W_L

Cool, we can get some coffee in the morning if you want. Anyone else at our hotel or in need of a room. I can ask for an extra bed.

I do feel responsible, but i don't seek applause or wish condemnation. My first and only desire throughout the events was defending my friends. I might not agree completely with Jeff, but I would stand by him. Honor is something to be valued, when a friend is bullied you should not look the other way or just brush it off. Most of us are against bullying whether from real life or the internet, but our beliefs need to be backed by action. I am not trying to sound heroic or stuff, i am no hero nor a villain. What happened should never have happened. However, we have no moderators in the soap box, it is not a place for peaceful dialogue. I warn everyone the same if you go into the soapbox you are going to be fighting. It is why i took a few months off for writing, the soapbox is demanding on time and energy.

Tet, this is a reminder of where we were, where we are, and where we are going. I was drawn to GA due to DK, so despite what others and he himself might have said or say, I always admired him. I also played a part in his departure, so part of me feels like the battle had to be fought. In Asian culture, this chain would be a karmic circle. Though I prefer to believe in the Nautilus concept rather than a perfect circle. As for civilizations, the Chinese have been around for four thousand years contiguously, longer than ancient Greece and on par with Egypt. We've had a long history of war and martial heroism, so it is not a rare thing that only young cultures like the US possesses the kind of fierce fighting culture. The only difference is that patience is something that Chinese, Korean, and Japanese civilization cultivate over the centuries to keep their martial excesses under control. Consider it the balancing act from Taoist philosophy that only trickled into Europe in the last few centuries and only is starting to be looked at in the US.

I get the general issues of the bounty problem. Someone says, "If you will hurt or incapacitate this guy, I will give you cash" or something. There's taped conversations of athletes and coaches talking about stuff. Now, the NFL commissioner is screaming for blood, by enforcing sanctions, and the NFLPA or NFL Player Association are asking for their own private investigation before penalties toward players.. Can anyone with an understanding of behind the scenes American Football explain this scandal more in-depth?. Also, what does this mean for the league in general? Will they try to neuter the sport to something like "touch" football with new rules (which would suck if they do by the way, but I get why they would do it) ?

I have had to re-evaluate this several times with various short hands: LTR, NSA, FB, and ect. Some of you probably have used all these along with other short hand expressions, but I just don't know anymore what I am looking for. Seriously, I really want a long term relationship, but most guys are in it for the quickie. I can't blame them, since I do the same thing, which is a crappy way to live life in my view. It is just a lonely existence without someone to cuddle up with, but it is even worst if the guy is in it for a one night stand. It doesn't help that my personality makes it difficult to find a guy that likes me for my interests or work. I guess I am catching that same Spring Fever I always catch trying to find a guy to be with for the long haul and stuff, but it's just that I don't know what I want right now.

Pats made the best draft pick choices this year, so there A+ (Steeler did make great picks too, but I'd rank it A, not A+, the Pats should have focused on our Defensive line last year, but alas, Pride before the fall).

Yeah, guilds and alliances are the best, without them, I might as well be playing a regular RPG Oh by the way, this is why I love Eve: http://www.pcgamer.com/2012/04/28/nowhere-is-safe-in-eve-online-as-goonswarm-suicide-bombs-galactic-trade-hub/ The game allows market manipulation that is unequaled in any other MMO. Get enough people, equipment, and organization together and you can create a giant shift in economic pressures that force the entire game to shift toward whatever is desired. If you like market manipulation through force of spaceships on a scale equivalent to an oil Embargo of the 1970's or up to a World War, Eve is the best game in town. I am staying out of the fight and watching as my mineral reserves appreciate in price and my tech II blue prints will be worth a good deal more than they are now after these guys have killed and destroyed enough resources to force supply shifts and raise industrial values.

I was bored and out of the random impulse of my mind, I surfed wikipedia. Yes, It's full of inaccuracies and stuff like that, but whenever I get bored, I go on there to look for something interesting. I was reading up on Greek mythology, which is interesting as it is the origin of many story elements that we hold today. Well one thing led to another as you know how wikipedia and my asymmetric mind works (strangely enough I've tested for ADHD and my teachers once said that I had a strange logica to my thinking even though it might appear random). Long story short, I saw information about the film adaptation of Percy Jackson series and the book series by Rick Rordan. I saw the movie online (it was a crappy movie, which I keep hearing would be the replacement for Harry potter series, which I really didn't believe). The movie was crappy, but I take chances on books and I thought why not try reading the thing. Well, I know it is strange for a 25 year old guy to be reading a series of books who's intended audience are 10 years younger (the first novel was written when I was 18, so it's weird). I enjoyed them all and loved the progression of greek myths. Maybe, it's my classical education in Greek and Latin talking, maybe it's my yearning to find heroic values in literature that bridges the gap between classic and modern, and maybe I am just some weird guy who has weird tastes. I also know a lot of people with disabilities, me being blind in one eye is one of the reasons (It's a classical tradition too that blindness is the source of true knowledge for good and evil, ask the Goddess Nemesis). Dyslexics and ADHD sufferers are just the tip of the ice berg. The story appealed to me on that basic level as few other fantasy fiction stories do. I wish gay authors can take note of that, hell I might even try to bridge it myself one day if I ever write fantasy fiction. (Plus, as a Bostonian, I do hold the rivalry card with New Yorkers, but it's more like a sibling rivalry than outright hate. I like the New York accent and the city landmarks. ) As for Harry Potter replacement, I think the books are different in many ways. While Harry Potter series made you believe in magic and the world living parallel to ours, Percy Jackson series is an adventure story that holds more sarcasm and social commentary about the modern world. I think it's also the source material the Rowling and Rordan draws on as well. Rordan's magical world is very flawed with Gods being petty, cruel, and generally assholes in many respects just as the Greek and Roman myths. However, you see in his work the role of progression and the end of the cycles that the Greeks had written into their myths. (I'll leave you guys to find out what I mean, but suffice to say, a son usurping his father like Zeus usurping Kronos, Kronos usurping his dad Ouranos, and ect.) A hero that ends the bloody cycle of power and destruction is something to cheer just as much as a hero who defeats the manifestation of evil itself. The last thing that appealed to me in the series was the family dynamics, (well when you write about powerful characters like uncles marrying nieces and brother marrying sisters, you're already not following our current morality, but the author only hinted at that aspect). Family is at the heart of the stories, whether it is traditional families or extended families. My favorite line came from the Goddess Hestia about the nature of family. It left a good feeling and Iagree with the author that hope should be kept within the hearth for when we are lost and need a place to seek refuge, there will always be a home somewhere. We're in a different generation and families are not nuclear two parent households anymore, but they are still family and still people you care about. It doesn't matter if you share one parent or none at all, it is the experiences that make you family and keep you together. True family isn't biological, it is the emotions that you feel for one another.

Come over to New England Andy, we will give you a special award Well, I'm completely screwed and I think Matt can't maintain his his record, so who will win NHL 2012..

Well, Jean-Baptiste Camille Corot, Roman Countryside c. 1830-1831 Impression (1872), Claude Monet View at Rouelles, le Havre (1858)- Claude Monet I am a fan of the landscape and impressionist/post impressionist paintings, color and motion are wonderful emotional elements to a painting, it's expressing more than just details.

I've booked a room for Saturday to Sunday at the State Plaza, not sure where that is, but it's close to transportation (Yes, I am taking the Amtrak down to DC using the Northeast Regional line, which should be interesting as I have not taken extended train trips in the US). The combined price was also right under $300, so it seemed good compared to some stuff I found online. Yes, I'm a tourist

If this was genetic, it would be breath taking Sure several generations of chicken will die horribly, let's be honest in a cruel twist of nature. However, if adaptation does take hold eventually the offspring will eventually be able to reproduced by internal gestation rather incubation. The Mother hen will start developing stronger internal systems over time in the span of thousand years. However, I doubt the chick will be released back into the population to spread the new/mutated gene if it is a genetic interest, but imagine if the chick had been reintroduced and had a child either through egg or internally, remember this internal birth is a rare occurrence our of many normal egg productions. The offspring will continue to carry this mutation into its offspring with growing possibility of these new kinds of chicken. Natural selection favors traits by trial and error, a mutation is only the beginning, not the end of evolution. It does not need to be self-sustaining at first to be reasonable. Fishwing, I think your point about sexual output has merit if this species was self sustaining, though this is not the objective of evolution or natural selection, just as long as the child is allowed to reproduce within the general population, its genetic material would continue to change over time. Hypothetically, If egg laying species could become internal gestating species, then there had to be a beginning somewhere like this. What if several hundred million years ago, the same thing happened and a mother egg layer died out leaving one child, born of internal gestation, to carry her genetic mutation. That child has its own offspring carrying on the mutation, whether successfully or not. In another generation, more mutations occur to adapt the mother's toward internal gestation. I just find this very fascinating to think of the possibilities that one change in one single egg could have launched into so many changes over time.

Oh well my bracket is trashed. The only one I got right so far are the Flyers and Predators, crossing my fingers for the Bruins to win it all and atleast save my spread from being last place.

As I said like Aliens, except the chick didn't burst out suddenly from the mother's chest. Chickens and birds usually don't internally hold their offspring towards their full term, it's such a rare issue and it also reveals that the Chicken and Egg analogy might hold more possibilities. In terms of evolution, it could also be the first case of a natural mutation for oviparity based life to become viviparity, in other words creatures that usually lay eggs in nest beginning to hold their offspring internally. Maybe, it's these 1 in a billion rare cases that kept happening over history that modern mammals and reptiles began to do similar things. I hope andy and me are not the only ones excited about this. It makes a huge deal of sense in terms of how modern species developed into their current forms and opens up a large deal of scientific potential.

Yeah, but using cheat codes is so wrong, except on emulators (I have a level 99 Mew and Celebi waiting for you ) Oh and I forgot one from my earliest memories of video game series: Where in the world is Carmen Sandiego? Come on tell me no one else played this as a kid in the 90's (or 80's as I think it came out on the old macs first).

Off the top of my head, Soundless Wind chimes, 2009 There were many layers to this story: love, communication, despair, death, and self-destruction. It also has a rich set of locations between Switzerland and Hong Kong (I love the two backdrops and find the urban Hong Kong scene to be a perfect contrast to the pastoral Swiss set). I love deep movies that move you and takes time to sink into your head as to why things happen, memories coalescing into a frame of reference, and finally coming to what the story has told you. When you watch this movie, you will at first not understand what they are saying, either on the Chinese end or the Swiss end, but then you will slowly get it as the story develops and love flourishes. Great love stories don't need to be told through long winded dialogue or even extreme homophobic events, but the simple blow of the wind is enough to hold it together.

There are lot of gay people in history to admire and hate, but it really depends on who is reading/writing the history books? My favorite likely gay historical figure had to be Leonardo Da Vinci, a true genius of the renaissance with skills in art, science, engineering, and even cartography. He was and possibly still is one of the most intelligent gay men in history, who had an eye towards the future. He had basically designed new ideas in his sketch books for submarines with buoyancy adjustments, helicopters and vertical lift, an early type of solar panels, and even envisioned new types of defensive fortifications. As his sexuality, his servant boy Gian Giacomo Caprotti da Oreno, nicknamed Salai, was probably Leonardo's longest co-dependent relationship after he entered Leonardo's service at age 10. Salai lied about things and stole from Leonardo, but he always came back to Leonardo, kind of like a boyfriend who you can never get rid of. The Mona Lisa was later given to him by Leonardo Da Vinci's will. An aristocratic boy named Francesco Meliz also apprenticed under Leonardo starting at age 14, who would accompany him to the court of Francis I of France. To Melzi, Leonardo would leave behind many of his artwork, scientific notes, and observations. Melzi eventually did marry and settled down with a nice girl, so it might have been one of those teenage flings or he was bi (No record of him having a male lover appears, so it is debatable whether Melzi was ever Leonardo's lover or just a surrogate son) The age of Salai is probably what raises the most scrutiny, but it's not out of the ordinary. Most shows or media that hint at Leonardo's possible homosexuality don't mention the fact at how old salai was, perhaps to spare modern audiences a long debate over Da Vinci. . Historically, relationships between youths and adults, especially in the upper class of society has existed for centuries. Separating the two ideas, what we would consider modern homosexual and gay relationships with historical couples based on what modern definitions would consider closer to pedophiles, is very difficult. Social mores are not the same as they once were, nor can you really judge people of the past on these issues.

Sounds like I should watch it again, stopped watching after Simon left for X Factor. (Also as a footnote to Idol past, I thought David Archuleta was one of the cutest contestants ever on the show , too bad he's now a Mormon missionary )

Pokemon was good until I realized that I can't collect them all, Damn you nintendo !

Hey does that mean Virgil is alive in this world?

Q, I think you probably have enough know how now to write your own book on baby care Seriously, I am envious and wished one day to be able to the same with a lil pup or las of my own. You have the patience of a saint to be able to keep that nanny after she had tried to override you, your partner, and your doctor's requests. I don't think I could probably be as tactful as you. If our positions were reversed and I found out what the nanny was doing, it'd end up as an episode of COPS, not Nanny 911. Lil Q is really blessed to have a mamma bear like you, Send my hugs and kisses W.L

This news was fun fluff, it's a long shot anomaly that a chicken could be born without an egg. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/17769677 So it is possible for a chicken to be born without an egg (shell, ), the only problem now is that the mother probably should have had a Caesarian C-Section before the chick killed her in a style reminiscent of "Aliens". What's next Parthenogenesis?

I just realized something today, The au bon pain had completely closed down at Harvard square. I haven't gone to the harvard bookstore in ages, lot's of things getting mixed up in my life and probably a little too much GA soapbox stuff as well. If I had gone down there like I had in the past, I'd noticed the place had changed as I wanted to grab a sandwich after work. I also didn't realize that a starbucks had opened right near the train station (seriously, there's a starbucks right at the corner of the Lowes movie theater like two blocks away) Why didn't I notice these things? I've walked the streets of Cambridge for years now, I've probably passed Mark Zuckerberg at least once without knowing it was him, when I was a teenager. This area was where I enjoyed grabbing a bite to eat and watching a movie or going to the performing arts theatre down the street. My history professor once said that history in the making usually goes unnoticed by those around it; maybe he's right. I've been so wound up in my job, my love life that goes nowhere, and these endless debates, sometimes I don't realize what's been changing around me. There's probably changes around everyone here too, they just need to take a moment and look at the things around them and take stock in it. Maybe, it will create new perspective and new observations.

Weird thing about topics in GA is that I so easily get baited by trolls, it's not even funny. You name a subject and I have probably debated it with some one. I think some people just have a personality that is attracted to debate and that helps foster trolls. The sad truth is without people like me feeding trolls, they probably would die out like mice without crumbs. I am trying to ween myself out of this vicious cycle of baiting, fighting, and stuff, but it is rather difficult. Sometimes you have to catch yourself and make sure you keep it calm, even if you are near the point of strangling someone. I don't think we will ever completely rid ourselves of trolls or their presence in any forum or public sphere whether on the internet or in real life.

Yang, you're mine Can't resist those umm... charms.