I quit caffeine repeatedly throughout my life, until the last time, and so far so good for a number of months now.
My withdrawl symptoms from caffeine were always severe; shakes, cramps, migraines, and general irritability. A number of times I tried cold turkey, but each time I tried to quit it left me suffering too much for the effort to be worthwhile.
Finally I decided cold turkey just wasn't worth it. So I went simpler; I weaned myself down, from a 2 litre a day habit of cola. First I dropped to a 1 litre a bottle a day, for two-three weeks. From there, a 710 millilitre bottle a day, again for two weeks, then down to the 650 ml bottle for another week, then finally a 355ml can a day for two weeks. After that I switched to a 455ml bottle of orange juice a day, and haven't looked back.
Best of all, I suffered next to no withdrawl; weaning it out of my system gradually helped the process tremendously.
Tough call, but my four nominees are "Basement Magic" (Fantasy & Science Fiction, May) "The Hanging Curve" (Fantasy & Science Fiction, April), and "The Seasons of the Ansarac" (Fantasy & Science Fiction, February), and "The Navatar" (Fantasy & Science Fiction, Oct/Nov) Seeing a trend? I do have other subscriptions, honest. >.>
Other runners-up are definetly "Mortal Engines" (Asimov's Science Fiction, December), and September's issue of Asimov's Science Fiction offers me a bounty of excellent stories: "Off on a Starship", "The Long Way Home", "Focus Group", "Big Ugly Mama And The Zk".
Hell, I'm on a roll: Fantasy & Science Fiction's October/November issue featured "Like Minds", "Almost Home", and another especially treasured favorite, "The Navatar".
My choice for best Novella of the year: "The Fluted Girl" (Fantasy & Science Fiction, June).
I'm utterly unaffiliated with the magazine, just a particularly happy subscriber (to Asimov's, Analog, and Fantasy & Science Fiction), and I truly cannot understate how good the quality of these publications are to any literary fan, in particular Fantasy & Science Fiction.
The original DOS game. There's few games as fun to share a computer with someone else as that one; tank-based blasting fun. Hell, it made my mother a gamer, and she used to be one of those parents who held placards in protest back in the mid-eighties, against video games and their corruption of youth.
I really well and truly hated that game, actually. While playing with the kitten and the arcades were highlights, they didn't really help that I'd spend hours trying to get into a fight with/something/ and be unable to.
Most of those genres of games are covered, but Scorched Earth and Bubble Bobble are two definitive games of their genre and time, and even in this modern day and age, remain as playable as ever. (Scorched Earth is still a popular LAN-party title, hotseating. And Bubble Bobble sucks in/everyone/ I've ever seen, playing at console parties.)
Thank god someone else appreciates Bubble Bobble. To this day I can turn my NES on, slap in a copy, and most everyone in the room starts clamoring to play within minutes.
And more than half end up humming the theme song later.:D
Rusting iron consumes free oxygen. When used in water sources, this can be a very Bad Thing for most closed-system watersheds.
Powdered iron has been suggested as a means of controlling greenhouse buildup by scattering hundreds of tons of it across the surface of the pacific ocean; it creates dramatic blooms of algae in the water that suck up carbon dioxide and other pollutants.
The problem to this, of course, is that the ocean is a closed-system as well, albeit a far larger one. The iron rusts, consumes oxygen, leaving fish in oxygen-deprived waters and with little place else to go. (Fish aren't immune to pressure, quite the opposite, so no, going down isn't much of an option.)
The Link's Awakening ending I totally agree with. One of the most fun games I'd every played on Game Boy, and definetly one of the creepiest endings.
FF7's ending made plenty of sense to me, and I loved the sequence, but one thing bothered the hell out of me... Nanaki is the last of his race! How the F*ck did he end up with kids?! Nanaki being RedXIII. Bah.
Other good endings? The Freespace series has never dissapointed there. And with some of the best in-game sequences too. (Who didn't have a brown-trouser moment at the special-ops mission and the scream of DIVE DIVE DIVE!)
Bad endings? Diablo 2's Lord of Destruction. The ending to the regular game (act 4) is great. The Act 5 LoD ending? Bleh. Who gives a fuck about Tyrael? I want to know about my characters!
And then there's Bubble Bobble, which while being the finest video game ever made, was very frustrating in that you couldn't get the 'real' ending unless you were playing 2 players.
Also notable was the game endings for Jet Moto 2, for being the first racing game I've ever played that HAD character endings, and decent ones.
... to even fscking scarier. Goddamnit, this game is one of only two to make me shriek aloud like a little girl (the other was Quake II). This game literally gave me nightmares...
And now it's gotten more realistic, and thus scarier.
I can't wait for this mod to be done, then I have an excuse if I'm ever institutionalized.:)
My boyfriend has the P-90 airsoft, with the nice ammo-clips that actually have brass inside the casing to look more authentic, even includes the authentic stamping on the brass 9mm rounds. Fun toy, it's about the only time I've forgiven him for blowing a few hundred dollars on such an expensive hobby.
Generally, as head-wiz for a muck, and major staffer and player on a few others, MU* in general are alive and well, but are making a slow decline.
One day, there'll be MMORPG's that will facilitate enough creativity to allow for truly interesting character interaction.
Ultimately at present, what we're seeing is a great deal of people finally moving on, and going on with their lives. Player-bases get older, and your primary source of players (students and 20-somethings) grow up and move on to dealing with things in real life.
MU* will never die out, however. Ultimately it comes back to the fact that text has always allowed the greatest communication medium, and will continue to for the forseeable future.
Most of all, there will always be storytellers, and as long there are, there will always be RP.
The Samsung SyncMaster 950p. 19 inches of CRT goodness, one of the cheapest priced on the market, and despite it's low price-point probably the best image I've seen out of any 19" monitor, ever. I'll be buying a second one soon enough for dual-head display, in fact.
Well, me, I know you miss Thailand, and I know you're just dealing with the first year of really starting to explore the boys and girls your age.
1. Don't doubt for a second your sexuality is perfectly valid. People are people; knocking half the human race off the list of people you can love IS just as stupid as you think it is now. Five years from now what started as a one-night stand will turn into a love that will make those years worth it. Yes, you WILL get laid again, so relax.
2. Junior High and High School will be awful, socially. Spend your time cultivating real friends. Enjoy idiosyncracies in others. And not that I'd need to tell you this, but avoid drugs.
3. Exercise. Get back into running and waterfall climbing.
4. Keep writing. Oh god, keep writing. The more you write, the better it gets, and you don't want to wait 9 more years to get back to where you'll be at fourteen!
5. Don't commit any crimes, even the ones you think you can get away with. You'll eventually get caught, and while not as bad as your parents threaten, it's still not fun.
6. Don't work construction labor as a summer job. It will wreck your feet and leave you in pain for years to come.
7. Dermatologist visits. Remember those sunburns in Thailand? Right. And brush your teeth twice daily.
8. Most of all, believe in your convictions. Stand up to your parents when you know you're right. Stand up to/everyone/ when you know you're right.
9. Oh god, you're going to/LOVE/ the internet. And the console games are going to be so pretty... aw, here, play some Soul Calibur. I've got some time to spare...
1 oz. slug from a 12-gauge shotgun at any sort of 10-metre-or-less range will be stopped by most any kevlar vest, but unless it's -well- padded, the impact can kill, and can in fact throw someone from their feet (this, however, is more motion akin to one's heels being a fulcrum while their body takes a sharp angle to the floor, not a 'get thrown back 20 feet while 3 feet off the ground' effect.
Even good padding on a vest still means you're getting one hell of an impact.
Slashdot Mirror
"Neither a console nor a hand-held?" "Not expected to see rounds of applause?"
Must be the next Virtual Boy!
I quit caffeine repeatedly throughout my life, until the last time, and so far so good for a number of months now.
My withdrawl symptoms from caffeine were always severe; shakes, cramps, migraines, and general irritability. A number of times I tried cold turkey, but each time I tried to quit it left me suffering too much for the effort to be worthwhile.
Finally I decided cold turkey just wasn't worth it. So I went simpler; I weaned myself down, from a 2 litre a day habit of cola. First I dropped to a 1 litre a bottle a day, for two-three weeks. From there, a 710 millilitre bottle a day, again for two weeks, then down to the 650 ml bottle for another week, then finally a 355ml can a day for two weeks. After that I switched to a 455ml bottle of orange juice a day, and haven't looked back.
Best of all, I suffered next to no withdrawl; weaning it out of my system gradually helped the process tremendously.
Tough call, but my four nominees are "Basement Magic" (Fantasy & Science Fiction, May) "The Hanging Curve" (Fantasy & Science Fiction, April), and "The Seasons of the Ansarac" (Fantasy & Science Fiction, February), and "The Navatar" (Fantasy & Science Fiction, Oct/Nov) Seeing a trend? I do have other subscriptions, honest. >.>
Other runners-up are definetly "Mortal Engines" (Asimov's Science Fiction, December), and September's issue of Asimov's Science Fiction offers me a bounty of excellent stories: "Off on a Starship", "The Long Way Home", "Focus Group", "Big Ugly Mama And The Zk".
Hell, I'm on a roll: Fantasy & Science Fiction's October/November issue featured "Like Minds", "Almost Home", and another especially treasured favorite, "The Navatar".
My choice for best Novella of the year: "The Fluted Girl" (Fantasy & Science Fiction, June).
I'm utterly unaffiliated with the magazine, just a particularly happy subscriber (to Asimov's, Analog, and Fantasy & Science Fiction), and I truly cannot understate how good the quality of these publications are to any literary fan, in particular Fantasy & Science Fiction.
Heh. Don't suppose there's a +1: Ironic, modifier there?
And here I wait with my last moderator point to mod down the first post. Buahahah.
The original DOS game. There's few games as fun to share a computer with someone else as that one; tank-based blasting fun. Hell, it made my mother a gamer, and she used to be one of those parents who held placards in protest back in the mid-eighties, against video games and their corruption of youth.
I really well and truly hated that game, actually. While playing with the kitten and the arcades were highlights, they didn't really help that I'd spend hours trying to get into a fight with /something/ and be unable to.
Very dull game, all in all.
Me too!
Most of those genres of games are covered, but Scorched Earth and Bubble Bobble are two definitive games of their genre and time, and even in this modern day and age, remain as playable as ever. (Scorched Earth is still a popular LAN-party title, hotseating. And Bubble Bobble sucks in /everyone/ I've ever seen, playing at console parties.)
Thank god someone else appreciates Bubble Bobble. To this day I can turn my NES on, slap in a copy, and most everyone in the room starts clamoring to play within minutes.
:D
And more than half end up humming the theme song later.
Good, I'm not the first to point out Sinistar. n.n
Now this has me thinking, a Guilty Gear vs. Samurai Shodown game. It'd be beautiful.
Rusting iron consumes free oxygen. When used in water sources, this can be a very Bad Thing for most closed-system watersheds.
Powdered iron has been suggested as a means of controlling greenhouse buildup by scattering hundreds of tons of it across the surface of the pacific ocean; it creates dramatic blooms of algae in the water that suck up carbon dioxide and other pollutants.
The problem to this, of course, is that the ocean is a closed-system as well, albeit a far larger one. The iron rusts, consumes oxygen, leaving fish in oxygen-deprived waters and with little place else to go. (Fish aren't immune to pressure, quite the opposite, so no, going down isn't much of an option.)
The Link's Awakening ending I totally agree with. One of the most fun games I'd every played on Game Boy, and definetly one of the creepiest endings.
FF7's ending made plenty of sense to me, and I loved the sequence, but one thing bothered the hell out of me... Nanaki is the last of his race! How the F*ck did he end up with kids?! Nanaki being RedXIII. Bah.
Other good endings? The Freespace series has never dissapointed there. And with some of the best in-game sequences too. (Who didn't have a brown-trouser moment at the special-ops mission and the scream of DIVE DIVE DIVE!)
Bad endings? Diablo 2's Lord of Destruction. The ending to the regular game (act 4) is great. The Act 5 LoD ending? Bleh. Who gives a fuck about Tyrael? I want to know about my characters!
And then there's Bubble Bobble, which while being the finest video game ever made, was very frustrating in that you couldn't get the 'real' ending unless you were playing 2 players.
Also notable was the game endings for Jet Moto 2, for being the first racing game I've ever played that HAD character endings, and decent ones.
... to even fscking scarier. Goddamnit, this game is one of only two to make me shriek aloud like a little girl (the other was Quake II). This game literally gave me nightmares...
:)
And now it's gotten more realistic, and thus scarier.
I can't wait for this mod to be done, then I have an excuse if I'm ever institutionalized.
My boyfriend has the P-90 airsoft, with the nice ammo-clips that actually have brass inside the casing to look more authentic, even includes the authentic stamping on the brass 9mm rounds. Fun toy, it's about the only time I've forgiven him for blowing a few hundred dollars on such an expensive hobby.
Generally, as head-wiz for a muck, and major staffer and player on a few others, MU* in general are alive and well, but are making a slow decline.
One day, there'll be MMORPG's that will facilitate enough creativity to allow for truly interesting character interaction.
Ultimately at present, what we're seeing is a great deal of people finally moving on, and going on with their lives. Player-bases get older, and your primary source of players (students and 20-somethings) grow up and move on to dealing with things in real life.
MU* will never die out, however. Ultimately it comes back to the fact that text has always allowed the greatest communication medium, and will continue to for the forseeable future.
Most of all, there will always be storytellers, and as long there are, there will always be RP.
Handy for powering limpet-radio beacons for stealthily tracking other subs.
Too bad we can't mod up moderators. Whoever listed it as Informative deserves a point of karma too. :D
The Samsung SyncMaster 950p. 19 inches of CRT goodness, one of the cheapest priced on the market, and despite it's low price-point probably the best image I've seen out of any 19" monitor, ever. I'll be buying a second one soon enough for dual-head display, in fact.
Well, me, I know you miss Thailand, and I know you're just dealing with the first year of really starting to explore the boys and girls your age.
/everyone/ when you know you're right.
/LOVE/ the internet. And the console games are going to be so pretty... aw, here, play some Soul Calibur. I've got some time to spare...
1. Don't doubt for a second your sexuality is perfectly valid. People are people; knocking half the human race off the list of people you can love IS just as stupid as you think it is now. Five years from now what started as a one-night stand will turn into a love that will make those years worth it. Yes, you WILL get laid again, so relax.
2. Junior High and High School will be awful, socially. Spend your time cultivating real friends. Enjoy idiosyncracies in others. And not that I'd need to tell you this, but avoid drugs.
3. Exercise. Get back into running and waterfall climbing.
4. Keep writing. Oh god, keep writing. The more you write, the better it gets, and you don't want to wait 9 more years to get back to where you'll be at fourteen!
5. Don't commit any crimes, even the ones you think you can get away with. You'll eventually get caught, and while not as bad as your parents threaten, it's still not fun.
6. Don't work construction labor as a summer job. It will wreck your feet and leave you in pain for years to come.
7. Dermatologist visits. Remember those sunburns in Thailand? Right. And brush your teeth twice daily.
8. Most of all, believe in your convictions. Stand up to your parents when you know you're right. Stand up to
9. Oh god, you're going to
1 oz. slug from a 12-gauge shotgun at any sort of 10-metre-or-less range will be stopped by most any kevlar vest, but unless it's -well- padded, the impact can kill, and can in fact throw someone from their feet (this, however, is more motion akin to one's heels being a fulcrum while their body takes a sharp angle to the floor, not a 'get thrown back 20 feet while 3 feet off the ground' effect.
Even good padding on a vest still means you're getting one hell of an impact.
Got a link for this claim?
I'm convinced the laser/girder pit in the Bombing Run games was inspired by Porrasturvat. I want UT 2003 modded for it, dammit! :)
*cough*
:)
You just published it.