Styx and friends went to London and waged war with the British underage drinking policy. Initial (utopic) goal: - play Circle Of Death with all 6 members, 5 underage, in an English pub - get loaded because of it - get away with it What we accomplished: - played Circle Of Death with all 6 members in our room in the youth hostel (where it is forbidden as well) - half of us got loaded due to having been drinking in a pub beforehand (the other half got ID checked and kicked out somewhere else), the other half got mildly light-headed - got away with it So who do you think was the victor? === As for the details of our operation... Our invasion of Russell Square was hardly successful at first [entry to the bar of our very hostel was denied] so we scouted another area occupied by the enemy. [we went shopping near London and looking for nice-looking drinkeries] Alas, we suffered great defeat in the Battle Of Soho the next day [we got ID checked and kicked out after we paid for our drinks] but we retaliated by conquering Shakespeare's Head [a pub where we even talked with the bartenders without getting ID checked] In our winning streak a small batallion of shock troopers recovered our base and claimed loot that the enemy had forgotten [Me and my cousin snuck into the bar in the later hours and we picked up some French chicks] However, the enemy brought re-inforcements the next day and we were forced to retreat. [We snuck in again, but after a while some guy came up to us to check our IDs yet again] All seemed lost and some officers were contemplating a surrender. [They went gaming and shopping instead] We convinced them by winning the Battle Of Cornwallis and planting our flag in its surface. [another pub, played a full Circle Of Death there, but not with all participants sadly] An area that another batallion had conquered before, however, fell into enemy hands. The Battle Of John Russell was lost. [You guessed it: ID check as soon as we barged in with the full party] Our final plan was to raid the enemy base and plant our flag there once and for all, but not without compromising. [We bought a crate of beer and smuggled it in our room, but we gave up the bar.] Private Styx, reporting back in.
Opening it today because I'm leaving on a trip tomorrow. I can't lock July's poetry contest due to it not being my own thread, but obviously that contest is closed. This month's winner is Mvalentine with his poem A sweet dream. It was a delicate and romantic masterpiece and true to the haiku style. The ending added a bittersweet note to it. Well done. This month's theme is animals. At least one animal should play a large role in your poem. Whether you portray it as a physical being or as a metaphor doesn't matter. Good luck to you all!
A suggestion has been made to keep all manga threads in one location from now on, despite the section descriptions stating that they are allowed both here and in Anime & Manga. I think we can agree, however, that this is making things needlessly confusing. So here's the deal: I'm asking all members to create your Manga threads in the Anime & Manga section from now on. Manga threads that end up here will be moved to said section and I can't be arsed to notify you all when that happens. :-P Thanks for your co-operation, and have a nice day!
I'm going to Tanzania for research (and vacation). I'll be leaving tomorrow and I'll be back the 24th. I'll see you when I see you. Take care, guys and gals!
I'm studying it right now. Have an exam about it tomorrow. One of the major milestones in the history of sustainable development was "Our Common Future" (aka "The Brundtland Report"). Basically for the first time sustainable development became a massive issue, appearing on the international agenda, along with this key statement: In other words, development is important, but we cannot let it happen at the cost of our future generations. The environment where our children and their children will live in will have a great influence on their welfare, and thus must be preserved. That's the gist of it. ==== I think it's bull. Seriously. Humanity's awareness for the environment, and for sustainable development, has never been this high and a lot of people start taking measures. But to what avail? Sustainable development means creating strong, durable bonds between planet, people and profit. This, as I'm learning today but already knew before, is incredibly difficult. This is shown by the miserably failed gathering at Copenhagen. Aside from the many dilemmas we're bound to encounter along the road, some countries just plainly have an attitude problem. This is a blatant case of pondering over a Gordian knot if I've ever seen one. Why do we stretch humanity's life span, and how far do we plan to go? We won't have it any better at the time of the apocalypse, the eradication of the planet by whatever astrophysical means is chronologically the first (black hole, sun turning into a red giant, whatever) than that we have it now, if (and that's a very big if) we even make it that far. I predict that bending over backwards for generations to come (can't picture them being grateful to us by the way) and crawling through various narrow holes in order to save up for later will only end up prolonging a battle that we'll eventually lose. This is the rational and pragmatic aspect of my argument; this is not just an easy way out, this is ceasing to fight something we can't beat. There's no shame in aborting a mission that serves no purpose. Our alternative? We squander. We put the long-term thinking in the background or even get rid of it completely, in favor of a short-term thinking pattern. This will lead to an early (but either way inevitable) death of mankind's welfare, but quite possibly with an intenser and more satisfactory final spasm. "It's better to burn out than do fade away.", Neil Young sang, and Kurt pulled the trigger on himself. I don't think we can burn out per se, but we can try to do the closest thing to it. I, as a future biologist, will admit to start caring less about the environment. Unless of course the members of KHV can find a flaw in my rationale. Care to give your views?
We're all in deep shit now.
I couldn't keep the other thread open forever, guys. I hope you understand. Last month's amount of entries was...surprising actually. I really can't judge a contest with only two competitors so Mvalentine and PAW win by default. I'm going to give it one more try. I'll keep this month's theme broad. This month's theme is Happiness. I hope you guys can wrap your creative minds around it. Good luck, everyone!
Dumbass Iceland volcano has caused some changes in the line-up, but the general idea is this. See you around!
http://twitter.com/bayjentley/statuses/12494705278 This I don't need.
I had this weird but wicked cool dream and I thought I might try to turn it into a coherent credible story. It went like this (you're probably gonna laugh when you read it, as will I when I write it)... Zombies attacked my hometown (lol zombies). Panic everywhere. We saw a lot of acquaintances get killed during the invasion, however some were dragged away instead. Me and two of my friends resisted the onslaught (yeah, I always play awesome roles in my own dreams) and managed to kill a few of the living dead. They looked a lot like House of the Dead zombies. In fact the whole "scenario" looked like a House of the Dead game. Either way we vowed to find the source of these zombie attacks (lol heroes) and we got a tip that the culprit was going to attend an upcoming elite garden party at a certain family's mansion. My dream never explained how we got to know this. So we decided to infiltrate said garden party. None of us look as if they'd belong there in the slightest but we got in. How is another thing my dream didn't bother to explain. We met the host family, which was really just a collection of every "rich family" cliché in the book. There was the greedy cutthroat businessman, his haughty wife that measured one's worth by their appearance and financial status, the friendly but ditzy bimbo daughter that has never had a care in her life and the arrogant ill-tempered son who neglects his studies and chooses to live like a king on his parents' expenses instead. We talked to each of them separately (I only vaguely remember details from these conversations) and to the other guests, and we overheard a conversation between the family members and their closest friends. They talked and everyone was in relatively good spirits until at one point the zombie attacks were mentioned. A huge argument broke out and, as expected, the disputing members started accusing each other, openly pointing the blame at one another. Things got even worse when the zombies themselves showed up, attacking the garden party. We figured it'd be easy to find the culprit now: we just spot the one person that doesn't panic and we'd have found him (we're not the most intelligent superhero team around as you would have expected). That tactic worked though, as we saw one person seemingly issuing commands to the zombies. The villain wasn't who we had expected: we expected the father but it turned out to be the daughter (she had a fancy name due to her richness, Lynn-Marie or Lisa-Marie or something. I'll just call her LM for now.). Either way, she got away and so did we, unlike many other invitees. Next scene: we raid the plant and get this mess taken care of. No explanation as to how we know where the plant even is. The place was of course heavily guarded by zombies but we split up regardless: P would kill the zombies in the plant itself, L would try to shut down whatever created or transformed the zombies and I would go to the control room (one should always go to the control room in situations like this). As I entered the control room I found LM coordinating things. Instead of shooting her (I had a gun at that time) we had the typical protagonist-antagonist conversation first. She asked me (in Dutch of course) what she was doing wrong and I replied with "You mean...Besides all this?". She insisted that she was not doing anything wrong though, that she was doing the right thing for everyone and that we were the bad guys. She explained her reasoning. This world is unbalanced, with unemployment rates high and yet many unpopular professions or functions that are short on people. She believes that, in order to solve this problem, sacrifices (i.e. free will) will have to be made. She also believed that there was more harm done by forcing people to do something against their will for several decades than by robbing them of their free will altogether (the "short pain"). She said that this was her project, her contribution to humanity's welfare. When I asked her why she even bothered to "help" humanity she said that hr father constantly reminded them of what he had achieved and that he expressed the fear and disappointment that hiis children are good-for-nothings day after day and that she wanted to prove him wrong. This was her way of being helpful. It was obvious that she really did have the best intentions. I decided on another approach. I asked her how she'd feel if it was her that was being dragged away, or even her children should she have any. I asked her if that wouldn't feel awful. Somehow that did seem to have an effect on her, openly expressing doubts along the line of "I can't be wrong, can I?" and finally bursting out into tears. She immediately shut down the plant and hit the self-destruct button. Then she fell in chair, her hands covering her face and sobbing again. So the plant/factory was going to blow itself up so we all had to make a run for our money but LM didn't seem like she'd budge anytime soon. I wondered whether I should leave her behind, shoot her or drag her along with me. I remember feeling a strange mix of pity and anger. In the end I had a brilliant idea: I'd ask her. I approached her and gave her an awkward "there-there hug". I leaned closely to her ear and whispered "Should I kill you?". She hesitated but answered yes eventually. Strangely instead of shooting her I took a knife (I also had a knife) and stabbed it up her throat and she backed off gagging and bleeding. A painful sight it was so I shot her. The end This "story" has some obvious issues: 1. Why did some zombies kill and others kidnap people? The kidnapping is obvious. The killing is not. Maybe they had to kill everyone who opposed LM? 2. As I said before, the zombies looked like they came straight from House Of The Dead. Why, however, are they so mutilated? My dream only spoke of robbing free will. Pretty much got this covered. I'll just describe the zombies differently. 3. How did we know the culprit would be at the garden party? I think I can do this, but suggestions are welcome. 4. How did we get into the garden party? Don't think it'll be too hard to figure this one out. Again; suggestions are welcome. 5. The conversations with the invitees This is gonna be hard. They have to be just right and reveal information little by little. 6. How did we know where the plant was? Hmm...Someone might mention it during the garden party conversations. Does that sound okay? 7. Why didn't I just shoot LM? And when I had the chance, why did I stab her first? I pretty much got this covered though. 8. The ending Did we make it out on time? And if so, what will change now? 9. The title Pretty much got this covered. 10. Character development Since I know the dream protagonists in real life, it's no wonder they never got properly introduced. I should do this if I were to make a story though. Questions remaning: how and when? 11. Why bother? There are a few reasons that I want to go through with this: - There are zombies. - I think it's interesting how I'll try to change the leading role from "me" to a fictional character. - It has an interesting antagonist in my opinion. - Having a dream that coherent was an achievement on itself to my standards. I don't want it to "go to waste" by doing nothing with it. - It'd be something completely different from what I usually write. So what I need are any general or specific hints and tips you can give me and (very important) your opinion on the concept itself. Think it might work or do you have little faith in it? Somewhere I'm hoping to spark Bushido's bashing skills. XD
I just bought Final Fantasy XIII for the X-Box360, and yet I can't play it. It says I need to apply an update in order to play it. So I agree to install it, but then it says "Can't apply the update. This disc is unreadable.". Has anyone else had this problem? What do I do to solve it? EDIT: Never mind. Problem solved. -locked-
Well, February was a short month. Maybe that's why we didn't get too many entries. Not that I blame you though. Garfield once that "February is the Monday of months" and right he was. Anyway... PAW wins this month's contest. And no, we didn't look at how much he wanted to win. We just appreciated his take on the theme, as he used the classic "knight" concept in a completely different context. It had a very somber tone to it too, and the pun title was the icing on the cake. This month's theme is Childhood. Good luck with it!
[Where's mine?]
The singlehandedly greatest achievement of human technology Discuss .
Guess I started this year off on the wrong foot when it comes to respecting deadlines. Nevertheless, the Poetry Contest for this month is up. It's a short month so make sure to drop your entry in on time (unlike well...me). January's winner was Mvalentine. He wrote a delicate and somber poem which really struck me. It's a great example of knowing your way around the theme. Congratulations! This month's theme is Light & Darkness. Write about either or both as you please. Good luck to you all!
Leaving for a vacation tomorrow. See you in a week!
From now on, "cute" is banned in Belgium. The trade, possession and public demonstration of anything cute is now punishable by death through spinal cord removal. You may stand in line to high-five me now.
Possessions never meant anything to me (I'm not crazy). Well that's not true: I've got a bed and a guitar and a dog named Bob who pisses on my floor. That's right; I've got a floor. So what? I've got pockets full of kleenex and lint and holes where everything important to me just seems to fall right down my leg and onto the floor (my closest friend: linoleum). Linoleum supports my head, and gives me something to believe. That's me on the beachside combing the sand, metal meter in my hand, sporting a pocketful of change. That's me on the street with a violin under my chin, playing with a grin, singing gibberish. That's me in the back of the bus. That's me in the cell. That's me inside your head.
Happy late New Year, everyone! Guess I was more than a bit too late with closing last month's Poetry Contest... I apologise for that. But let's get to the first contest of the year! Last month's winner was Cariad, with a poem that laments an invertebrate's fate and manages to do so in a serious way. It was short but it was a gem, and I liked the flow a lot. This month's first poetry contest's theme is Desire. It can cover a wide range of feelings so I'm sure you'll come up with something. Good luck!
