Hermit

Popcorn kernals wrapped in space tiles with protected butter packets... when the orbit decays, hot buttery mana from heaven that could land anywhere!
 
 
NT: Attempts to lure movie goers to theatres that smack of desperation

Taunt him a second time... with a french accent!

Agreed big time with this one. If she signed up for playboy or put them online herself for free public viewing then I'd be saying to my fellow guys (And any ladies of that inclination) to enjoy the generous bounty if they like. But this is just Peeping Tomism you can pile in on and a big violation of her privacy. There are many (so I'm told) nude figures to be found online, some of them are even rumored to be hollywood worthy (Ah, the wonders of photoshop!), so with so many WILLING options, why break a person's request not to go hunting for illgotten images of a personal nature?
 
I'm sure she looks amazing nude. I'm sure I'd look stupid with my shirtless top half painted in my favorite team's colors. Neither of us should be seen that way unless we want to be (Actually, I should never be seen like that... it's just no...world of no)

Maybe they're hoping to get a part in 21 Jump Street films?

My Paladin *redacted* your mom!
 
It was good
but it wasn't lawful!
 
*Shoves inner 14 year old back in the box*
Ahem, I know a bit what you mean. In general,  we like to think 'our' group knows better than to fall into traps of prejudice and the like, whatever 'our' group might be. But humans are just that, and anyone call fall into those traps especially when we lower our guard against it I suppose.

Oh, and, of course, there's just nasty trash talk as well ...
 
I wish I could say I was surprised by this news. The internet really has a gift for bringing jackholes out of the woodwork. I may think Fine is wrong, I may think he is an idiot, but death threats? Those that make them only succeed in falling into one of two categories for me...1) Psychopaths and 2) (The larger group) cowards who'd never have the nerve to say half of what they say online within actual punching distance

If I had the money, I'd love to visit Poland.

In our continued "What the hell was THAT??!!" moments...

TKD moonlights as an Elvis impersonator at Justin Beiber concerts. Many thank him for returning artistic integrity to the area

In our continued "What the hell was THAT??!!" moments...

Been unemployed for over 6 months. Tomorrow I have a job interview/workplace assessment session that goes for. 4 hours, so if you can, send any good vibes/prayers this way. Thanks. Cheers, Baz.

Asbestos Suit On!
 
I feel no need to identify myself as cis-male -- and will not be bullied into doing so.
 
This is because, while one may outwardly adopt the gender and indicia of the opposite sex, there is more to being male or female than those things.
 
It is genetic, biochemical, and experiential -- XX and XY are facts.
 
I am "a man in a woman's body" or a "woman in a man's body" or "was born in the wrong body" are beliefs.
 
I feel no obligation to acquiesce to another persons subjective beliefs about reality ab initio -- and find such an expectation laughable.
 
I am aware some preliminary studies appear to indicate transgender people have neurological structures distinct from normative male and female structures.
 
The painfully obvious problem -- those structures don't match either normative male or normative female neurological structures.
 
Nor do we know if this is a third distinct structure, or a rare variation that results in highly individuated neurological structures.
 
However, even if that is the case, the sex chromosomes, sexual organs, and glandular systems that go with it are decidedly male or female.
 
Anomalous hermaphrodites aside, there is no third or individuated sex to be born into.
 
To quote Gloria Steinem: "If the shoe doesn't fit, must we then cut off the foot?"
 
I generally prefer to treat transgender people with dignity and in person will use their preferred gender pronoun to avoid hurt and conflict.
 
After all, I have already conceded one might choose to emulate the opposite gender.
 
But, as for me. I'm just male. You know, possessed of the coveted Y.
 
I will never be cis-male because I regard linguistic coercion in the form of "correct terms" as set of thought interrupting cliches.
 
Why?
 
Firstly, if it is sensible and flows from reality it can be said in plain language.
 
But, beyond that, the PC movement exhibits linguistic intolerance and repression, and thus poses a serious free speech issue. Moreover, "political" strongly implies official coercion while "correctness" directly correlates to policy and law.
 
It has no place in anthropology, ethics, history sociology, literature, art, religion, philosophy, or culture. In fact, its antithetical to all of those great human pursuits.
 
To quote Northrup Frye's famous 1954 essay, "Political and social criticism being passed off as literary criticism is nothing more than a 'substitute for criticism'"
 
To wit, political correctness as a language reform movement has gone well beyond the provinces of language and entered other areas which are are inappropriate, ineffective and counterproductive to its stated aims. In doing so it frequently engenders erroneous conclusions, delusional beliefs, and prejudiced perceptions. Indeed, it becomes an ironic caricature of itself.
 
Prof. Jeff Johnson: "The most pernicious form of intolerance is 'political correctness' because it comes disguised as tolerance"
 
My concern, however, is that the real problems of prejudice, racism, inequality, and powerlessness, cannot be significantly grappled with without honest, open dialogue, however messy and hurtful it may at times be. Political correctness is a straightjacket for freedom on conscience, freedom of expression, and freedom of thought -- all of which are a part and parcel of meaningful discourse.
 
A milquetoast discussion in which some views are correct and others incorrect from the outset (preempting critical thinking), or in which one feels entitled to never hear an opinion that they disagree with or they find hurtful (enabling tepid spirited fools and cowards) is no discussion at all -- its dogma; foregone conclusions.
 
To wit, "imposing a new orthodoxy is not the way to tackle prejudice." Frye again.
 
Or, "Inventing new ugly, tendentious words is not the answer to old ugly, racist or sexist ones. Calling wives 'unpaid sex workers' or whatever is not going to reduce domestic violence." Lingman.
 
Or, "Ultimately, however, we hope we use language that is more sensitive without enforcing strident political correctness or orthodoxy." Francine Fairkoff.
 
Nor will the inevitable and soulless shaming tactics and name-calling and prejudicial citations of privilege that begin when one uses a term deemed "incorrect" aid us solving social problems, enhancing justice, or even engendering the frank dialogue needed to accomplish that lofty aim. Charges ending with the invariable suffix "-ist" are often as dirty and vile as what they seek to imply.
 
Language, when used as a weapon -- or as a coercive sociopolitical mechanism -- does violence to the dignity of intellect and truth.
 
Or, to quote Jean Luc Picard: "There are FOUR lights."
 
If it is true, the facts will bear it out. Otherwise, its just an unproven social construction of subjective individual beliefs.
 
"It was intended that when Newspeak had been adopted once and for all and Oldspeak forgotten, a heretical thought ... should be literally unthinkable, at least so far as thought is dependent on words." - George Orwell, 1984
 
ASBESTOS SUIT OFF!

The shadowrunners are an ork/troll group. Completely against stereotype, they specialize in stealth, subtlety, bluff, illusion, deception and misdirection.   Dent: ork, rat shaman No-Step: ork, snake shaman, healer Byte Force: ork, decker, chemist Eye Spy: ork, rigger, drones, paramedic Audacity Jane: ork, combat, stealth, security systems Happy Jack: troll, combat, disguise, negotiator Humanis Policlub: a human-supremacist political group; some of the radical members have ties to Alamos 20,000 Alamos 20,000: a murderous anti-metahuman organization Sons of Sauron: a ork-rights political group, which is often as violent as Humanis Policlub  
Happy Jack returns from negotiating with a Mr. Johnson.
 
Happy Jack: "I have some bad news, and some good news." Eye Spy: "I hate this game." No Step: "I'll bite. What's the bad news." Happy Jack: "The pay sucks for this job. Mr. Johnson's opening offer was 5,000 nuyen total. I was only able to talk him up to 8,000 nuyen." Dent: "I assume the good news is this is some kind of 'karma' job where we feel good about ourselves afterwards?" Happy Jack: "Mr. Johnson wants us to blow up a Humanis Policlub chapterhouse. The more destruction, the better." Eye Spy: "Happy Jack wins. I feel good about this job already."   The team tries to figure out how to wreck the chapterhouse without damaging adjacent buildings.   Audacity Jane: "I'll put cutting charges on the interior structural supports. The interior of the building will collapse, and the rest will be unstable. They'll actually have to pay money to tear down the unstable sections before repairing it." Byte Force: "I can also build the mother of all stink bombs. If all the furnishings smell horrible, it means they can't be reused or resold. They'll have to be written off at a loss." Audacity Jane: "Hah. The demolition and reconstruction crews will charge hazard pay if it smells bad enough." Happy Jack: "Maybe we can rupture a sewage line so the basement fills with black water." Byte Force: "That makes my stink bomb redundant." Happy Jack: "Not really. If your stink bomb smells bad enough, they won't notice the sewage until it's had a few days to fill the basement." Dent: "There's something poetic about filling the *******'s building with ****."   The team researches the target.   Byte Force: "I have some bad news." Eye Spy: "I hate this even more than good news/bad news." Byte Force: "The building is so heavily insured that it will be nearly impossible to do enough damage to hurt Humanis." No Step: "Something stinks about this job. I talked to my contact in Sons of Sauron. He says this chapter of Humanis keeps its hands clean. It's the main fundraiser. It does a lot of the politics and press releases. They even run a few charities. He's sure they channel money to the more radical and violent chapters, but they've never been caught doing it. Why does Mr. Johnson want this one blown up, instead of one of the violent chapters?" Audacity Jane: "Happy Jack, you royally screwed up. I'm starting to feel uneasy about blowing up a Humanis chapterhouse. This is supposed to be a 'feel good' job."   More investigation ... more bad news.   Byte Force: "I'm officially declaring this job a set-up. That chapterhouse is filled with wireless cameras. I'm betting we're supposed to get caught while we're trying to blow the place up." Happy Jack: "Yeah. I'm thinking we were hired by Humanis to blow the place up. It costs them nothing, then they use us as poster children for their next fundraising drive." No Step: "Should we refuse the job and return the advance?" Happy Jack: "No. If we do, Mr. Johnson will just hire some dumber orks and trolls to do the job anyway." Dent: "Instead, we get to be the dumber orks and trolls who do the job." Audacity Jane: "Even if I get in and out undetected, everyone's going to assume that metahumans blew the place up." Happy Jack: "We just need to fabricate evidence that humans blew up the chapterhouse." Dent: "Who is going to believe that?" Happy Jack: "This is a chapterhouse of moderates, relatively speaking. There's a big downside to being a moderate. The radicals on your side hate you even more than they hate the guys on the other side." No Step: "So we're supposed to show up looking like humans ... who just happen to be wearing their Alamos 20,000 name badges?" Happy Jack: "We find a couple Alamos 20,000 members who have criminal records, but aren't locked up, and they become our new best friends." Eye Spy: (spit-takes) "I'm sorry. My brain can't process 'Alamos 20,000' and 'new best friends' in the same sentence."   Humanis will certainly hide any evidence of human involvement, so the team sets up a dashboard camera to "catch them in the act," so the video can be leaked later.   No Step: "How are we going to conveniently arrange to have the camera get a good look at our faces? Dashboard cameras don't conveniently zoom in on faces." Happy Jack: "Right before you two break into the chapterhouse, the two of you will assault an indigent troll right in front of our camera." No Step: "So you'll be disguised as an indigent troll. But why wouldn't a troll just go all King Kong on a couple humans?" Happy Jack: "Audacity Jane will point a shotgun at me, while you take a bunch of whacks with a club." No Step: "Why do I have to be the one beating up on you? I'll already be straining just to hold up two illusions." Happy Jack: "If you hit me repeatedly with a club, I'll have some bruises. If Audacity Jane hits me with a club, I'll have massive internal bleeding."   Eye Spy: "What happens if our scapegoats have alibis?" Happy Jack: "I took care of that." Eye Spy: "You kidnapped them?" Happy Jack: "No. I called one of them and pretended to be part of Alamos 20,000 in Boston. I told them that we'd stolen data from the Sons of Sauron, and the group in Boston had just shipped a truckload of weapons to the Sons of Sauron in Seattle. While you're blowing up the Humanis chapter, our scapegoats will be waiting to rob a fictitious load of guns." Happy Jack: (in a nasally voice) "I swear I didn't blow up a building detective! I was innocently sitting in a dark alley waiting to steal some guns!"   Dent: "We ought to set off an EMP grenade next to their servers while we're in there." Byte Force: (wincing) "That's sacrilege. Data is meant to be stolen, not destroyed." No Step: "He's right. You two go in invisibly, so Byte Force can steal all the information off their servers." Byte Force: "Thank you." No Step: "And then set off an EMP grenade next to the servers, so they can't figure out what you took."   As they're leaving (still covered by the Physical Mask spell), No Step spray paints SUNZ UV SAWRON RULZS on the wall of the chapterhouse.   Audacity Jane: (as they walk away) "What were you doing?" No Step: "Making it look like we were trying to frame the Sons of Sauron for this." Audacity Jane: "Nobody is going to believe that the Sons of Sauron misspelled their own name." No Step: "Nobody?" Audacity Jane: "Okay. Fine. Nobody except a stupid and ignorant racist is going to believe they'd misspell their own name." No Step: "And who are we impersonating right now...?"   After the building is blown up and the video is posted online and leaked to the media....   Byte Force: "The only useful Humanis data I got was a list of donors." Happy Jack: "Some of those donors may work for metahuman-friendly corps like Saeder Krupp. I bet Humanis membership is a violation of corporate policy." No Step: "Get them fired?" Happy Jack: "Blackmail them." Dent: "It's about time you figured out how to get some money out of this mess." Happy Jack: "We completed the job. I still expect to get paid by Mr. Johnson too." Dent: "He's a Humanis member who tried to set us up. He doesn't want to pay us." Happy Jack: "Of course not, but he'll show up to the meeting, if only to get the chance to kill me."   Mr. Johnson arrives at the club with an entourage of bodyguards. His group also contains a fearsome number of mercenaries, street samurai and mages, who remain stationed a distance from the club.   As Mr. Johnson waits at a secluded table...   Bartender: (carrying a tray with a glass of champagne and a cell phone) "Mr. Johnson? A patron purchased this for you. I believe he was unable to wait for your arrival." Mr. Johnson: (picking up the phone) "I was expecting to see you here." Happy Jack: "I'm reasonably certain that I'd be killed before I got within two blocks of the club." Mr. Johnson: "..." Happy Jack: "But I've called in order to make arrangements for the remainder of our pay." Mr. Johnson: "I'm not pleased with the way the job turned out." Happy Jack: "The building was redecorated, just as you requested. Based on the tone of your voice, I would say that we exceeded your expectations." Mr. Johnson: "..." Happy Jack: "Obviously, some of your expectations were not met. If you wanted us to take the fall, you should have requested the service up front. We would have increased the price accordingly." Mr. Johnson: "There's no reason for me to pay you." Happy Jack: "Professional courtesy." Mr. Johnson: (snorts) Happy Jack: "As professionals, we keep silent about the activities of our paying clients. The key word is 'paying' clients. We do not extend the same courtesy to clients who stiff us. I'm sure a lot of people would feel quite betrayed by your activities." Mr. Johnson: (snarling) "Fine." Happy Jack: "In addition, the price has doubled. That's the surcharge for trying to kill us." Mr. Johnson: "Fine." Happy Jack: "And as a final matter, you need to be aware of the life insurance for me and my coworkers." Mr. Johnson: "Life insurance?" Happy Jack: "If any of us die, your comrades will receive a video. I'm sure you would find it awkward to explain." Mr. Johnson: "You're a shadowrunner. What happens if one of your other enemies kills you?" Happy Jack: "The video gets delivered, as promised. You might want to use that champagne to wish us all a very long life."    

L Marcus once used his Scandinavian Luchador powers to save Earth from six foot long hyper intelligent meerkats. If not for his strategy of drawing them to peek at his shiny wardrobe and then bopping them on the head with an atomic slam, they might have succeeded in their plan to impregnate Adam West with larvae that would have caused him to swell to grotesque size in a mere month. At the end of that month, Mr. West would have exploded into a thousand radioactive radioactive Pauly Shores that would then devoured all media that wasn't related TO Pauly Shore, leading the planet to devastation and insanity among the masses. Which, goes without saying but I'll say it anyway, would have left us easy pickings for the alien Meerkat conquest!

What if Doctor Who had been an American show?
 

Do women in zebra print get nervous around women in leopard print?

L Marcus once used his Scandinavian Luchador powers to save Earth from six foot long hyper intelligent meerkats. If not for his strategy of drawing them to peek at his shiny wardrobe and then bopping them on the head with an atomic slam, they might have succeeded in their plan to impregnate Adam West with larvae that would have caused him to swell to grotesque size in a mere month. At the end of that month, Mr. West would have exploded into a thousand radioactive radioactive Pauly Shores that would then devoured all media that wasn't related TO Pauly Shore, leading the planet to devastation and insanity among the masses. Which, goes without saying but I'll say it anyway, would have left us easy pickings for the alien Meerkat conquest!

And this was totally unexpected.

That's my belief as well. Disagreements on how to get to the goal (and perhaps where the finishing line is) will arise, but I'd like to think the majority of both Men's Rights activists and feminists both actually want the same end result. Heck, I would like to think the majority of people in the Western World want that.

I never could keep all the periods of the Stone Age in my head, still can't, but this kindly cave fellow tries to help
 

Roter Baron is not off his meds...
 he's just built up an immunity to them.

Roter Baron is not off his meds...
 he's just built up an immunity to them.

Barbarians who don't have performance skills probably shouldn't sing in battle, but on a pathfinder game I had fun with this...
 
 
"When I was just a lad, trying to figure out my place
on how to answer questions that had long plagued the Ulfen race
My Grampa said to me, worn helm upon his brow
"My kin I know that look, you're asking why and how...
Not knowing all the answers, that's simply no disgrace
but an answer that almost always works is Axe to the face!"
"Axe to the face my boy, axe to the face!
Many a primal warrior has used it successfully in debate
For it severs a smug foe's silver tongue
And fights over land, or a maiden's hand
There's nothing like an enemy's head on a plate!"
"Trouble with the bill?"
"Axe to the face!"
"Tricked by a shill?"
"Axe to the face!"
"Bored and need a thrill?"
"Axe to the face!"
"Well, I heeded my grandda's advice
beyond his dying day
And it's amazing how well it works in each in every way
Axe to the face, my friends, Axe to the face!"
"Not knowing all the answers? That is simply no disgrace!"
"But the answer that almost always works is Axe to the face!"
 
the reactions of the other player characters varied wildly ... I may have scarred a few.

Barbarians who don't have performance skills probably shouldn't sing in battle, but on a pathfinder game I had fun with this...
 
 
"When I was just a lad, trying to figure out my place
on how to answer questions that had long plagued the Ulfen race
My Grampa said to me, worn helm upon his brow
"My kin I know that look, you're asking why and how...
Not knowing all the answers, that's simply no disgrace
but an answer that almost always works is Axe to the face!"
"Axe to the face my boy, axe to the face!
Many a primal warrior has used it successfully in debate
For it severs a smug foe's silver tongue
And fights over land, or a maiden's hand
There's nothing like an enemy's head on a plate!"
"Trouble with the bill?"
"Axe to the face!"
"Tricked by a shill?"
"Axe to the face!"
"Bored and need a thrill?"
"Axe to the face!"
"Well, I heeded my grandda's advice
beyond his dying day
And it's amazing how well it works in each in every way
Axe to the face, my friends, Axe to the face!"
"Not knowing all the answers? That is simply no disgrace!"
"But the answer that almost always works is Axe to the face!"
 
the reactions of the other player characters varied wildly ... I may have scarred a few.

She bathes in Perrier.  It isn't all water that kills her, it's normal, plebian tap water she can't stand.  (The Wicked Witch is a 1-percenter, hence the castle and army of hench-monkeys.  And her resemblance to Mitt Romney is remarkable - she could be his twin sister.)
 
NT:  BoloOfEarth turns 50 today.  What gag gifts will he get from his family and friends?