Mr W Phallus

(From this article.) Another bizarre expression like 'could care less', although in this case it doesn't even make grammatical sense, since you can't have most of a singular noun.

OK, a lot of catching up to do here. Day 01: The first gaming experience I remember is playing Super Mario Bros and Duck Hunt at my cousins' house. Day 02: Hmm it's kind of hard to pick one. Sam Fisher is a pretty good shout, he's heroic but bad-ass at the same time, you feel bad-ass when you play as him and his suit is an iconic image for gamers. The same could be said for Master Chief actually. I also love most of the party members from the KOTOR games, particularly the two droids. Day 03: Definitely Shadowrun (the recent multiplayer FPS). It got average reviews and not a lot of people played it but it gives TF2 a run for it's money when it comes to my favourite multiplayer experience. If only Shadowrun had received even half the post-release support that TF2 did. Even so I still pop it in from time to time and it never feels stale, it's criminal that it was over-looked. Day 04: I don't think I play any games that I personally feel bad about playing, but I do sometimes exercise a bit of caution when discussing what games I play with non-gamer friends. Even though I find that if you bring up Pokemon with anyone my age they'll immediately be overcome with nostalgia and show as much enthusiasm as a regular gamer, showing too much knowledge can make you look weird, for example. To be honest though, whilst I maybe won't advertise the fact I play games like Viva Pinata, if one of my friends were to see me playing it I'd happily tell them I don't care if it looks like it's for kids because it's a great game, and if they tease me about it for a little while then who cares, if I wasn't able to give or take a bit of friendly abuse with them they wouldn't be my friends in the first place. I do sometime feel guilty killing civilians in games that let you do that but that's more about my actions than the game itself. Day 05: Toad (from the Mario series). Just another mushroom in the crowd, but with the potential for greatness. That greatness probably won't involve go-karting, throwing vegetables at timid people or joining two plumbers on a murderous rampage to save a princess, though.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t9DwkpTBof8&feature=player_embedded

I thought we called them public schools because the people who went there traditionally went into the Public Sector, I'm sure I read that somewhere. Wiki has this to say, however: 'This use of the term derives from its use to refer to some long-established boys' boarding schools, which were founded or endowed for public use and subject to public management or control'. Which makes sense, it is a school owned by members of the public, rather than the state. Also @HotHeart at first I was like 'Wishie-washies? No one calls them wishie-washies...oh wait' Then I cracked up. XD Finally, no offence Ethan, and I'm all for the evolution of language, but using 'entrée' to describe the main-course has to be one of the stupidest things I've ever heard. I don't mean you using it is stupid, just that it ever reached that meaning in the first place.

To be honest, although the story is a bit contrived, it's still something I can accept without breaking the suspension of disbelief. I do think Rocksteady will have to drastically rethink the formula of the next game, however, preferably dropping the Arkham X/one long night structure (even though that was partly what was so great about AA). Completely unrelated to that, I really want to be able to explore the Batcave and Wayne Manor so I hope that's in one of the games soon, even if it's just as a Tomb Raider mansion style collectible/easter-egg fest apart from the actual story-mode.

I don't see a problem with using US English to distinguish it from the Queen's English, it's just another regional variation on English that can be seen on a smaller scale throughout the UK. We could perhaps refer to 'American' as a dialect, but it is a long way from being another language. If anything we are moving further towards homogenisation anyway, thanks mostly to the internet (like WTF said, Broadcast culture) both language's are rife with cross-contamination (of course Hollywood has been doing this since long before the internet was around, which is why we probably use more Americanisms than they use Britishisms).

I think the fact that he's nuts is the whole point, you'd have to be crazy to think Arkham City is a good idea. I don't think anyone actually knows he's crazy though, I doubt the idea of a 'ghost' telling the Warden's Mayor's backstory is canon. Is he Mayor of just Arkham City or the entirety of Gotham, though? I'm a little confused about that.

Basically the Warden has merged the populations of Blackgate Prison and Arkham (because mixing those two worked so well in the first game) and moved them together into a district of the city and fenced it all off.

It is common practice for companies to check your Facebook account nowadays, some companies reduce their applicants by about 50% on Facebook alone. I don't think it's really fair that a drunken night out as a student or whatever can come back to haunt you. To be fair though, just set your profile to completely private and it's not a problem.

Last proper gig I went to was Cut Copy last weekend, who were great (once you got used to the drunk/high people knocking into you all the time). It was a pretty cool venue in the basement of my SU, nice and intimate. As for the best gig I've ever been to, it would have to be a toss up between Justice at Leeds Fest '08 and Radiohead at Leeds Fest '09. Two completely different kinds of music though, so it's kinda hard to compare. (I was a lot further forwards and crowd surfed out to the finale ) Finally, whilst it was mostly DJs so not technically live I had an awesome night out on friday (probably helps that I was off my face). Julio Bashmore, Catz n Dogz and this guy: Btw, do you guys go to gigs inebriated or not? Personally it depends, one off gigs I tend to be fairly sober, at festivals I tend to be in a perpetual state of slight drunkenness and for club nights/electronic music I tend to abuse alcohol or other substances.

You don't really appreciate how much a newspaper like the Daily Mail makes up 'facts' until you read an article which you have first-hand knowledge about. Like the article I linked the other day where the building I live in magically grew 3 floors. And sure we tend to laugh at it, but when you think about the amount of people who read it, believing what they read, and the amount of influence that it has, it's actually quite worrying that they can publicly get away with lying to millions of people. As for other types of misinformation, one that quite often annoys me is reading game reviews in publications that aren't specifically game-related, such as a newspaper supplement or other magazine. Now obviously you wouldn't go there for a quality, in-depth game review, but you would expect the reporter to al least check their facts. This is by no means exclusive to video-game articles, I notice it quite often in film and music articles as well but it is by far most prevalent for video-games because it is medium that tends to be taken less seriously than others. I can't remember any specific examples I'm afraid, apart from I remember seeing an article on album covers misuse the term modernist once. The scariest part of misinformation is that unless you have prior knowledge of the subject, you pretty much have to take it as fact, there's no real way of knowing what is true.

Half-Life has a great opening but I prefer Half-Life 2's, mostly for the epic sequence as the Combine close in on you, and you race through the level panicking, trying to outrun them. The level-design is so well constructed that you instinctively find the right way to go, and yet the actual linearity of the level is cleverly disguised. Moments like this, where you are actually playing the game, are somewhat paradoxically much more cinematic than watching a shiny pre-rendered cut-scene I think. Bioshock did this really well too, although that slowly built tension rather than providing the adrenaline rush of Half-Life 2.

I have absolutely no problem with Cars 2. Sure we all love Pixar for making films that are mature and intelligent, and maybe Cars didn't quite achieve the same standard of excellence achieved by the other Pixar films, but kids clearly loved it and if I remember it was a pet project of Lasseter's. It's still miles form the 'any-old-crap-will-do' approach taken with most kids entertainment these days. Besides I'm sure Disney will be much more comfortable with Pixar making an out-there original work once the inevitably huge profits from Cars 2 have padded their wallets.

Yes I can perform the utterly pointless act of rolling my tongue, and yes that makes me feel superior anyway.

One thing that's been annoying me for a while is the fact we can't full-screen embedded Youtube videos. Is it possible to change this, so we don't have to navigate to Youtube just to full-screen? Yes I really am that lazy.

Well I'm quite confident with what I said - I was paraphrasing what a doctor of physics told me (specifically particle physics I think). Like I said it is possible - he (the doctor (not The Doctor)) even said that he believed there probably was other life there - it is just less likely than you would expect given the size of the universe. He was the same guy who told me the fact about the Hebrew Bible having multiple possible translations, indecently, he used to 'teach' me General Studies. I kinda wish I could go back and get some proper references from him so I could read up about these things more. This is straying dangerously off topic though so *insert inflammatory religious comment here*. Edit: I agree with what ZTF is saying; if there really is an omnipotent, omniscient being that created the universe, then the likelihood of him caring about what the human race gets up to - other than as a fascinating species to study - is like humans passing judgement on the morality of bacteria, and punishing them accordingly.

Considering the immense improbability of a planet having the necessary conditions to sustain life, there is actually a pretty decent chance that alien life doesn't exist. Having said that, there's a reasonable chance it might as well. The likeliness of us ever meeting on the other hand...

I crack my fingers (both joints of course) and my neck all the time, and some of my toes and my back a lot two. Twisting around 180 degrees can attract some odd looks though. (As I typed this my shoulder cracked unintentionally, it clearly wants in on the action) Whilst it won't cause arthritis, cracking joints can wear down cartilage and build up nitrogen (some gas anyway) in your joints, so it's hardly good for you. It releases some chemical when you do it apparently, which is why it feels so damn good.

I don't want to derail the thread but I'm compelled to ask: What lie? Do you believe that global warming and the effects of global warming on Earth are a lie? The evidence is there. Perhaps he is referring to the fact that we are constantly told that CO2 causes global warming, despite the fact this is just one of many theories with regards to the cause of our current climate change.

Whilst I agree with that first statement (in bold), it is for the opposite reason than (I think) you are suggesting. The problem is not that language and literature (and therefore holy texts) are interpretable,it is that religion, by and large, attempts to deny this interpretability. I have a friend who is a devout Muslim, and is also very liberal-minded and by no means an extremist. One day I was discussing with him how a woman had recently been sentenced to death in Pakistan (for adultery I think it was), and he was telling me how he had been shocked to find that other Muslims he had talked to about it, who were our age and also brought up here in England, openly supported this. He pointed out that the law came not from the Quran but another Muslim holy text, and we discussed how because it was written by a man it could not be taken for granted and followed literally without question, because that man has no more authority than any other, he can be wrong. When it came to the Quran, however, he was adamant that it is the word of God; irrefutable, infallible gospel truth. This idea is problematic in so many ways. First off even if we subscribe to the idea that the words originally came from God, it had to be written down by man. The text has then been going through a process of copying, editing and translation for thousands of years since, each of which adds a new possible layer of human error, editorial bias and mistranslation. Translation itself can account for huge variation in interpretation, there are something like 12 different possible translations from the Hebrew of the opening line of Genesis (I'm afraid I can't actually verify this, I was told it a year or two ago). There is then the problem of which source text to use in the first place - which is the 'authoritative' text? Already then, the a holy text's authority is highly questionable, even before we approach the subject of subjectivity in the interpretation of language. As an English Literature student, I've spent most of my course so far debunking the idea that there is a single 'true meaning' to a text. We cannot ever truly know the author's intentions studying a text. Some critics argue we should remove the author from the critical process all together. Two different people may interpret the text in entirely different ways. Basically the idea of a non-interpretable text is laughable. It's ironic, really, considering the emphasis Christianity puts on using parables to teach, that so many Christians fail to realise that the entire Bible is parable. It is irrelevant, really, whether there is truth to the Bible or not, we can still learn from it. If people (both Christians and atheists) stopped looking at the Bible (or whatever your equivalent holy text is) as a historical textbook and instead appreciated it for it's allegorical and literary value, I wouldn't have such a problem with religions.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_Prerogative_in_the_United_Kingdom#Legislature Best I could find. It's definitely a case of 'you have the power to do this as long as you promise never to actually use this power'. Back to the topic at hand though, of those who have identified themselves as religious (or perhaps it's better to say theists) are you active members of a religious community or particular branch of the Church or is your relationship with God merely private?

I'm have no idea to be honest. A black hole is created?

Civil marriages have long existed apart from any religious body, nor are marriage ceremonies unique to the Christian Church or even religious communities. Apart from that, it was just the easiest example of a religious issue relevant to current politics. The point I was getting at is that our laws were made by Christians, based on the 10 commandments, as laid out in the bible. Sure we can look at our laws and say 'well clearly murder, theft and rape are wrong', but there is no real way to distinguish our morality from socio-religious conditioning. Whatever your personal beliefs, it's hard to shake off the influence of thousands of years of religion. As an added bonus, our head of state, who must ratify every law passed, is also the head of her own religion.