The Blackadder series is just amazing. No other series can make me literally LOL in every episode. Usually shows like Family Guy would just make me chuckle and smile, but Blackadder can be described as "one in a million". It's just that good.
If you buy coffee from this store, you get free fortune-reading services if you hand them your empty cup with the grounds at the bottom. I think euthanasia clinics can use such incentives too. I can almost see this on an advertisement: "Sign up to be euthanised at one of our clinics and get your fortunes told by certified soothsayers. Accuracy guaranteed or your money back!"
Right now the US economy is only just beginning to recover. Maybe it's a good time to buy their stuff. I mean, it can't possibly drop any more, right?
And RMB too, because they can't keep forcing its value down forever, right? Then again, it might just drop in the future.
I am untrustworthy. I always say yes under pressure, but whether I keep the promise is arbitrary. A math tutor in JC managed to discern this habit of mine and told me to change that, but I never did. It was an issue about homework, because like in most of my secondary school days, I rarely did my math tutorials in JC. Any warning they gave me were ignored that way, including his advise to change my habit of saying yes without meaning it.
I still haven't changed.
The second Chronicles of Thomas Covenant is very much better than what I expected. In the first Chronicles, the bitter person is tortured by the beauty of the Land, convinced that it was a dream but so tantalizingly real. It pained him because he thought if he accepted the Land to be real, he would be insane. But it was so much better than living in the real world, where he was a leper and everyone hated him. In the Land, he was a hero and was magically cured of his leprosy. He wielded magic powers and everyone loved him no matter what he did to push them away. How could anyone not want to live in that situation? Hence the torture.
In the second Chronicles, he returned to a very different place. All that was good had turned bad, and the Sun seemed to be the greatest evil of all. It appeared all the beauty of the Land was gone, the people had forgotten their magical lores and the castle where the Lords resided had become the heart of evil.
In addition, a doctor from his world was brought to the Land along with him, which added to the mystery.
Only read half the book, but it's a real page-turner. Haven't had such a good reading experience since the first time I read A Song of Ice and Fire. I stopped only when I noticed that I was so tired I was having difficulty understanding what I was reading.
A 15-year-old girl was gangraped in front of about 20 people who watched and cheered. No one called the police.
The responsibility was diffused? They thought it was a joke? They thought someone had already called? They don't want to be caught snitching by the gang?
If the responsibility was diffused, it means some of them were thinking along the lines of "Who cares?"
If they thought it was a joke, then their jokes are obviously overboard, such that they can no longer tell practical jokes from actual crimes.
If a fire is raging in a building, everyone would call. A girl gets raped, no one calls. And they call Middle Eastern men in rural villages barbaric for not punishing rapists.
If they fear the gang that much, it reflects on the impotency of their law enforcement officers and how little confidence the masses have in them.
The bystanders were aware of the crime but did not report it to the police. Aren't they now accomplices and can be charged as such?
I know this is an extreme, but I also know this is not an isolated case. That this is even possible shows how moral people are. Furthermore, it shows how far people can go just to be "normal". If "normal" means raping a baby everyday, most would do it.
Ask yourself how many things you've been doing that you don't like but make you appear normal. Or rather, what have you done that does not conform with the norm?
No matter what you think you would do in such a situation, the above questions can be a good gauge (in my opinion) of how you would respond. You see, you won't have time to think, so the "you" who makes the decision will be your subconscious, your real self.
For example, if you're drinking at a bar and suddenly two guys start shouting at each other. Then one of them takes out a glass bottle and smashes it into the other's head repeatedly before running out of the bar.
Do you think you're going to be in the right state of mind to weigh the pros and cons of calling for help or stopping the fight? Do you think you'd want to mess with a guy who has that jagged piece of glass in his hand? Most likely, you're just going to stare and only think of "WTF?"
Better still, you may pull out your handphone and start recording. =/
Played a bit of Borderlands, a new game that's similar to Fallout 3 but seems more suited for consoles than the PC. It's a first-person shooter (FPS) set in a wasteland not very different from the Capital Wasteland.
Borderlands is not as serious as Fallout 3 and tries to be much cooler-looking. There is a multiplayer mode similar to L4D in which you join small games of 4 players using 4 different characters: Roland "the Soldier", Mordecai "the Hunter", Lilith "the Siren" and Brick.
So far I've only tried the Soldier, named Roland (default name, but editable). His special ability is the turret he can deploy for a minute or so. This turret comes with a small shield so that it acts as temporary fortification. This character can also heal by shooting allies and is proficient in medium range weapons like rifles and shotguns.
Unlike Fallout 3, this game can feel boring in solo mode. I think the problem lies in the lack of music and radio because Three Dogs and his songs were very entertaining by themselves. Now after playing Borderlands with its slow ambience music, I think listening to GNR is half the fun of playing Fallout 3.
Need to play online.
Compared to Fallout 3, Borderlands is more focused on the FPS side and less on RPG, while Fallout 3 is very much focused on its RPG side and its storyline. Also, side quests in Fallout 3 are usually more developed, eg with a background story. Those in Borderlands can sometimes have no relation to anything - they just tell you to do something and then you get rewarded for that.
And the song...
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