I don’t know about the other stations, but NBC Nightly News devoted an entire hour to remembering Ted Kennedy. Considering his prolific run in the Senate, it’s warranted, though I think conservative news networks should be quick to point out that when Strom Thurmond died, he certainly didn’t get that kind of coverage. Anyway, the point is that the last of the Kennedy brothers is dead, and by all public accounts, he was a great man, a great leader, all those double entendres about his big heart, etc.

Well, I disagree, about all the Kennedys really, but especially Ted. Firstly, his character as a human being was questionable, not all the time obviously, but enough to build himself a pretty strong reputation as a philanderer and a boozer for much of his life. It’s funny (convenient) how a Catholic repented and got a second marriage in the twilight of his life. He did work hard (for a senator, anyway) toward the end, but I think for most of his life, one could probably draw some pretty strong comparisons to George W. Bush.

Despite coming from a well-off lifestyle, Ted Kennedy “fought” for improved quality of life for everyone. You can look at it that way, and it’s probably true that he believed in most of what he said in his speeches, but from another perspective, his prerogatives were shortsighted pandering. That’s where, I believe, the current healthcare legislation, his baby, a bill likely to be his namesake, enters this tirade.

Is healthcare reform a priority for America? Absolutely. Should congress be working right now to cut costs and make healthcare affordable for everyone? Definitely. Should we drastically increase the national debt in order to cover all uninsured Americans, including those who would be denied coverage for preexisting conditions? Should we be fulfilling Ted Kennedy’s dream right now as our top priority no matter the cost or the long-term sense in the plan? I don’t think so.

This is what separates the Kennedys, issue-wise, from less salacious and more pragmatic liberals. Al Gore is the only one who comes to mind, but his push to overhaul the power grid and make it run (eventually) entirely on renewable resources, while more expensive than insuring all Americans in the short term, is the smartest long-term investment we could make. Not only would it greatly reduce our dependence on foreign oil (when combined with electric cars), it could quite possibly prevent Greenland from melting, which will prevent about a hundred or so more Hurricane Katrinas.

Call me selfish, but I think that saving the lives and quality of life for billions of people on the planet, not to mention the planet’s proverbial health, should come before delaying the deaths of a small minority of Americans. The thing is: It’s not as sexy, not as Kennedy-esque, as the healthcare bill. It was a dynasty of social compassion, but also a dynasty of living fast and dying young. I don’t think that’s the outlook we should have for our own lives, for our country and planet’s future. If this is the “end of an era,” as it was dubbed several times by reporters tonight, I say good riddance.

I just wanted to inform you wonderful peoples that I'm not gonna be around as much as I have. School starts tomorrow (Thursday), and, well, I really have to dig my spurs in and work hard for a high grade. This means that I'll be forced to... *shudders and pales at the thought* severely cut down on my internet time and study more. My parents think I'm useless and a burden, no matter what I do, so I want to prove them wrong by getting ridiculously high scores in my leaving certificate exam this year.

So... uhm, if any of my roleplay characters end up slowing a game down, please feel free to static him/her/them in a heartbeat, and I'll just do what I can to catch up. Thanks for the good times!

http://www.onlyfiction.net/marysue2.html

I would put this in the author's thread or the OCA or somewhere more befitting, but for the life of me, I can't determine where this should go.

Anyways, this is the Mary-Sue litmus test, or rather, one of the most thorough ones I've been able to find. This will help you determine if your character is well developed, or an absolute mess of god-modding. I've got bets on how many people here score over 70 points on the Mary Sue test.

The highest score any of my characters got was 37. The others ranged from 5 to mid-20s.

it appears my parents found my porn... they didn't say anything it just sort of... went missing

i wonder what they thought when they found it i mean considering there wasn't a single human in any of the pics and the pics were of varied sexuality

i doubt they know what a furry is...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bad_Sex_in_...tion_Award
Read the examples the link in there has and if you actually finish, never do anything that horrible when you write. And remember, these people are published writers.

Time for yet another vent from me.

Okay, here's the rundown.

I quit my job, for multiple reasons, the main one being I physically can't afford to live down here any longer. The rent alone ate up my entire paycheck, leaving me almost nothing for the other bills and basic necessities for survival. So, I'm moving to South Carolina with my dad and stepmom.

I couldn't transfer, because Wal-Mart is a bunch of greedy assholes. They scheduled me to work 46 hours, then got angry at me when I got overtime. With a 'coaching' on my record, I can't transfer. So fuck them. Fuck Wal-Mart, and fuck this town.

Now, that I can handle. What doesn't help, is my slumlord filed for eviction on us(remember how I said my paycheck didn't cut it?). I just came back from court on it, and they gave us five days to get the fuck out.

Right.

I have 3 cars, 2 of which don't run, 2 dogs, a cat, and a bunch of other shit. Do they REALLY think five days is enough? Luckily, my dad has 'The Hayley Genes'(my mom's words), and he's an expert bullshitter. He managed to lay down a sob story on my slumlord that gave us two more weeks.

I'm freaking out because I think realistically. I don't know if that's enough time.

That, and I have ringworm.

This shit fucking itches, and its on my arms, legs, feet, and chest. I blame Wal-Mart for giving it to me. Now I have to apply this nasty ass cream twice a day for 4 weeks to get rid of it, and in the meantime I look like a fucking leper.

Ugh, and I busted my ass all weekend long replacing the Intake Manifold gaskets on the van. It was either replace them myself, or spend $300 and have a mechanic do it. If I had the money, I would've paid someone to do it. I mean, fuck, I had a 450-pound transmission land on my chest once, and that was still an easier job than fighting my way through the masses of wiring, vacuum lines, and fuel lines to get down to that goddamn intake manifold.

So, in summary,

I hate my job, all of my rich friends,
I hate everyone to the bitter end,
Nothing comes out right, no end in sight,
I HATE MY LIFE.

Never thought I would be here venting myself on the fourms. Heck I prided myself on keeping my emotions off these pages for others to see, but if I don't write this down and let it out I feel I'm going to be sick.

First off not many people know but my father suffered a stroke way back in May, hard to believe it's been 3 months since it happened, and though I am fortunte he came out of it with his mind intact his body became weak and now he hardly leaves his home and sometimes blames it on me, my mother or my brothers for his situation.

Then my workplace, that was once a good place to be, that was once full of people that wanted to both have fun and work on cars and make money , has now become a place of political backstabbing and mind games. As of Dec 2008, out of the original crew I and one other coworker are the only ones left out of a dealership. Now some say that I have made it this far because of my skills and that the new owners wanted me, and maybe that's true I'm never sure. It always feels like I am under the gun, being watched that no matter what I do it's being questioned and examined. Also for the last 2 weeks I have been dealing with the new owners dragging their feet on getting the paperwork through my training in my job. Without this paperwork I can't use the hours that I have worked to put towards my apperenticeship and earn my license. Something that I have been sweating and working for it in the last 4 years and I'm starting to feel trapped.

Also being alone with no friends to really talk to is starting to eat away at my sanity nowadays. I put a few calls to old school friends but I either get a "sorry can't go." or no replies at all. Most of the later seem to happen for frequant.

I try to bury my depression, my angry and sadness through activites like playing guitar, rping, and writing stories. However some of those seem to fail more often then not. I've played guitar for the last 7 months and already own 3 of them now. This works sometimes, but then I think about how much money it cost to do this hobby as I go over my builds. Writing stories has become nothing as I rarely feel inspired or when I do feel that itch I'm at work. I wish there were other writers I could talk to about story writing, but as said before friends are far for me. Lastly role playing....something that I use to be addicted to when I was in high school. Something where my imagination could freely flow and try everything I could never do in life. It use to be fun, but lately it hasn't....I won't name names of the people I have rped with as I don't wish to share that info.

Certain role players that I regulary speak to have pushed me sometimes to the point that I never thought I could go. You see I am sometimes approached by these fellow rpers to role play their ideas about either a tv show or a video game. Sometimes shows and games that I even reccommended to them. It'll start out fine for the first week, but then it starts to happen where things I do are questioned. Yes I am no rp master nor do I wish to be, but I have been around the block for the last 6 years and know the rules. There are days when my rp partner start to lecture me on role-playing or even about the show or game as though they are a master of it and can never do wrong in it. I know they don't think they are doing anything wrong that their trying to be helpful, but to me their is a difference between helpful and dimeaning a person. I sometimes think how ironic it is that I here I recommended this show or game to said rper and now they speak to me as though they have known about it all their lives and I am some newbie.

Even back to rp basics it feels like work. That anything I type, I say, or even how I structure my paragraphs is questioned and pushed. I sometimes feel like lashing out. Telling these people, "Why is it a big deal? Why do you feel I am doing everything wrong? Why must I be the beating stick of others? Why do you talk to me like I don't have a f*** glue?" But I never say it...I never speak it out because I know it'll just cause more arguments it goes on and on till in the end I just feel like throwing up my hands and letting them talk let them say that I'm the problem and they can never go wrong.

They sometimes ask me why I don't post or why do I barely participate in rps or even come into this fourm for weeks at a time and I've kept that silent till now. It's because I'm tired. I'm tired of feeling watched....feeling that anything I do is questioned and being lectured to like I am some 12 year boy that has no f**** clue about rpg. I'm not perfect either, I've god modded or power played sometimes and I always apologize for that, but some do the same but only slightly. Just enough that no one will call it. Just enough that they can move the story and bend it to a point that it becomes boring.

I've seen it too often where stories start out good but slowly players drop off. Posts become fewer as the story becomes stale with a boring sense of perfection. I always loved rps or stories where the pervorbal wrench is thrown in. That something new and unquie shows up and turns it upside down. Those rps are so hard find nowadays...ones that even lasted whole years, but nowadays it's considered a god-mod or power playing. I sometimes wonder what happened to basic creativity...

Like I said I'm not perfect either, I've screwed rp's up with this touch of god-mod, fursona comes to mind as an example. It started out so well, with so many members joining, but it failed. I don't why....maybe I was a poor DM or I relied too much on other players ideas or maybe I didn't allow that wrench to be thrown in to make it interesting.

The funny thing is as I write this, I don't what point I'm trying to make. I'm not asking for change or people to feel sorry for me. I just felt I needed to write this down. That this felt to me to be last thing I can do without falling apart under all this pressure and stress. That even the things I once loved and cherished, that made me feel good to open my eyes to the morning have now fallen into just another problem. Just another thing to worry about or stress over. It makes me feel why do I even bother...to role play, to go to work....or even open my eyes when the morning comes. Why do it when it pulls on me like a ball & chain that can never let go? I guess that answer will come someday....I can only hope it comes sooner rather then later...

Thank you to anyone reading this rant of a lost man. It's appreicated.


-Drake

So yeah, I am going to be less active from 8th of August until 21st of August. I have another two weeks off and once again I'll take this chance to go see Kurtzie in real life again. He already told me, he will let me use his laptop, that's exactly why I won't be completly inactive x3 you all will still see me lurk around every now and then I guess, I just wanted to mostly let know of why I wouldn't be around so oftenly for a while. and noes, me ish not going to stay in a hotel this time, me ish going to stay in his home, in the guest room. ;3

Yeah, so August 1st is supposed to be the day in Adventure that the series began. So...Happy Digimon day! Say things about the series.

And one of those forms is to simply gather people who share the view of interest and appreciation of others who sacrifice their effort, time and money for our site, which keeps living on and continues being our beloved refuge and playground. I never know what goes behind the scenes or what went, but I know there's been next to none a topic about this, so I decided it was time to show gratitude to those who deserve it. If anybody doesn't appear in my list of thank yous, then it just means my memory sucks or I'm just being dumbily lazy, but it does not mean that person does not deserve gratitude, and if somebody else remembers and would like to thank them for their contributions to the site, then be welcome to do so. :)

First of all, I'd like to thank Lord Patamon, because no matter what sort of bug or glitch there appears in the forum, he's always there ahead of time to stomp it and obliberate it before we even have time to complain about it. Making sure of how everything is always in place, and delving into the forum mechanics to keep surprising us with updates and new add-ons. I thank you.

Next, senjuro, I'm pretty sure everybody knows of his financial efforts for the DaD, and his continous zeal to keep everything in as good shape as possible. He always tries to befriend every newbie even since I joined and as far as I'm concerned, you deserve a big applause if anything. I thank you.

Shadowknight and Wolven Backlasher, guys, you've been alongside me ever since we decided to storm in the RPG section back at the begginings of '06, and look at how insanely big and crammed up it's become. It's all thanks to you two, the initiators, and now we all are enjoying the bustling activity in every role-playing forum it's wrought. I thank you two.

To every other member of the staff, Admin and Moderator alike, they are awesome, just by being there. That means that the site is always ready to defend against any distortion or error in the standard parameters and it's what makes the site safe to surf on. Keeping rockin'. I thank you too.

I'm done with my small list of thank yous, but I believe everyone can help in making it even bigger as it deserves to be, by thinking about people who have made a great impact in DaD and thanking them for what they've done if you feel like they aren't appreciated enough, or just want to give a shout out. DaD would not be standing, nor be the same as it is today without these people, so guys, pay your respects as due :3

Thank you in advance.