DarthTofu

Just say no to both types of cocaine, Rob. It's bad for you, regardless. Seriously, that stuff'll give you a heart attack. I had a friend accidentally kill himself by drinking too much Mountain Dew. Got addicted to it, he did.

Sounds like a crap-tastic morning to wake up to, Rob. You have my pity. I always hate those mornings. When you have to drink an energy drink just to stay up... *shudders* I hate the taste of Rockstar or Monster or whatever that crap was.

Dude, don't do it! The duel mode isn't worth it! Just wait for the full-out duel game! TFU will be a waste if you play it on the Wii; it's gotta be on a 360 or PS3. Go to a friend's if you have to, but don't settle for the Wii version. There's a reason I shan't be buying it for the PS2.

So, the "Force Unleashed" demo comes out tomorrow. I have no idea where you can download it, but seeing as everyone is so excited about it, somebody with a PS3 or 360 should really download it and tell us all how it is... Or else.

So it's 1:30 in the morning, I have school on Thursday, and I can't sleep. My internal clock is quite possibly the most messed up internal clock on my little island. How's everyone else's? What time do you usually go to sleep/wake up? Not that it matters, I'm just a curious insomniac, here.

Ah, yes. That would be a problem. One of the reasons lots of folks prefer to play as the Rebs; victory conditions are quicker and easier. That being said, you can scout out those areas very quickly if you just develop fleets for the explicit purpose of colonization. I tend to send about sixty troops on whatever is lying around/whatever I build out into an unexplored/uninhabited system. Sixty, because if worst comes to worst and all ten or so planets are occupied by the Rebels, I can storm the planet and take it all for myself, despite the diplomacy losses. Stick a Star Destroyer or three in there, too, and a good Admiral/General (he or she doesn't have to be both at once, so why bother with sending two characters for the two purposes?) for defense fleets and bombardments, and you're good. Oh, yes: don't forget to load up two or three escort carriers with TIE Interceptors. Those things are very much necessary, as any AI Planet worth its salt will have a ton of fighters lying about for you to deal with. Lancers are helpful, too. Okay, so my fleet are usually rather armed-to-the-teeth (I imagine that'll serve me well if I ever play online) and yours don't have to be. But just remember that, and you should be fine. While you make new fleets, keep sending out those probe droids. Any planet with an unsuccessful mission/reveals a Rebel planet will tell you which system(s) to invade. Hope that helped.

Hey, Whiskey. You sound like me in your playing habits... 'cept I only discovered the game my freshman year of high school, and this is my senior year right now. Enjoy, and if I ever get my copy of Rebellion back from a friend who still steadfastly refuses to bother to learn how to play before he starts trying to play, I may go up against you. Assuming I'm not buried in work from all of my AP classes.

I hardly ever chat online anymore. A few years back, when I did, my answer would have been AIM. Now it's more Google Talk or Facebook Chat than anything else. I also use the iChat program. It came free with the iMac, and can connect to a couple of different chat programs, though not nearly to the extent that Pidgin and Trillian seem to be capable of it. It's limited to AIM and a few others, so far as I know.

Zackynthos... that sounds like a place where you can obtain a magical sword with which to fight evil or something. At any rate, even if you don't find a magical sword, enjoy your stay. And remember; tropical islands are a great place to hole up in the event of a zombie outbreak.

I'll keep in mind that the X-Files and other shows with a large "F" for "Fiction" agree with you, Rob. We're starting to get more of Fay now, and the worst is yet to come. Flooding is inevitable, I'm pretty sure. It's going to pass right over us, and the ground is a bit saturated with water right now. Fay is supposed to be here clear through to tomorrow (Wednesday), so I suspect that it'll get really wet sometime around then. School is cancelled for Wednesday, too. *Looks out window* The good news is that the rain isn't coming down sideways or anything; it's pretty close to coming down straight. The bad news is that there's a lot of it, and that the ditch in the back yard is really starting to get deep with water. Mosquitos are gonna suck for the next few weeks with all of that stagnant water lying around... Edit: So today marks day two that my county has been all but shut down due to Fay. It also marks the second day of nothing but rain. Tomorrow the county will still be shut down, because the stupid storm still won't have left. It's odd that I'm complaining about this, seeing as this is supposed to be the first day of school and all, but I'd really rather not have a repeat of the 2004 hurricane season when we had to cut and trim from all sorts of student holidays in order to make up the days we missed due to hurricanes. It isn't even that bad out there; gusts can't be more than twenty, twenty-five miles an hour. A school bus could totally stand up to that! Oh, and on a side note: The ditch outside of my house is almost completely filled up, now. Flooding is starting to look like an inevitability, especially if we get a third day of this crap. I'll snap pictures when it's all over, and you can all commiserate with me about the mosquito issues due to a couple hundred gallons of stagnant water lying around behind my house.

And in other news: Tofu has no school today because of Tropical Storm Fay. Day two of the school year and he's already getting off from it! Woo! *Knocks on wood* I seem to be lucky enough to never take a direct hit from a hurricane or tropical storm. Worst damage my place has ever suffered has been limited to a few trees falling over and our outside screen getting torn up. Nothing beyond that, though.

From time to time, yeah. I still live with my folks, so I don't have to cook all that often, especially since my folks both prefer to cook most nights. I have a few recipes under my belt, going beyond my "advanced" omelette of awesome. The most "complicated" thing I can cook is probably what we like to call "Pho-Chicken-Cordon-Bleu." It's boneless, skinless chicken breast pounded flat, with cheese and a slice of ham laid on top of it. You roll it up, stick it with a toothpick, and stick in the over until it's golden brown. It's pretty tasty stuff, what with the combination of flavors and everything. You just have to be certain that A) You pound the chicken flat enough and B) You take out the toothpick. One was left in there one time and... well, it's like Luke with the rancor and that giant bone in RotJ.

I don't think it's a glitch. Others have run into this issue before. My advice is to load that game back up, stick it on "high speed," and walk away for a little while. The Rebel HQ is still in transit across the galaxy or something, so it just has to reach that planet. Relocate fleets to the planets that the Rebels used to control, and be prepared to crush their fleet when it comes out of hyperspace. Then pounce on 'em and pound them into submission. Regardless of whether or not you win the space battle, the Rebel HQ should be destroyed, and you'll win.

Dammit, Australia! Stop being funnier than the US!

I might go to see it on Sunday, but that's making two major assumptions. 1) I don't hear that it sucks. While unlikely, it's more likely than 2. 2) I grow some innitiative and actually bother to finish up Their Eyes Were Watching God faster than I have to, and write the subsequently necessary paper early, rather than screwing around on the Internet/writing other stuff/doing everything in my power to avoid doing my summer homework before it's absolutely necessary that it be done... It's due Monday, BTW.

Also: Ponce didn't really care about the Fountain of Youth worth piss. In his journals, which detail over two years spent in Florida, he mentions the Fountain of Youth a grand total of six times. In reality, he was sent to look for the Fountain of Youth, but that was only a secondary objective; Ponce was out seeking gold. Spain's mighty king was rather old, and his new wife was rather young. Wishing to have some more "fun" with her, he really wanted a way to get good and young- thus, the Fountain of Youth... Which Ponce could care less about.

Oh, hey, ArcaneWinds didn't vanish- I sort of assumed he'd let his account die of lack of use. Hey, Arcane! http://www.worth1000.com/entries/301000/301314WcEB_w.jpg http://talk.bmc.com/blogs/blog-bohren/jeff-bohren/integration http://paulhutch.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2007/05/demotivator1-small.jpg In honor of Sir Douglas Adams, I must now say: Forty-two!

Well... I, for one, am disgusted beyond all belief.

Russia says: Choose them or us. I'm not liking this one bit... This is making me support McCain a bit more than I did before, primarily because he has foreign policy experience that's going to be critical. That being said, I'm not sure we want to get involved here. Sure, just about everyone is ticked at the Russians, but the way our country is standing by Georgia, I'm afraid that the US may or may not go "lone ranger" in getting into a war with the Russians. By the same token, I'm not sure that we want to just let Russia get away with taking over Georgia and, potentially, Ukraine. This may well explain why the Russian government opposed Georgia or Ukraine joining NATO so vehemently- if they'd gotten in and the Russians had attacked, they would have had to deal with a heck of a lot more resistance immediately due to the treaty. As it stands, they don't. With regards to kicking Georgia out of the G8... I don't know about that. Then again, I'm still having some difficulty grasping just what, exactly, the G8 does that's of any benefit to the countries involved. It appears to just lay down rules and regulations, but this is all based on a Wikipedia article that I'm reading. Anybody know what the deal is with it and care to enlighten me some?

.... wow. Way to fail, there, Rob. Yeah, as we've said before: Bigfoot isn't real. ... And you're crazy. Very much so.

Very nice car, sir. It's a nice even twelve years younger than mine, though, so you'll have to work to bring its soul up to my level of awesomeness! ... Okay, yeah, so a 1994 Geo Prizm in light blue is about twenty times less manly than a 2006 gold Stratus. But still... Umm... What was I saying? Oh, yeah- congrats on the new car. What were you cruising in before, if anything?

We aren't involved... yet. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/25684774/ Edit: So I probably should have known this before, but oh well. The 2,000 Georgian troops in Iraq got there via (bum-bada-bum!) American troop transport planes. To get back home, they'd have to take (bum-bada-bum!) American troop transport planes. Thus, if the US goes ahead and honors the Georgians's request that their troops be delivered back home, we're essentially delivering fighting forces into Georgia, which the Russians can, should they so choose, interpret as an act of war.

lol- sorry if I snapped a bit. That's just part of the reason I kept it to myself for about a year that I'd seen a UFO. I remember that there was a similar incident in both Numerberg and Hamburg Germany in the fifteen and sixteen hundreds, each event about a century apart from the other. There are a few famous woodcuts of the events. While the ones I found feature black spheres, I remember reading about one that featured red and yellow spheres- I think it was in Italy, but I'm not sure. Seeing as these are woodcuts, there's really no way to be sure what the deal was with that. And I remembered to mention that the second sun I saw was not, as I'd originally said, in the west, but was, in fact, in the east, right? And no, it wasn't quite like what you have there, Eagle. Those are far too tiny to have been what I saw, and the light is off. Where mine seemed a very solid, stable, "burnt" shade of orangish-yellow, those UFOs are rather neon-ish in their bright, shifting colors. Good find, though.

Yes, I do, about an hour's drive south of the space center. And I've seen shuttles, satellites, etc. launch before. They go up with tiny, roughly dime-sized flares of fire in the sky from a viewer's perspective. They leave behind a large trail of white smoke due to their hydrogen-and-oxygen-reaction fuel, and they really don't look much of anything like what I saw. It was big, about the size of your fist held at arm's length from a viewer's perspective. There was no trail to it at all. The other possibility, I suppose, is Patrick Air Force Base. I don't know too much about their operations, though I've been on base plenty of times (I have military in the family- it's where we get all of our foodstuff). What I've seen has been pretty laid back, with no exceptionally strenuous duty or special attention to cutting edge technology. Most of the buildings look like I imagine they did when the place was first built, both on the inside and on the outside. It might have been something from the base, though. I know Air Force planes have caused UFO reportings and the like before...

Didn't Mad beat him to this, like, two years a- way to go, Scath! Woohoo! ... I'm almost there.... just a little.... bit.... farther...