R.E.M. - The Worst Joke Ever (3:38) 3642. R.E.M. - The Ascent of Man (4:07) 3643. R.E.M. - Around the Sun (4:28) 3644. Bill Bailey - Bryan Adams (3:36) 3645. Bill Bailey - Chaucer Pubbe Gagge (2:35) 3646. Bill Bailey - Beautiful Ladies (3:18) 3647. Bill Bailey - Classical Cockney (3:38) 3648. Bill Bailey - Countdown (1:08) 3649. Bill Bailey - Doctor Who (4:34) 3650. Bill Bailey - Foxhunting (2:04) 3651. Bill Bailey - Hats Off To The Zebras (3:04) 3652. Bill Bailey - Insect Nation (4:39) 3653. Bill Bailey - Magic Roundabout (1:45) 3654. Bill Bailey - Medieval Porn (1:50) 3655. Bill Bailey - Sirens (2:24) 3656. Bill Bailey - Unisex Chip Shop (1:34) ... I rather like the REM, but it's perhaps not as much as I like some of their other stuff.

... Flight of the navigator and the short circuit films.... I havent seen them for ages. They were good. I've been trying to think of films that I like that aren't that well known, but not managing. If I do remember any, I'll edit them in.

I considered making a few, but then I discovered that it wasn't worth the work. Anyway, it's not practical for me to have games on mine, as any time that I am reminded to use it, it's in use for maths/physics/etc. and any time that I feel like playing some manner of game, there's always a better thing for the job handy. That's not to say that I have any portable games thingummyjig--I just don't feel like playing games when out and about.

I know what you mean. I think, however, that at that level it's all one and the same; after all, one used to go to university not to do physics, maths or anything like that, but philosophy, and it was all inclusive. String theory (not that I know anything about it, of course) is most definitely a physics thing, rather than a maths thing: I know that much. I think that the world will have changed rather little, compared to what others seem to have said. People have said that we are all going to kill each other in wars.... how many wars do you know of in which the entire population of one side was wiped out? I personally cannot name one, (though there probably have been one or two small scale ones). It practically never happens; we're not going to wipe the human race out like that. Besides which, these days war is becoming less and less destructive; more advanced weaponary does not necessarily mean more destructive. Technology wise, I think that, though there will have been one or two major breakthroughs, nothing will have happened to make it unrecognisable--or too difficult to understand--to todays standards. I don't see electric cars of the sort we use today being continued, as it will become widely known the more processes one puts energy through, the less efficient that whole process is: where do they think the electricity for the cars comes from? It's from a powerstation: it's far more efficient, in the great scheme of things, to use the fossil fuels straight in the vehicle, rather than burning them at the power station and sending the electricity down the lines to the charging stations--a journey on which it has done work, thus losing energy. Medicine... I'm not sure how this is going to improve; I am, however, certain that will improve. I think that techniques based around genetic modification will become more widely accepted, and that this will improve the quality of life of most people, if only by a little bit. I also expect that nanotechnology will by then have advanced by leaps and bounds: after all, think how small precision stuff can be made nowadays, then think back to the level of technology they had 100 years back; why, they were still using great big clanking gears and cogs. BOO! Good, got your attention: I know how boring I'm being, but bear with me. I expect that inflation will continue as it is. This will of course have no effect on anything, other than things will sound like they cost a lot more; after all, it's not as if people will be less wealthy, in that they will still have the power they have, and the resources (including fossil fuels--I, you see, do not believe that they are going to run out all that quickly; prove me wrong, future). The fact that each coin/credit is worth this or that amount isn't important. One way of looking at things is this: has there ever been a really big change in anyones life, one that happened all at once and completely changed the world? Also, is today all that much different to yesterday (using day in the metaphorical sense, here)? No; it's a bit more advanced, but if you pop to your neighbour's house and ask for a cup of sugar, you can still get one--you can round here, anyway. So, it being established that nothing has changed that much, is it really likely that anything is going to change any quicker now? Obviously it might be a bit quicker, in that more knowledge often makes it easier to aquire yet more knowledge, but it's not going to be that much quicker. To those who say that we're going to run out of things to discover: that's silly. First of all (not that this is a particularly good argument, but: ) has it ever happened before? No. Secondly, exactly how many atoms is your chair comprised of? I bet you don't know; I know how many comprise mine, but that's because I'm special (a special child, if you will). The point I'm trying to make is that things like that, though you and I may not think them important, aren't yet known: as we don't know this, so we don't know everything. I think there will have been draughts, famines, disease epidemics, you name it, it's going to happen. So what? It's happened before, and can happen again, for all I care (as long as it doesn't happen to someone I care about, of course). Big giant rocks hitting the Earth? Yeah, I guess, but I can't see it being a problem: something that big is not going to sneak up behind us and shout boo like I did earlier in the post. In the future (and quite possibly there is today) there will be the technology to avoid that sort of problem. The only reason that film--sorry, those films--about a big rock hitting the Earth were only interesting, and only so long because it took the thick people at NASA (the people at NASA are very clever in real life, don't get me wrong) so long to figure out the solution, which is invariably to blow the darn thing up. MEGATSUNAMI!!!1!!. That's a buzzword, these days--even moreso now that that big tsunami occured. This one I can't think of a solutuion for, but I can't, somehow, see it as being as bad as they say. I'm not at all worried about it, even though in England one is never more than 75 miles/kilometres (I can't remember which) from the sea. It's about as scarey as global warming, which shall be the subject of my next rant. Global warming is another thing that I don't agree with. I know it's happening, but I don't think it's happening for the reasons that they (the proverbial they) say it's happening for. As far as I'm concerned, if we can have ice ages, we can have periods of global warming--naturally occuring ones. All told, we're still coming out of an ice age, and it's quite reasonable for the world to get warmer. For those animals they say will die out? Tough, they should have thought of that before they evolved such specialist requirements for their breeding/food/whatever. Besides which, why can't we just take two of them and shove them in a box designed to replicate their natural habitat until the world cools down enough for them again? We do it already, to an extent, in zoos/animal sanctuaries. I won't go into politics, because I don't presume to understand everything that goes on in the world of politics, hence am not qualified to comment. By that reasoning, my commenting on everything else in this post would require me to be the world authority on each subject.... pretend I didn't say any of it. Poverty? Yes. Lots of it, just like nowadays. Wars? Again yes. AIDS? AHA! No. This is the sort of thing that I can see being changed: if people make enough of an effort, AIDS, like rabies and smallpox, can be wiped out -- rabies in britain, at least: I don't know about other countries. I can't see that robots will have taken over all our daily chores, but I do imagine that a lot of batch processes (ie making tea) will have been taken care of. Not that I'm pro tea makers; making tea is half the enjoyment. Cleaning 'bots? Perhaps, but I don't see the attraction: it's not really worthwhile. Maybe in the future they will have perfected the control systems, and maybe they will have made them run on near cost-free fuels, but in just 100 years? I don't really expect so. Robot soldiers? No. Robot planes an tanks? Yes. I can't be bothered continuing, and I'm sure you don't want me to, anyway. Perhaps I shall go off and die somewhere. [/marvin]