TheDude

Got the same message. I know Maestro doesn't play CS GO, so this detective wasn't fooled!

Got lucky: no wind or cold whatsoever on top of the Empire State Building

Just got back. Amazing trip. Really sad we had to go.

Bought a baseball cap as a reminder. 

New York is seriously awesome. Who wouldve thought New Yorkers can be so nice.

Also saw a huge rat just a few feet away when walking the street. Cockroaches, crazy people jumping on cars or lying down in the middle of a busy street.

What's not to like.

Aww. Wasn't really planning on buying one. Went to the Lion King musical yesterday and it was one of the greatest things i've ever seen.

I doubt my gf will appreciate that, but ill put it on the list next to visiting the empire state building.

So far ive learned that traffic lights are more guidelines than rules.

I made it to the US :-).

Lifelong dream coming true. Gonna be an obnoxious little tourist for the coming week.

Apparently there's a big issue with the facial and movement animations: 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XA07hLF-3tE

It's coming!

oh my oh my oh my oh my oh my oh my

Have been playing it myself all weekend.

Thoughts from others who have played?

Dude

Our game is right there at the very top thank you very much.

Great movie, hell of a tip. 

Was on the edge of my seat from start to finish. 

Hearing a lot about it. Will definitely check it out

I have a question for joda.

 

ive taken a beginners class, learned and forgot the basic cords,then lost interest for a bit. Then i wanted to learn how to finger pick, so i learned and forgot  a couple times how to finger pick some basic scales. Just tryin to develop some basic fingering skills and lost interest again. so now im gonna be traveling and i want to start playin again. What are some good basic exercises i can do to just develop overall good playing techniques?

I have zero actual music knowledge(reading music and such) other than that 1 class its been me learnin from tabs and utube and anything other than a slow blues beat and i look like steve martin in  "the jerk"

 

any suggestions would be great

thx

I'm the same in this as Joda. Never learnt any sheet music or anything. Got taught the basic chords and just ran with it. Only play music i like, and sing along to what i like. 

It's also good to lower the difficulty on some segments yourself. For example take Heartbeats by Jose Gonzales. That's not an easy pick to do, however you can just change it to chords, then learn to tab the chords a bit, then steadily switch over to the real tab. 

Same with Under the Bridge by RHCP. That's a fun one cuz it's not the easiest, but with a little practice you can really start making it sound like the original. 

I did it with this song: 

I couldn't play the real tab and sing at the same time, so i toned the music part down (a lot). It sounds really minimalistic but you can get away with a lot. 

Also: switch between trying a hard song till you get tired of it, go back to playing easy fun stuff a bit and then return to the hard songs. You'll notice you can suddenly pull off chords you couldn't before.

Good luck!

The people orchestrating the Brexit have all abandoned ship. Now that they have what they want, they don't know how to actually make it happen.

The thing with stuff like this is.. what do we really know? 

We know the argument some politician has twisted one way to fit his agenda. 

But we don't know any figures. What are the economic consequences? What about political balance of the EU as a whole? Who would suffer most from it, who would gain from it.

Until we learn to erect institutions which can provide objective answers to these questions, any form of public consensus such as in a referendum or even voting on the matter is to me manipulated and necessarily shortsighted due to lack of information, and therefore useless.

Same reason i don't believe in 'interviewing the man on the street'. What does he know. Tell me what the expert economist thinks instead. 

So to sum up: my first thought it "it would be sad to see the UK go". My second thought is: "what the hell do i know". 

Lol... LOL.

Newb.

Miss you <3

If this is a members' only post, it should be in the members' only section - coalition headquarters. 

I'm still around, just not posting as much as i used to

Hey guys, i wrote a short story, as a passtime. If you feel like it, give it a quick read. It's a little over two pages long. Don't forget to let me know what you think. Any criticism or appreciation is most welcomed.

Here we go:

After lying awake for several hours, the man finally got up from out of bed, ticking off the 9 AM buzzer on his dresser. He tiptoed his way to the bathroom, trying not to wake his sleeping wife. Brushing his teeth, he cringed because of how the taste of the toothpaste spread through his mouth. Four out of five dentists had agreed it tasted deplorable, but he could never remember to mention this to his wife, who did all their shopping. He took his clothes off, looked into the mirror to dislike what he saw, and went into the shower. 

The stream was violent, searing hot and exactly what he needed. While the water poured down his face he'd think of overly literary sentences to narrate his own life: "as the morning dew pearled down the window outside, so too the damp heat had settled in on its other surface. Two sides of the same coin. Hot and cold". Then he'd smile at how pretentious it sounded, as to remind himself never to attempt to become a writer. He was simply awful at it. 

His wife hadn't noticed he had left his pc on for the night, seeing as it still was powered on. The man was relieved. This meant he wouldn't have to wait for twenty minutes for the old girl to boot up. He checked the news site he was subscribed to and his e-mail. His condition had taken away most of his sight, so he had to crawl up to the screen to read even the biggest news stories. His e-mail inbox was full of questions and problems again, sent to him by his son. Some two years ago he decided to step down from the company he had raised from the ground up, and left it in the only moderately caring hands of his son. Francis had never given it the dedication the position needed, and the results showed. It's not that he didn't try, but the lackluster attention during his training period now caught up to him, and he was forced to ask his father question after question. Clearing the letter opener and opened letters from his keyboard, he answered some of the easier ones and closed his pc again by turning the top side down. Even though it made his old gal wheeze and puff, it's how they do it in the movies, and it brought a smile on his face when he emulated it. He'd regret it the next time he started her back up, but being retired had its advantages, not the least of which was time.

Knowing the contents of his letter box would anger him, he tried to remain calm as he made his way downstairs to check for mail. As expected, another letter fell out from between a commercial magazine as he picked it up. As usual, it was sent to him by P.L. Simmons, 40 Green Park Way, Yellow Rock Minnesota, a twenty minute drive from where the man lived. It was not stamped, so it must have been left in his mail box by the sender personally. Feeling the frustration bubble up again, he reminded himself he had to stay calm and took the letter back inside, leaving the rest of the mail behind. He sighed deeply as he sat by the kitchen table, not remembering the trip from the mailbox to his chair. Getting flustered often meant getting blackouts, and it only worsened as his condition progressed. Two years the doctor had given him. He was now halfway past year four.

As if to taunt him, the letter was typed in an overly large font. It would still make it easier to read, had its contents not made his hands tremble with frustration. He knew what the letter said, so didn't bother reading it all the way through. The man took his coat, got into his Mustang - a gift from Francis for his retirement -  and drove to 40 Green Park Way, Yellow Rock Minnesota. It had been like this for the past six months . Every first saturday of the month, he'd receive a letter directed to him by P.L. Simmons, demanding a sit-down and threatening to sue.

About 30 years ago, when the company was little more than a handful empoyees and a copy machine, The man had taken some shortcuts. Most of them were barely legal, the rest of them were definitely crimes for which he could be tried and convicted. Which could ruin his company if any of it ever saw the light of day. And which was found out by that little weasel Simmons, shortly after he had been hired by Francis. Even Francis, who was always a poor judge of character, had never really liked the guy. But Simmons was admittedly a brilliant bookkeep, and Francis needed all the help he could get. This brilliance however, also meant that it only took him a couple of months to find out about the shortcuts that were made in the companies' early days. Unfortunately, he only revealed this knowledge after he had been fired for grievous misconduct towards the female personel. And he hadn't revealed it to Francis either, who was still the rookie in everyone's eyes. He went straight to the retired chief by sending him a letter every first saturday of the month, inviting him over to negotiate and threaten for hours. If he didn't go, the next letter he'd receive would be a summons to court. 

Nearing noon, he drove up the long driveway to the house, got out of his car and made his way to the back door. He was expected after all, and didn't want to give Simmons the courtesy of ringing the doorbell. While pulling down the handle, he didn't notice the small bloodstain left on his left index finger. The house immediately felt threateningly quiet. On the floor, between the coffee table and the couch, Simmons lay motionless. Considering the dirty business Simmons pulled on a daily basis, the man couldn't bring himself to show any sign of surprise. After a short while contemplating, his disgust for the blood on the floor changed with a frightening realization. The realization that if Simmons was ever found like this, the man would be suspect number one. Not only that, but the hour-long, exhausting visits he had paid Simmons in his final months in this life would be reduced to nothing. He'd spend his last few days in jail as a murderer, reading the news about how his company was brought down and how his son was under investigation for fraud. So he made a decision. 

He drove his car alongside the house, thanking a god he didn't believe in for its secluded location. The body along with the carpet it was lying on were dragged to the back of his car, and with a great deal of effort, put into his trunk. He briefly wondered how it had only taken him a couple of moments to decide what he was going to do, before making his way back to the house to clean up the cooked blood which had set in on the floor, draining through the obviously cheap carpet. He went back to his car, thought about his next move for a bit before losing conciousness to shock and exhaustion.

After waking up some six hours later, he spent three more hours reading several news articels that he normally wouldn't bother with on his cell phone and ultimately made his way to the Yellow Rock cemetery. He drove through the cemetery gates and stopped next to a grave which was still missing a tombstone, but had a shovel next to it, thrust in the ground by the groundskeeper most likely. A grave that would be occupied the next morning , but which would now receive an additional early guest. He shoveled out the dirt about one more meter, threw in body and carpet, and closed it up again to its original depth. He gave it a few hard kicks, to assure that nothing would be revealed under the weight of a casket being lowered into the grave a couple of hours later.

He came home, sat into his lounge chair, and breathed a sigh of intense relief. Through this weird turn of events, his worries were suddenly over. For a brief moment he doubted whether he was the one who killed Simmons. The story about the events of the day he accounted for in his head, was showing some big blanks. Too sick and tired to care, he shrugged and tilted back his head on his chair. "Gone is gone", he contemplated. He closed his eyes, and never opened them again. 

Been following it for a while now and i just fear it's gonna be huge but boring. Doesn't seem like there's much to do. 

Truly sorry for your loss Merc. 

My deepest sympathies.

To anyone who hasn't picked this game up yet.

It's absolutely amazing. That is all.

Reviews are overwhelmingly positive. Who is excited? I know i am!

Metal Gear Solid on PS1 is definitely in my top 3 games of all time, however i did not like MGS: Guns of the Patriots. I crawled through that whole game, afraid to actually move a muscle. All the areas just felt cramped. This latest entry should be much more open. 

Thoughts?

Went to France (town called Bony), visited an American war memorial, commemorating the American soldiers that died in battle there during the first world war. American groundskeeper gave us some information. Apperently an American citizen is present at all times.

Thought i'd post some pics. Have no idea if you guys have cemetaries like this over there. Fun fact: the ground these cemetaries are built on (there are several throughout Europe) are either donated to that country in perpuity or actual territory of that country.

Europe thanks the US soldiers for their service and sacrifice. 

Wanted to get into the series about 2 months ago, and bought New Vegas, as it was the latest one in the series. I thought it was incredibly boring and felt empty. 

I played runescape. Think i reached all the caps for free players back in the day. What was it? Lvl 60 with rune armor? And max prayer and all that good stuff. 
 

Oh boy... the time wasted... NO RAGRETS