quote:

A better analogy would be if someone walks into a championship tournament, says "GEE I THINK I MAY HAVE TRANSCENDED THE UNDERSTANDING OF SOME OF YOU GRANDMASTERS HERE, WANT TO JOIN MY NEW SCHOOL OF CHESS STRATEGY?", then loses by scholar's mate twice in the first round.

This person then refuses to leave his seat, claiming that he needs additional proof that the queen in f7 actually ontologically exists before he will admit defeat, and that the rules of the CHESS ESTABLISHMENT were unfairly biased against him by disallowing the possibility of his king being able to leapfrog pieces.

Then he pulls out an ancient shopping list from 1905 and claims that "1. Eggs" means 'The King', "2. Butter" means 'can', and "3. Milk" means 'leapfrog'. This is admissible evidence for his case because he has lived according to the dictates of this list since he was a teenager, and it has drastically improved his quality of life. When the referees tell him that this makes no loving sense, he drags them into a three hour debate over the precise meaning of the words 'makes', 'no', 'loving', and 'sense'.

When people point out that there is more than enough evidence to suggest his list is just a scrap of paper from some long-dead housewife's purse, he rather proudly points out how close-minded they are in dismissing outright the possibility that the list was in fact a secret coded message on the best way to live life, originally formulated by Atlanteans and passed down through the ages disguised as everyday documents. After all, if one starts with the presupposition that such a document exists, then it would be very fair to argue that it is indeed in the form of his shopping list.

Never mind that his previous interpretations of the list led to three convictions and time served for robbery, hate crimes, and murder. These were just unfortunate misinterpretations on his part of the list's true intentions, he says. The list itself is blameless. In fact, the Atlanteans deliberately obfuscated the true meaning of the list in this way, so that it would require multiple failed misinterpretations before one would happen across its TRUE meaning, and in doing so appreciate it all the more.

In fact, he does have some evidence to back up his claims. Why, just last week during his daily meditation on the list, he felt it telling him that something good was about to happen in his future. And yesterday, wouldn't you know it, he found a twenty dollar note on the sidewalk! Evidence of the list's prophetic powers if I ever saw one. And believe him, he has many more stories where that came from.

By now, the debate has splintered off into innumerable tangents, with the one man against literally every other player and referee present at the tournament. Finally, he graciously accepts the possibility of defeat in some of the myriad topics now being covered. OK, maybe the tallest player doesn't always get to go first. Fine, I will concede that there isn't much evidence to support my third-invisible-knight hypothesis. But that's all irrelevant. What he wants to concentrate on, and what nobody has yet been able to disprove, he adds, is the ability of the king to leapfrog over other pieces.

The argument drags on for weeks. Finally, one afternoon, the beet-faced referee exhausts his last reserves of decency and throws his arms up in frustration and despair. "YOU loving RETARD, HOW CAN YOU LAY CLAIM TO KNOWING ANYTHING ABOUT CHESS STRATEGY WHEN YOU DON'T EVEN GRASP THE MOST BASIC RULES!?" He shouts, just as a new entrant walks through the door. "I'm sorry," replies the man calmly, "I simply cannot discuss the rules of chess with such an 'official' if you insist on using such strong and uncouth language. Please retract your insults or I will be forced to plug my ears whenever you say anything from now on."

Seeing only this last exchange, the new entrant pipes up. "He's right, you know. If he did something wrong, then you as the referee have every right to tell him he is so, but it should be done with a patient and thorough explanation of the details of his error. Hurling ridicule at him solves nothing and won't change anyone's mind."

The lazy eye of the retarded List-following, King-leapfrogging man twitches almost unnoticeably, as he cranes his head towards the source of this new voice. A welcoming smile cracks, inch by beaming inch, across his face. He licks his lips. He clears his throat.

"So glad to know decent people like you still value a polite discussion. Care for a game?"

Ryoshi posted:

Everyone should go to the leper colony right now and read El Spider's post-probation meltdown, typed out as the probation reasons for several other posters until he got banned.

VendaGoat posted:

You mean the headbutt guy in a call of Cthulu game?

Evfedu posted:

That Canadian Fighter pilot one makes me laugh so goddamn hard

foobardog posted:

The F-35 is a jet that they're trying to replace the current American fleet of jets with, and has been a complete and utter boondoggle costing poo poo tons of money for a terrible product that most actual people in the military don't even want.

Sham bam bamina! posted:

AlphaKretin posted:

That's the point, the option exists as basically a funnier permaban.

Chantilly Say posted:

What's the name for the condition where you see hot jets everywhere you look?

canyoneer posted:

Then why does it go inside an organ?

TontoCorazon posted:

See a therapist.

Travis343 posted:

how is TCC not just a single post that says "smoke weed" like what other discussion about drugs do you even need to have.

The Lone Badger posted:

dumb. posted:

What's a good costume to pretend you're someone who's happy and doesn't long for the agonizing burden of life to end?

RareAcumen posted:

Robin Williams.

LITERALLY A BIRD posted:

read these:









and then look at Palpek's posts on this page.
http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3770505&pagenumber=32

BJPaskoff posted:

Google tells me this is a Mass Effect thing. Is this the ending to Mass Effect 3 everyone's always bitching about? Never played the games.

My Q-Face posted:

I really really want to read the context and response to that one. And holy poo poo is that almost spot on.

PBS Newshour posted:

The thing is though, I have seen that before, in real life.

Centripetal Horse posted:

I'd read it.

Also, I have a great Chuck Tingle title for this, but I'm too lazy to post it.

Arsten posted:

I once encountered this. A guy was lactose intolerant and his wife would put cheese slices in his lunch. Well, they would just fit in this little slot right above the optical drive and he just kept cramming them in there for over a year. There was always a funk in his office that you couldn't quite place, but it's hard in the business world to be all like "Hey, man. Do you wash?" if you aren't their boss.

Then one week, he went on vacation. By Friday, someone needed something from his desk and went in and came out screaming. Apparently, there was a giant WWI-style troop column of black ants under his desk. The janitor came over and vacuum them up and said "It looks like they are coming from the computer!" and I was called.

At the time, I was an idiot help desk guy so I walked it back to my workbench instead of doing the proper thing and rigging it with explosives. Upon arriving, I found I had a small swarm of ants all over my stomach where the box was resting. I immediately stripped that shirt off and threw it away (always keep a spare, guys! ) and then dropped the tower into a box to contain a few ants. After a few minutes of the heebie jeebies with my brain telling my body that there had to be at least 50 million more ants on it everywhere, I was starting to get a headache from the smell, so I dabbed a bit of Vaporub on my nose and proceeded to open it.

The proper word is "exploded" when I popped the side off. The ants came rolling down the sides marched out on the top of the size plate, and flooding the box and going crazy. I was worried they would just keep spreading out from the box when a co-worker showed me the neatest trick I had learned to that date: Cinnamon powder is like a cross between smelling salts and nerve gas to most ants. If you put it down, they will avoid it and if you dump it on them, they will act like you just melted their minds for a few moments before dying.

So, after he created a powder ring against evil spirits on the bottom of the box, I pulled the side off with some pliers and beheld the terror. There was crusty cheese, melty cheese, and oil everywhere. The ants had actually done an ant-farm-tunnel thing to the cheese while harvesting it and the smell was so powerful, the vaporub did nothing to save me. I dumped every bit of cinnamon powder in the jar over as much of that thing as possible. When that obviously wasn't enough to kill everything in there, I basically wrote it off. No one disagreed with me as no one wanted to touch it.

Come Monday morning, the guy was all like "I don't know how that happened! I must have been setup! The smell over the last months wasn't actually there!" and other such niceties. Then he claimed that the owner set him up to avoid paying him the bonus by ruining his current contract work, which the owner was butthurt about and fired him for saying so. Then they came back to me and demanded I recover everything on that computer.

I was fired for refusing to work on that hell tower to recover the 'extremely important' work documents as it was right after the owner's rampage against ant man and he wasn't taking prisoners. He was apparently sorry for firing me after they showed him the computer, but not sorry enough to offer my job back.

So.... Thanks Ants!

Thanks Ants posted:

PBS Newshour posted:

midjack basically did the forums equivalent of jumping on a grenade to save your squad mates

Angry Diplomat posted:

Get killed by ANGRY MUTANT PLANTS. Get killed by ANGRY MUTANT ANIMALS. Get killed by ANGRY MUTANT BUGS. Kill a bear and EAT IT, just EAT AN ENTIRE BEAR. KILL EVERYTHING. Descend into the DEPTHS OF THE WORLD and retrieve ANCIENT TECHNOLOGICAL ARTIFACTS. KNIFE-FIGHT a GIANT DRILL ROBOT and WIN. Be a COOL WASTELAND KNIGHT. Be a TWO-FISTED COWBOY. Be a HOMICIDAL NINJA TURTLE with an AXE and a SHOTGUN. SPONTANEOUSLY BURST INTO FLAMES. Get into a GUNFIGHT with a HYENA-MONSTER and accidentally anger a HERD OF MAJESTIC HULKING DEMON HORSES with your crossfire. Fly into the air like a BEAUTIFUL EAGLE and then SWORD-FIGHT a GIANT DRAGONFLY. MIND CONTROL a TWO-HEADED BOAR and MAKE IT WEAR CHAIN MAIL and KILL YOUR ENEMIES. Encounter a LEGENDARY PLANT with an INTIMIDATING SKULL MASK and the ability to THROW FIERY DEATH FROM ITS HANDS. CONTRACT HORRIFYING DISEASES. Go to THE DEATHLANDS and discover that THE DEATHLANDS are called THE DEATHLANDS because they will KILL YOU DEAD. HACK OFF A ROBOT’S HEAD AND EAT IT. Get into a SLEDGEHAMMER DUEL with a ‘ROIDED-OUT SUPERCANNIBAL. Be SO TECHNOLOGICALLY ILLITERATE that you BREAK A BOX OF CRAYONS attempting to figure out what it is. Be SO TECHNOLOGICALLY GIFTED that you can make an ACID GRENADE out of a PLASTIC TREE and a FOLDING CHAIR. Build your own FLAMETHROWER. Build your own LASER GUN. Build your own HANDHELD NUCLEAR BOMB and BLOW YOURSELF UP WITH IT. Collect MAGMA in a CANTEEN. Pour MAGMA into a pool of ACID to see what happens. DRINK MAGMA. TELEPATHICALLY LOCATE an enemy and HATE IT TO DEATH with your TERRIFYING BRAIN SORCERY. Have your LEGS CUT OFF and then REGROW YOUR LEGS and pick up your previous legs and EAT YOUR OWN LEGS. Encounter your EVIL TWIN and then summon six of your own GOOD TWINS to fight your evil twin’s SIX EVIL TWIN TWINS in a FOURTEEN-WAY PSYCHIC LASER DEATH RAVE and then BURN TO DEATH when all of the combined PYROKINETIC MIND FIRE from all of the TIME CLONES causes the ENTIRE MAP TO COMBUST AND MELT.

Tiggum posted:

The guys from the first film who don't show up at all in the rest of the trilogy? I watched those films when they came out and never since, but weren't the droid separatists and the trade federation two entirely separate groups both secretly being influenced by Palpatine? You could be right, I don't claim to have any kind of in-depth knowledge of the films, but the impression I got was that everyone thought Grievous was absolutely in charge of the droids and they were a distinct group fighting for independence from the republic. The trade federation blockading Naboo was a whole separate thing.

Improbable Lobster posted:

I thought these posts were ban-worthy now

Malachite_Dragon posted:

The one about having a fight with a superior officer atop a pallet of ammo for mastery of the universe is good for a laugh when I'm feeling down.

Also: "I got into a fight with a half-track. IT STARTED IT!!"
I'd post either one of them just to annoy the Anti-Ant Brigade but I'm phone posting.

RyokoTK posted:

Eh have you actually played Daikatana?

There's been this weird trend in the Early FPS thread in Games of people trying Daikatana out of morbid curiosity. It actually got an official patch relatively recently with some QOL stuff.

People consistently discover that, yeah, the game is actually that bad. It is a bad game in every atom of its conception. It's not quirky bad, it's not cute bad, it's not so bad it's good. It's just really, really bad.

DNF is bad too, but it's just a combination of generically bad and monumentally disappointing. Divorced from the hype, it's cheap and forgettable. Daikatana transcends that.

Hogge Wild posted:

well how do you make hot dogs then

Olive Garden tonight! posted:

Pictured: Dorados

Radio Paranoia posted:

What are those?!

Giant Isopod posted:

Doritos are a type of seasoned corn chip produced by Frito Lay - originally at Disneyland in an attempt to find new uses for stale tortillas. Originally created in 1967, they're been sold worldwide in too many flavors to count.

Personally, I don't care for them.

Solice Kirsk posted:

I feel like I'm missing out on something.

The MSJ posted:

Oxxidation posted:

Weren't they an Avshalom alt?

Tiggum posted:

Being good at physics might not actually translate that well to running a country.

areyoucontagious posted:

Dead Leia Chat

Phyzzle posted:

Running a locomotive:

IPCRESS posted:

Well, one of us is playing train simulator wrong.

quote:

1. Start the lubricator. The more the merrier – if you can see any water at all in the indicator sight glass, you're not providing enough lubricant.
2. Check the water level in the boiler. If you can see the red ball at all, it's far too high. Open the blow-down valves to drop the level. Be sure to open the valve closest to the platform first. The yard workers are all Irish and are agitating to get paid something other than company scrip anyway. Don't open the steam injectors or operate the displacement top-up pump.
3. Set the train brakes to 'emergency' to dump all your air. Don't start the compressor, it costs fuel and fuel is money. Do release the loco brake at this time.
4. Start the generator. Get the fireman to put a spanner across the outputs to make sure it's working.
5. Light bulbs cost money, and that's something this company can't afford to be wasting in this economy. If you use one, you'll be charged for the fraction of its life you've used up. If you're caught not using one, the railway will deny that it's standard practice to tell people not to use the lights.
6. If it's dark, your eyes will automatically adjust. Do not use the headlight at night – people complain that it shines through their window and complaints are a pain in my rear end. Ditto the bell – ring that fucker after 7pm and Myrtle will be on the phone to me in seconds about it.
7. Open the steam throttles to full. Set the blower to maximum and open all the draft doors in the firebox. You're going to want that sucker good and hot.
8. Tell the fireman he's not being paid by the hour, and he should get to shovelling. If he complains that he's not being paid at all, hit him with a pick handle. Also, write him up for damaging the DC generator.
9. Close the blow-down valves when the water level is at or below the crown sheet.
10. Check that your friends are recording, because you're about to lay down a sweet burn out in your bro-train, rolling coal yo. If your friends are all being treated for full-thickness burns, write them up for wasting company time. Be sure to inventory any first aid kit supplies used so their estates can be billed later.
11. Exhort the fireman to shovel faster.
12. Set the train brake to zero. Start the compressor at this time.
13. Open the regulator to the fully open position. Throw the reverser bar as violently as you can the full-forward position (in that order).
14. Avoid the conrods and valve gear as they part company with the locomotive. Record the throw distance for posterity.
15. Ask the fireman to visually check the crownsheet.
16. Open the steam injector fully.
17. Write yourself up for damaging company property.

If everything's gone to plan, your train should be a crater surrounded by fragments of scalding hot metal raining down on people brought out into the street by the sound.

Kavak posted:

hackbunny posted:

Yes! a long-running thread in GBS


I politely tittered at the mention of the Avro Arrow

Absurd Alhazred posted:

And this is how a goon will get Something Awful seized by the FBI and Lowtax sent to a CIA black site.

Lunchmeat Larry posted:

love to crack open a cold one after work w the boys

greypearl posted:

So we went on a mini-holiday, discovered a bird shelf in the hotel room shower, and I've been scratching Pearl for the past hour so she is good and quiet. Happy V-Day!

CROWS EVERYWHERE posted:

Is that a massive shower or a tiny grey?

greypearl posted:

I think it's mostly the perspective of the photo, but you definitely could fit four to five people in there. Pearl is not a large grey, but she's maintained about 450 grams of weight for most of her adult life, which is spot on average for them. In conclusion...

It's a shower, not a grower.