Posts by Xander

32

Board Games

by joelbear in

jw
friends

any other board game fanatics here.. i love them.. favorites are trivial pursuit, risk, masterpiece.. love card games too.

favorites are spades and bridge.. joel

Xander

Oh, SOOO TMFI....

Ah, no one had wars like the Fultons did (dad's side) playing Trivial Pursuit.

Good Irish-German Catholics the lot of them. (And PC support guys, Mac guys, and mainframe guys, along with their supervisorary-position wives, which didn't help) Could never, NEVER, EVER admit they were wrong. They'd challenge every card - then, they'd look up the answer in ANOTHER encyclopaedia trying to prove they were right. Half the family would end up agreeing with them ('Yeah, I remember that, too')...the half on their team, of course.

Now, the fact that just proving team B wrong would be good for team A isn't enough. No, they don't just have to prove team B wrong, they have to prove how THEY remembered the fact was correct (which also typically was different from the card's answer).

That family still mostly lives nearby in NE Ohio, so they did family reunions every month. Wife refused to let me play after going once, and refused to go after the second time - she just couldn't believe how furiously they argued.

58

What kind of music do you listen to?

by Leander in

jw
friends

i'm a music junkie, i like pretty much all types of music.

but in particular i would have to say jazz is my favorite, but not the watered down kenny g style of jazz.

i prefer the straight ahead, hard bop type of jazz.. lately i've been really getting into psychedelia rock.

Xander

Hmmm...how bout Rasputina - they're kind of...out there....

(Bet you've got a kick-ass CD and/or MP3 collection...too bad ya live halfway across the continent!)

And the intro to 'Scream of the Butterfly' - up to 0:10 - sounds REALLY like another song (like, exactly), but I can't place it. It is a female vocalist that picks up a really fast beat on the other one. I thought it was Rasputina, but none of their songs I have quite sound like it.

58

What kind of music do you listen to?

by Leander in

jw
friends

i'm a music junkie, i like pretty much all types of music.

but in particular i would have to say jazz is my favorite, but not the watered down kenny g style of jazz.

i prefer the straight ahead, hard bop type of jazz.. lately i've been really getting into psychedelia rock.

Xander

/spends some time at audiogalaxy...

Mango...*sniff* {wipes tear from eye}...your taste in music ROCKS!

[drunken voice]~I LovE you GUys, mAn!~ ~MArrY mE!~[/drunken voice] *hic*

Seriously, from the songs you recommended, I'm wondering...heard of Type-O Negative? Very similar sound...

(EDIT: And you do kick ass!)

37

Were any divorced over oral sex?

by gumby in

let me explain:.

in times past, the society's policy was that a witness mate could divorce their mate who demanded or had them perform oral sex and persisted with their views.. later the policy was revised to mean a witness mate could divorce their mate who had oral sex with someone.....outside of the marriage.. are there any here who had this experience with the old arrangement, or do you know of any cases in which this happened?.

my reason for asking is, i wonder how many lives were ruined by another wt blunder.

Xander

Six and Eman...you two are my new best friends

That just had me in stitches - and I don't usually like puns.

Alas! Felatio, I knew him well.

LOL!

10

Watchtower Vs The Ratbot

by ThiChi in

jw
friends

they can now control rats from implants using a laptop.

for some reason, this worries me.

is it because of my jw background, where control is not done though a computer, but through the pages of the watchtower and enforced on the local level by the congregation task masters (i.e., elders)?

Xander

LOL! Little paranoid there, no?

I don't think mind control is the end goal here - the goal is, initially, to enable handicapped or injured people to lead normal lives.

Ultimately it would be nice to see the technology integrated to the point where it could enhance every day lives.

I'd day say few on this board could live without a computer or internet connection. How much more convenient would it be to have that integrated with your mind? Do any kind of complex mathematics entirely within the chip - access internet sites, research information, etc. all on the fly from within your head!

Science fiction, now? Of course! Eventually possible? Maybe...if these guys keep going like they do.

Very exciting time to live in!

32

Board Games

by joelbear in

jw
friends

any other board game fanatics here.. i love them.. favorites are trivial pursuit, risk, masterpiece.. love card games too.

favorites are spades and bridge.. joel

Xander

Nah, Axis and Allies too simple. I like A3R - fight WWII controlling the economy, being concered about armor breakthrough behind the front lines. Reserve infantry, diplomatic and economic points, trying to be as aggressive as possible and appease US to prevent early entry into war, researching advanced technologies, etc.

Of course, you'll never play it in a single sitting, either, but...ehhh...*shrugs*

10

Watchtower Vs The Ratbot

by ThiChi in

jw
friends

they can now control rats from implants using a laptop.

for some reason, this worries me.

is it because of my jw background, where control is not done though a computer, but through the pages of the watchtower and enforced on the local level by the congregation task masters (i.e., elders)?

Xander

I don't think it sounds particularly cruel - the rats get their rocks off from walking through a maze? How bad can that be?

In any case, I think the ends justify the means here. I'm certainly against animal testing for cosmetics, et al., which are stupid/pointless things.

However, as mentioned here, real progress is being made towards cyber-organic integration, which is amazing. (And very promising!)

32

Board Games

by joelbear in

jw
friends

any other board game fanatics here.. i love them.. favorites are trivial pursuit, risk, masterpiece.. love card games too.

favorites are spades and bridge.. joel

Xander

Oh, no. Sorry, but I kick everyone's ass at Monopoly.

Do 'Panzer Blitz', 'Rise and Decline of the 3rd Reich', 'Harpoon 4', 'Wooden Ships and Iron Men', 'Star Fleet Battles', 'Federation & Empire', 'Shipwreck!', et al. count?

Not really BOARD games per se (well, except 'Panzer Blitz' and 'WS&IM')....

10

Do they do it for the money?

by LDH in

jw
friends

what never ceases to amaze me is why people ask this question about the gb.. why do they do it?

they don't get paid.

they're not getting rich!.

Xander

That would be like having fabulous wealth and being shut inside a glass cage in a mall.

That doesn't sound like a very male statement, so I'm going to assume you're not.

Power is power is power. Having control over peoples lives, having the ability to absolutely determine the course of peoples lives such that your future safety (and that of your family, if present) is the absolute paramount of what men are biologically and socially conditioned to do.

Human history is a testament to that - fame and fortune is only a means to an end - that end being having power.

Hitler was never wealthy, but do you think he didn't get off on conquering Europe? Alexander the Great? Stalin? Chairman Mao? Fidel Castro? Bin Laden?

None of these people led the opulant lifestyle of the rich and famous. They were driven by exactly one and ONLY one thing - power.

Don't underestimate it.

"Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men."
-- Lord Acton 1887

46

Proof of the "historical" Jesus...

by simwitness in

been wondering about this lately.... what proof (outside the bible, of course) do we have for the "historical jesus"?.

in my earlier days (post jw to "born again christian") i remember reading that the one thing that differentiates christianity vs. "all the others" was that we had secular historical proof that there was a man that was called jesus, who died on a cross and was resurrected.

now i am wondering just what that proof is/was?

Xander

DE - you completely missed Valis's point.

Can you point to any prophecies 'the Bible' made that can be verified to have come true somewhere outside the very same book that made them?

And I'm sorry, but predicting the LACK of an event is a non-event. I can say "I predict the population of earth will never be destroyed by a nuclear war". Does that make me a prophet when the world is never destroyed by a nuclear war? Hardly!

the prophets of Israel uttered their predictions over 2500 years ago, long before anyone dreamed that such total destruction was possible.

Which is the most complete joke of them all. Have you seen representations of ancient cities? Wouldn't take much to tear them down at all - they were MUCH smaller than modern cities and built out of MUCH weaker material (sorry, no steal invented yet - stones topple easily once you are on the inside). Cities of the time were regularly destroyed and never rebuilt.

And predicting that the largest city in one of the largest, most agressive empires in history would be destroyed is such an obvious cop-out, I can't imagine what you hoped to prove by citing it.

It'd be like someone today predicting that 'at some point in the future, terrorists will target New York'. I mean, DUH...no god-inspired prophecy there.