Profile for I'll Steal Your Toast

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RPGs in General
Agent
Member # 2210
Profile #63
I got it and tried it out. It is pretty buggy so far, but plays pretty close to civ 2.

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Wasting your time and mine looking for a good laugh.

Star Bright, Star Light, Oh I Wish I May, I Wish Might, Wish For One Star Tonight.
Posts: 1084 | Registered: Thursday, November 7 2002 08:00
RPGs in General
Agent
Member # 2210
Profile #56
I'm going to try to change the topic a bit. I am interested in free games in general what are the best. Right now, I am downloading from http://www.freeciv.org -- I want to see how the civilization clone looks. There is going to be a new version of civilization-- civ 4 out soon which looks very good.

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Wasting your time and mine looking for a good laugh.

Star Bright, Star Light, Oh I Wish I May, I Wish Might, Wish For One Star Tonight.
Posts: 1084 | Registered: Thursday, November 7 2002 08:00
THE ABOMINABLE PHOTO THREAD: THE THIRD COMING! in General
Agent
Member # 2210
Profile #7
IMAGE(http://www.FreePhotoHost.net/is.php?i=27606&img=toasted.JPG)

I haven't had a picture taken in a while, I'll come up with more later.

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Wasting your time and mine looking for a good laugh.

Star Bright, Star Light, Oh I Wish I May, I Wish Might, Wish For One Star Tonight.
Posts: 1084 | Registered: Thursday, November 7 2002 08:00
Dream Job... in General
Agent
Member # 2210
Profile #10
I would buy an entire floor in luxury hotels in perpetuity in Paris, London, Tokyo, San Francisco, Rio De Janeiro and New York. Have them decorated lavishly with art and antiques. Have a permanent staff assigned to each hotel of maid, butler and cook. These would be on a high permanent annual salary, be bonded with a privacy agreement, and would rarely see me because I would be travelling much of the time, relaxing, attending to my investments, or doing charity work. Then I would travel the world at a whim seeing anything I wished. I would not work again for the rest of my life, except for establishing a multi-billion dollar charitable trust to solve the worlds problems. I would also invest some of the money in a fund to buy interest in promising new medical and alternative energy companies. I would buy a modest home for each of my relatives and set up trust funds for their children of several milliion dollars. :rolleyes:

Hah, It is just a joke, I rather like what I do already. I would probably continue doing what I already do, even if I had more money. I won't tell you what it is however.

A while ago Steven Brill tried to create a super content site called Contentville, it failed miserably, due to numerous copyright and other failings. I would like to design and build something similar which covered every type of content in existence, but make it succeed. I haven't found a business model which would work or even remotely make sense though for this kind of site... I sometime daydream about this.

[ Saturday, July 23, 2005 08:22: Message edited by: I'll Steal Your Toast ]

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Wasting your time and mine looking for a good laugh.

Star Bright, Star Light, Oh I Wish I May, I Wish Might, Wish For One Star Tonight.
Posts: 1084 | Registered: Thursday, November 7 2002 08:00
Were we prepared? in General
Agent
Member # 2210
Profile #103
How amusing. The bible is about how to live. Ordinary people may look for divine acts, but are ordinary and thus may be inspired by miracles but mostly are not going to do them. There is an overwhelming focus on whether a person believes in x or y, rather than lives by what the bible, etc. teaches. Thus, you get many people who believe in the bible, but cannot live even remotely by what it teaches.

Somehow, a person is going to be saved by believing in Jesus or God, or something else and think they have a free lunch card which says I believe in this so I can do anything I want. Very few people can make the bible alive and live by it. I admire those who can, because it takes tremendous discipline.

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Wasting your time and mine looking for a good laugh.

Star Bright, Star Light, Oh I Wish I May, I Wish Might, Wish For One Star Tonight.
Posts: 1084 | Registered: Thursday, November 7 2002 08:00
Who plays pencil and paper roleplaying games? in General
Agent
Member # 2210
Profile #1
I stopped a while ago, now that truly is an intensive waste of time. Huge preparation periods. I would rather just play a game than spends eons creating it.

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Wasting your time and mine looking for a good laugh.

Star Bright, Star Light, Oh I Wish I May, I Wish Might, Wish For One Star Tonight.
Posts: 1084 | Registered: Thursday, November 7 2002 08:00
A Waste of Time? in General
Agent
Member # 2210
Profile #10
Yes, this is a complete and total waste of time in a practical sense. But, it is fun, so that counts for a lot. :P

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Wasting your time and mine looking for a good laugh.

Star Bright, Star Light, Oh I Wish I May, I Wish Might, Wish For One Star Tonight.
Posts: 1084 | Registered: Thursday, November 7 2002 08:00
Were we prepared? in General
Agent
Member # 2210
Profile #81
I am very suspicious when people start quoting passages of the bible. What happens is a group of people get together with a similar view of the world take a small piece of it and then try to dissect it into tiny bits. They take these tiny bits then try and force you to accept their view of worlds by making funny quotes out of context.

John said X, Paul said X. For the most part, I have found most of them to be ignorant of both the history of the time period, and ignorant of the document as a whole. This is true of most who come proselytizing to my door with various religious texts.

Very simply, I ask you this. Have you read the document from beginning to end or is it impossible for you to sit down and read it without trying to pick at and interpret every statement being made. Can you put aside what is being fed to you and read it as it is without turning to your pastor or priest and saying father I do not understand this you must tell me what this means. I know it may be huge and sweeping but do this and you will understand more than most people do.

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Wasting your time and mine looking for a good laugh.

Star Bright, Star Light, Oh I Wish I May, I Wish Might, Wish For One Star Tonight.
Posts: 1084 | Registered: Thursday, November 7 2002 08:00
Favorite Movie in General
Agent
Member # 2210
Profile #35
I found a true trove of cheap chop sockey kung fu movies. Walgreens is now selling Wu Tang Clan films 3 for $10.00. I found one of the first martial arts films that I really liked Snake Fist Under Eagle Shadows one of Jackie Chan's first films cheap. Yay :D .

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Wasting your time and mine looking for a good laugh.

Star Bright, Star Light, Oh I Wish I May, I Wish Might, Wish For One Star Tonight.
Posts: 1084 | Registered: Thursday, November 7 2002 08:00
The arrow of time in General
Agent
Member # 2210
Profile #52
If we want to make things even more interesting, we can add another twist with physics-- the idea that there are many worlds-- if we make a prediction about what may happen, it will happen, but it will not happen in a place which we can experience the event unfolding.

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Wasting your time and mine looking for a good laugh.

Star Bright, Star Light, Oh I Wish I May, I Wish Might, Wish For One Star Tonight.
Posts: 1084 | Registered: Thursday, November 7 2002 08:00
Recommended Reading in General
Agent
Member # 2210
Profile #66
Another one to add -- Here, There, and Everywhere by Chris Roberson-- a kind of time travel adventure yarn.

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Wasting your time and mine looking for a good laugh.

Star Bright, Star Light, Oh I Wish I May, I Wish Might, Wish For One Star Tonight.
Posts: 1084 | Registered: Thursday, November 7 2002 08:00
Favorite web comic. in General
Agent
Member # 2210
Profile #30
This is a pretty good site to see what is available http://www.onlinecomics.net and if you want to pay for a subscription to web comics http://www.serializer.net -- has quite a few very good artists who are both in print and on the web.

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Wasting your time and mine looking for a good laugh.

Star Bright, Star Light, Oh I Wish I May, I Wish Might, Wish For One Star Tonight.
Posts: 1084 | Registered: Thursday, November 7 2002 08:00
The arrow of time in General
Agent
Member # 2210
Profile #30
Here is a simple idea of why we cannot percieve the future directly. The past in our perception is fixed. We can remember most of it in a general outline. Those who can remember almost every moment of their past tend to be overwhelmed mentally and have problems focusing on the importance of events. One event becomes almost as important as the next. A classic case of this occurring comes from a book called The Mind of A Mnemonist by A.R. Luria. Our mind is designed to forget things to place emphasis on what is important.

Assuming there is more than one possible future and the future is not finite. The brain purposefully blocks out what it does not consider important on a subconscious level about the future. It would be too much information for our brains to see both the past and all possible futures at the same time without becoming insane. Thus we are aware of a limited number of possible futures.

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Wasting your time and mine looking for a good laugh.

Star Bright, Star Light, Oh I Wish I May, I Wish Might, Wish For One Star Tonight.
Posts: 1084 | Registered: Thursday, November 7 2002 08:00
The arrow of time in General
Agent
Member # 2210
Profile #21
Part of the problem with the description you are using is that in a very real sense, the present becomes the future through our own actions, every time an action occurs the equation changes so the moment a prediction is made, our present course changes the chance that it may happen. It is the observer problem, we predict a future then unconsciously act to change what may happen.

If you think of the butterfly effect, we act on what may happen before we are even aware of what is happening. By the time we are making a prediction-- the world has changed around us and what we do will have a different effect.

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Wasting your time and mine looking for a good laugh.

Star Bright, Star Light, Oh I Wish I May, I Wish Might, Wish For One Star Tonight.
Posts: 1084 | Registered: Thursday, November 7 2002 08:00
The arrow of time in General
Agent
Member # 2210
Profile #16
It is very hard to teach anybody to pay attention or be more aware of what is happening to them. This is not religious. The more aware a person becomes, the more aware they are of suffering, deception, and pain which makes most people want to go drink several beers, play video games until their eyes fall out (my favorite) or go hide in a corner.

We are talking about memory here which is internalizing what is happening in the external world. Memory meditation and awareness are a different form of meditation than most people are used to. Being able to remember clearly in the present and be more aware of what is happening now leads to better able to see what may happen.

There are basically two forms of memory meditation-- The Method of Eidos, and The Memory Castle both of which were originally taught as a part of rhetoric in the Roman era, or used in the Renaissance by the Jesuits and many of the Renaissance Italians. A perfect time for our favorites-- Leonardo and that nutcase Nostradamus. Dig around a bit, it is not too hard to find if you look. Enough said.

This is an interesting article on the Art of Memory.

http://www.renaissancemagazine.com/backissues/memory.html

[ Monday, July 18, 2005 13:50: Message edited by: I'll Steal Your Toast ]

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Wasting your time and mine looking for a good laugh.

Star Bright, Star Light, Oh I Wish I May, I Wish Might, Wish For One Star Tonight.
Posts: 1084 | Registered: Thursday, November 7 2002 08:00
The arrow of time in General
Agent
Member # 2210
Profile #11
You can remember (see) a number of possible tomorrows but not the one which will happen as it does exactly. Because tomorrow is a specific pathway among a fixed variety of pathways. Believing in something called superdeterminism, it means there are an infinite number of tomorrows which are already predetermined. Both choice and fate weigh equally but are in a way illusory. You have a choice of which predetermined future you will follow.

Your mind can grasp a number of them but not necessarily the one which you will follow. Very occasionally, you will come very close to imagining a possible future as it happens creating a sense of deja vu or precognition, but it will not follow things exactly as you imagined them. Some people are better focused on this than others. The more aware a person becomes the more likely they will be able to choose their fate and be aware in the sense of deja vu of what is happening around them.

As far as remembering, the past is like a long string behind you, the string is deteriorating and you can only see it indirectly, leaving all memories open to interpretation.

This is my take on things. Take it or leave it.

[ Monday, July 18, 2005 12:44: Message edited by: I'll Steal Your Toast ]

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Wasting your time and mine looking for a good laugh.

Star Bright, Star Light, Oh I Wish I May, I Wish Might, Wish For One Star Tonight.
Posts: 1084 | Registered: Thursday, November 7 2002 08:00
Time vs. Money in General
Agent
Member # 2210
Profile #13
If you had infinite time, as long as you saved more a couple percentage points than inflation you would eventually be able to retire in permanent leisure and never work agin. A thousand years for example does incredible things to wealth.

Money can always be earned, time cannot be reearned. Generally the people who have the money think time is more important.

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Wasting your time and mine looking for a good laugh.

Star Bright, Star Light, Oh I Wish I May, I Wish Might, Wish For One Star Tonight.
Posts: 1084 | Registered: Thursday, November 7 2002 08:00
Favorite web comic. in General
Agent
Member # 2210
Profile #24
A web comic is a comic that is serialized on the web. Serialized means it appears on a continuous basis on the web with an archive. If the comic is any good, it will eventually appear in multiple formats. It is merely a matter of format. There are plenty which are serialized in both web and book format. Hutch Owen for example is both available as a web comic and in print. There are a number of advantages to doing both. You can turn out the product much quicker on the web. Update faster, edit faster, and create news faster. It is much easier to create large story books in print, however. Anthologies are better in print. So are long works.

[ Sunday, July 17, 2005 12:04: Message edited by: I'll Steal Your Toast ]

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Wasting your time and mine looking for a good laugh.

Star Bright, Star Light, Oh I Wish I May, I Wish Might, Wish For One Star Tonight.
Posts: 1084 | Registered: Thursday, November 7 2002 08:00
Favorite web comic. in General
Agent
Member # 2210
Profile #21
Umm... what an attitude dude. File 49 is available as a print comic, so is Mega Tokyo-- it is one of the most popular Manga in print. A lot of things start on the web then move to print. Print is not necessarily better... there are a lot of things in print which are complete trash.

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Wasting your time and mine looking for a good laugh.

Star Bright, Star Light, Oh I Wish I May, I Wish Might, Wish For One Star Tonight.
Posts: 1084 | Registered: Thursday, November 7 2002 08:00
RPGs in General
Agent
Member # 2210
Profile #41
I like Jeff's games because they are cheap and you can get a lot of replay value out of them. I don't like to spend a lot of money on anything. You buy Blades of Avernum-- and you get four adventures, plus all of the extra scenarios. I liked Geneforge 3 a lot. Once again plenty of replay value.

I liked Fallout 2 but not Fallout 1. I also liked Arcanum-- a very good game which should be in the bargain bins by now. I think I spent $5.00 to get the fallout bundle and $10.00 for Arcanum. I had to stop playing Age of Wonders Shadow Magic because it hooked me in too much. It was a great game, a little bit too absorbing.

A great time waster is http://www.kingdomofloathing.com . It is good for about a week then it gets a bit stale. But, it is free and kind of funny.

The word free is best. I haven't really found anything lately for free that is really good.

I played Starships Unlimited, a 4x space strategy game from http://www.apezone.com . It was fun for a bit.

I like to hear about good free games. Let me see, what else. That is it.

I tried out Neverwinter Knights-- I found it to be too clunky. I didn't like it. It seems a bit contrived, the system is not integrated enough. It feels unpolished.

This is a listing of the top rated games from rpgdot.com . There are a lot of games with higher ratings than Neverwinter Nights. It is worth looking at.

http://www.rpgdot.com/index.php?hsaction=10070&sid=dceb1faffc4434f482b4e488d017377b

[ Sunday, July 17, 2005 05:40: Message edited by: I'll Steal Your Toast ]

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Wasting your time and mine looking for a good laugh.

Star Bright, Star Light, Oh I Wish I May, I Wish Might, Wish For One Star Tonight.
Posts: 1084 | Registered: Thursday, November 7 2002 08:00
FAQ/walkthrough is up in Geneforge Series
Agent
Member # 2210
Profile #67
Here goes. When you kill Akhari blaze, the best way to kill him is to change the settings for all of the summoning platforms. It is my favorite ending for Akhari Blaze. He quickly runs into a corner and is surrounded by the summoned critters. I like the statement he makes as well.

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Wasting your time and mine looking for a good laugh.

Star Bright, Star Light, Oh I Wish I May, I Wish Might, Wish For One Star Tonight.
Posts: 1084 | Registered: Thursday, November 7 2002 08:00
Solo Agent in Geneforge Series
Agent
Member # 2210
Profile #17
Alwan is actually a very nice complement for an agent. Build up your battle and blessing magic early and an agent and Alwan will be unstoppable.

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Wasting your time and mine looking for a good laugh.

Star Bright, Star Light, Oh I Wish I May, I Wish Might, Wish For One Star Tonight.
Posts: 1084 | Registered: Thursday, November 7 2002 08:00
What do YOU want to see in G4? in Geneforge Series
Agent
Member # 2210
Profile #251
A very minor change would be to allow us to customize the colors on our main characters graphic. A minor change.

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Wasting your time and mine looking for a good laugh.

Star Bright, Star Light, Oh I Wish I May, I Wish Might, Wish For One Star Tonight.
Posts: 1084 | Registered: Thursday, November 7 2002 08:00
What do YOU want to see in G4? in Geneforge Series
Agent
Member # 2210
Profile #238
Thinking about necromancy. A way to do this would have a set of necromantic shaping starting with shade, then ghost, warrior shade, then mage ghost-- a ghost that shoots essence orbs as the final stage. Also you could add a few forbidden spells-- life drain, aura of terror-- a mass terror spell, vampirism-- gives all your creations life draining attacks, bone wrack-- slow, stun, and damage, and a few others.

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Wasting your time and mine looking for a good laugh.

Star Bright, Star Light, Oh I Wish I May, I Wish Might, Wish For One Star Tonight.
Posts: 1084 | Registered: Thursday, November 7 2002 08:00
How evil is too evil> in Blades of Avernum
Agent
Member # 2210
Profile #6
I imagine you could do just about any level of evil. However, most extremely evil things are impossible to do with taste or in a non-pornographic manner. You won't be able to keep it on the Spiderweb tables and you probably will be hated. It caused an uproar when there was a prostitute in the game-- which was kind of funny.

The problem would be doing it in a non-graphic or verbally explicit manner. Subtlety and a very bad end for the villain are the key here.

Also having the party do evil things might have a caveat. It might be cool if the party is tricked into doing evil things at the beginning. For example they are told to recover an artifact from an evil temple which is not really evil, or they are told that a tribe are a bunch of cannibals, etc.

[ Friday, July 15, 2005 09:41: Message edited by: I'll Steal Your Toast ]

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Wasting your time and mine looking for a good laugh.

Star Bright, Star Light, Oh I Wish I May, I Wish Might, Wish For One Star Tonight.
Posts: 1084 | Registered: Thursday, November 7 2002 08:00

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