VladPiranha

From what I've seen over the years, the AWM has been rarely used by anyone outside of an elite few who were outstanding shots anyway.  Virtually everyone uses the AK if given a choice.  Those who like it will probably continue to use it, while everyone else will continue to do what they're already doing.  If anything, buying laser sights is what really throws the weapon tier list into chaos.  That's when the M16's accuracy advantage fades and the AK truly supplants sharpshooter weapons meant for long range shots, especially against airborne targets.  Luckily for me, the SPAS12 remains the most effective weapon in spite of alcohol intake.

I really want to try mead, but like you said it's hard to find.  There is a winery about 3hours away that makes it and I want to go and check it out.   Going to check out your vids and subscribe!

 

S.

The good news is that you can make a bottle from scratch for about $30 once you have the necessary equipment.  Gallon batches are very inexpensive to make to learn the craft.  For what you can accomplish, the buy-in for mead making is actually really inexpensive in general.  Hopefully you give my recipe a shot.  I'm still working on it and documenting as I move along.  Speaking of which, editing of Part Two is now complete:

https://youtu.be/Sih9qjBovSk

https://youtu.be/olG1etbI54Y

The first installment of my mead making videos is online now.  Mead is my favorite kind of wine.  It's not easy to find in liquor stores, especially if you want it made with a particular fruit or at certain alcohol level, so you're largely left to make it yourself if you want something really fantastic to pass around during the holidays.  My 2014 vintage of Raspberry Northman is opening later tonight for Christmas.

If you're of Nordic ancestry, as I am (Uppland, Sweden), then making your own mead can be a fun experience simply for historical reasons.  Watching the movie The 13th Warrior, starring Antonio Benderas, will also get you in the mood.  It's what initially got me interested.  It's a movie about an exiled Arab scholar who chronicles his journey with a group of twelve viking warriors on a mission across the sea to do battle with an ancient evil.  They drink plenty of mead when they're not slaying agents of darkness.

I'm the one who shoots the gnome at the start of The Parish every single time.

Instead of a rally to ban Peanut, let's have a fundraiser.  We can turn our thirst for vengeance into something noble - like Batman.

A timed option is fine with me.  It would be really interesting to see when and where people would use it to get the upper hand.

I had a thought tonight - what if you could buy an upgrade for the infected team that essentially mutes all of their sound effects?  Boomers and chargers often let out a loud sound when they spawn.  Jockeys make constant noise while approaching and you can always hear a spitter lurking above.  If all of that went away, it would make ambushes more effective without breaking the game.  Thoughts?

Splatoon has been out for a couple months now and I'm finally taking the time to discuss it at length.  A large part of the reason why is that a substantial amount of time needs to be invested in this game to truly understand its strengths and weaknesses.  Having put in the time to unlock anything worthwhile and get a feel for the community, I can finally judge this game appropriately (not to mention venting for the sake of mental health).

Shooters of any kind aren't exactly something Nintendo has ever been known for.  Had it not been for Rare in the mid to late 1990s, the company would have been completely blindsided by changing game culture rather than revered as an industry leader at the time.  The Killer Instinct series was Rare's answer to the fighting game craze.  Goldeneye was a genre-defining masterpiece when the age of the console shooter dawned.  Even Banjo Kazooie was a more advanced and detailed entry into the 3D platformer genre, something that Nintendo had already addressed with Super Mario 64.  When the company was sold off in the early 00s, questions arose about who would carry on developing such a variety of original (and badly needed) content for Nintendo systems.  The answer, of course, was nobody.  Retro Studios, cutting edge as it is, has never developed something outside of established franchises such as Donkey Kong Country and, of course, Metroid.  If we're truly honest with ourselves, the only major properties to be birthed since the retirement of the Nintendo 64 are Animal Crossing and Pikmin.  The rest of the time, the company seemed content with making the same Zelda game since 1998 ad nauseam.  Time marches on and a new series was badly needed for the Wii U to even suggest that the venerable company still knew how to mix things up and challenge itself as well as its loyal player base.

Overview

Splatoon differs from other shooting games largely due to a completely different design philosophy.  Whereas the skill of the individual will usually win the day in a standard FPS team deathmatch environment, Splatoon doesn't focus on combat.  There is some debate about whether or not this is an effort to make the game as family friendly as possible.  Regardless, while staying in one piece is still integral to any plan that involves winning, mowing down opponents is only a means to an end.   KOs are only useful for self preservation while achieving goals, which are determined by the game type, all of which are 4 vs 4.

Game Types

Turf War - Have more terrain painted your color than the enemy's when the clock runs out.

Splat Zones - A king of the hill game type.  One or two capture zones must be painted your team's color to be activated.  Once captured, a timer will start counting down.  Running it down to zero or having made more progress than the enemy in the time alotted results in victory.

Tower Control - A center flag, 'push' style of mode.  Rather than each team racing one another to the opposing team's base with the objective, the mode operates like a reverse tug of war.  Each team tries to push the single moving capture point into the enemy's base to win.

Pros

Splatoon features original gameplay elements not found in other shooters.  It has a variety of weaponry that, once unlocked, will drastically change strategy in combat, offering a variety of ways to build a character.  The gyro controls of the Wii U gamepad offer the closest alternative that any console has yet offered to the accuracy and elegance of the mouse and keyboard combination.  Gameplay is heavily team oriented and encourages cooperation.  Game modes and maps continue adding to the replay value of the game and make first impressions from launch somewhat outmoded.  The game demands another look from both critics and owners alike.

Cons

-deep breath-

This is where Splatoon gets bent over and spanked hard.  Once you join a lobby to play a game, there is no reasonable escape from it.  You either wait for all eight players to queue up or shut off your console and restart it.  You cannot simply back out once you've ever started looking for a game.  You also can't quit the game while it's underway, so you'd better hope that you get a good team of all four players.  Players either fail to show up or drop out at a high enough frequency to be irritating.  This will almost certainly result in a loss.  I have yet to ever win a 3 on 4 after losing a player.  As games only last three minutes in most game types (tower control being the exception with five), really great games and the teams in them are short lived.  This is especially frustrating after a long string of losses due to the incompetence of previous team members.

The approach to the game is also amateurish.  Every time you boot the game up, rather than going to join a lobby to get a game in, you must first watch two animated characters squawk back and forth about the maps currently in rotation like some sort of Anime TMZ.  This isn't skippable.  Whereas most companies make an effort to make the interface or accessability of a game's key features as friendly as possible, Nintendo opted to cram their brand of cuteness down your throat at the expense of convenience.  That map rotation thing that I mentioned above?  Only four maps are available at any given time, two for normal games and two for ranked, and they're always selected at random.  I've never encountered a multiplayer game that makes access to my favorite map completely impossible before.  It simply doesn't make sense.  Worse yet, entire modes are made unavailable for long stretches of time.  Splat Zones and Tower Control modes are mutually exclusive.  You won't always be able to play the one you want.  As a matter of fact, you have no choice in the matter at any given time.

What is supposed to be Splatoon's greatest strength instead serves as its greatest weakness, and the inspiration for my most scathing criticism.  Since, unlike other shooters, killing and fighting skills of the individual are not the focus of the gameplay in favor of more team-oriented, objective-based gameplay, satisfaction with the game will be elusive.  Whereas other games will give the player rewards for kills in combat (experience toward levels or unlockables), giving meaning to a round even if it ends in defeat, Splatoon will often give no rewards of any kind to a player after defeat.  You either succeed as a team, or fail as a team.  If you're missing a player, if the rest of the team is made up of cowards, or if it simply puts forth no effort to attack objectives, you will waste three minutes of your life trying desperately to win on your own, which is impossible.  Rather than reward you for your efforts, you get punished according to the lack of skill of your brothers in arms.  So many times, I've had a good start on a round, with our team winning pretty handily thanks to my fighting, only to finally get taken out by the enemy and watch the rest of my teammates collapse and throw away whatever I'd given them simply because I wasn't there to carry their dead weight anymore.  After rounds where I'll literally have more kills than the rest of them combined, I still get nothing.  Ayn Rand would hate this game with a passion.

While the family friendly tone of the game seems like an attractive choice idea first, it's yet another problem disguised as an innovation.  I'll put it bluntly - kids suck at games.  The game seems to be filled with nine year olds who only play the game to keep you from winning.  You can spot them because they neither have the skill to win fights, nor have the sense to know how to contribute to an objective.  Imagine a sniper class from any other squad based shooter.  Now imagine a sniper player who never hits anyone or approaches an objective.  Say hello to a sizeable part fo the Splatoon community.

Speaking of classes, that reminds me of one of the worst flaws of this game - inability to switch weapons during a round.  I like the long range, rilfe-like weapons.  They're good at suppressive fire and can paint pretty effectively.  They're not intended for charging the enemy, though.  If my team consists of quivering pansies hiding under the bed for fear that they might get shot at, it'll be up to me to push the point with the most inefficient tools possible - the proverbial knife brought to a gunfight.  You cannot switch to something more suitable for aggressive play.  You simply have to accept that the next three minutes are an enraging waste of time.  Just a reminder - you also can't even ragequit, there is no option for it.  Online play is a three minute nightmare of idiocy at a time. 

Not since Left 4 Dead 2 have I found a community that sucks the joy out of a game this badly.  The last ditch option to rally your team/vent your rage - angry comments via typing or voice chat - also is unavailble for this game.  There's no way to communcate whatsoever.  All you can do is hope that you have a team that isn't stupid and have players that understand their roles to play.  Good freaking luck with that.  One final thing that ruins the online experience more and more is exploitation of poor gameplay design.  Bunny Hopping is now ubiquitous in Splatoon.  A tactic easily abused and therefore addressed with disincentives for use in all but the worst of shooters, bunny hopping has been left completely ignored by developers and it makes the game a living hell.  Some weapons don't even fire properly mid-air, but there are many more that suffer no drawbacks at all.  This leaves combat woefully unbalanced for the unfortunate souls who happen to like weapons that got the shaft with regards to these kind of exploits.  After several updates, the fact that garbage like this is still left unchanged in the game is a testament to what amateurs Nintendo's development team is when it comes to shooters.  The rest of us have seen things like this dealt with since the late 90s.  Nintendo has a reputation for being very insular.  Splatoon is the proof that they don't do nearly enough research before they attempt a genre that dozens of other companies have been contributing to for nearly two decades.

Final Verdict

The game that Splatoon reminds me of most is Aliens: Colonial Marines because of the great amount of potential that was dulled by incompetence, ignorance, and short-sightedness.  If Nintendo can foolishly make a shooter that completely omits many of the most important features of a typical shooter by any other A-list company, then it speaks volumes about its inability to catch up with the rest of the industry.  I've defended them since the Wii U launched, but they're trying their hardest to throw the fight and I'm sick of it.  Nintendo needs to pull its head out of its rectum before the next Mario game is on the Playstation 5.  Splatoon is a C+ game that is incredibly fun when you're winning, but only then. 

Swamp Fever is my favorite setting in the game.  It's one of the most challenging and rewarding campaigns for actual cooperative play on expert.  I've played it through many times and never tired of it.

On the other hand, SF simply doesn't suit our 10 vs 10 server and how it's played.  The complete lack of spawn points, let alone effective ones, kills it for me.

My feelings are conflicted to say the least.

I'm still waiting for the add-on that fixes how stupid Rochellebot is.

Hands down the easiest and best solution is to avoid the game for the duration of the sale plus one week -  I call it the 'Atlas Shrugged Strategy'.  If the servers are filled with nothing but troublemakers, negativity will reach critical mass and most of them won't come back.  Contributing players want to play with other contributing players, that much is obvious, but selfish players also want to play with contributing players.  They need to feed and, like parasites killing a host, if there's nobody to take from, they simply move on.  You can starve them out and just come back in a week or so.  Time and time again, I've seen that serious players will stick around, but trolls will get bored or frustrated and not come back - they don't get along with their own kind.  We can just come back after the dust settles to see who made it through and teach them if they're willing to learn. 

Rather than lead a horse to water and try to make it drink, why not just wait until a thirsty horse shows up on its own?  This is all a matter of perspective.  Rather than ask why a bunch of new people would want to play a game that's on sale, ask yourself the more important question - if everything is on sale and Left 4 Dead 2 is going to drive you crazy, why the hell aren't you playing something else?

Meng, always leaving people for dead....

Better yet, if there was only one parachute for Meng and Peanut, you know how that would end.

We could organize into age groups.  That would be interesting.

The trouble with our server is simply a matter of getting the wrong kind of attention.  Three years ago, GC's 10 vs 10 was the best kept secret on the L4D2 server list.  Now that all of the official servers are gone, there are no other servers for trolls and griefers to hold hostage.  We get everyone from the seasoned pros to the lowly Steam Sale newbies.  It's hard to build a specific type of community when we get flooded with a bit of everything, whereas up to this point, we were approached by a particular kind of player who was a bit more in tune with the eccentric nature of our established player base. 

All of these changes just take patience and I know many of our seasoned pros, like myself, feel like they've seen all there is to see.  Then again, I did play a game with Lookback tonight for the first time in ages.  Not only was it like the 'good old days' , victory hinged on the skill of the survivor's cooperation, rather than the infected's offensive capabilities, which is a departure from what I usually see. 

Our 10 vs 10 server isn't dry yet.  There's plenty of spectacle yet to be had, especially for our new guys.  I'll be around from time to time to see how the new blood stacks up.  Those meatsacks aren't going to puke on themselves, after all.

What we really need is a server where the only infected is a jockey that explodes like a boomer when killed.

The thing is that multiple boomers really aren't terribly efficient.  Two during a tank fight might be helpful, but the rest of the time they'll simply steal points from one another, making it less likely for either to buy a tank, so the worst-case scenario of constant infections during one of those battles would probably be very, very rare. 

The probability of an infection is 1% right now, if I'm not mistaken.  Consider that it takes 23 boomed survivors to get to 50+ points (relying on the Stomach Acid achievement for +5 and ignoring assistance points) and buy a tank.  You're looking at less than a one in four chance of there even being an infection before the first purchased tank.  Even if someone were to boom fifty targets, which is damn near impossible unless the other team is doomed anyway, you're looking at pretty paltry numbers for infections.  I'm thinking something around 2.5% to 3% might be the sweet spot for an purchasable upgrade.  Enough to be a nuisance, but not so much that it cripples the other team. 

In a perfect world, we'd have some sort of upgrade where the time survivors spend blinded would be drastically reduced, but the infection rate would shoot up.

Wow, you even included a threshold for when a hopeless dash for points becomes necessary.  Even I would have forgotten about those scenarios.

Honestly, I wish we could buy an upgrade to increase the likelihood of a boomer infection.  That would be a good use of 20 points.

After a hearty argument over Steam chat tonight about my utter indifference to The Force Awakens, I've been left thinking about why I can't stand Star Wars anymore.  Don't misunderstand me - once upon a time, I loved the original trilogy the same as anyone else (possibly more).  I'm not a hipster who hates everything that's popular.  I went to midnight showing for the prequel trilogy and played countless game based upon the series.  I was even into a trading card game back in the day.  I used to think that I couldn't get enough of Star Wars.  Let's just say that the past decade has been really surprising to me in that respect.

Do you know anyone who says that white is their favorite color?  I have yet to meet such a person personally.  In a world of reds and blues, white is taken for granted simply because it's absolutely everywhere and lacks all personality as a result.  It makes for nice clothing and is a solid choice of hue for your new sedan, but gets little serious attention because it's the color of empty walls and blank sheets of paper.  There's a reason why soft and easily ignored ambient sound is referred to as white noise.  Our culture has no respect for the color white.  It's hard to love something that you've been conditioned to be bored with.  This is how I view Star Wars now. 

It wasn't always this way.  When I was a kid, I was leery of what I like to call 'Star Wars culture'.  I didn't quite 'get' science fiction yet and the constant buzz about those movies made me all the more frustrated with that fact.  It wasn't until Shadows of the Empire on the Nintendo 64 sneaked its way into my console as a great game and not specifically as a Star Wars property that I gave the Trilogy a chance.  It was a gateway drug.  I discovered, to my surprise, that they were worth the attention.  I had been on the outside looking in all those years prior.  Imaginative and different, yet also approachable, I could see why people hadn't let Star Wars fade away.  Just like John Wayne and the Beatles, it had a seemingly unassailable place in pop culture.  I wore Star Wars logo shirts before they were kitchy and did so completely without irony.  It was true love.  When someone would question my fashion choices, I pointed out that the Star Wars Trilogy was an important part of Americana, like Gone with the Wind or the New York Yankees, and that they didn't need to like it to understand its merits to see how the films had another kind of value.  It was a sincere explanation that I got some good mileage out of.  The summer of 1997 was a good one.  I was fifteen and making up for lost time.  I dove in headfirst.

I didn't come up for air for a long time.  Starting in 1999, it was comforting to know that, at least for the next half decade, there would be plenty of Star Wars to keep me happy.  Six years was a long time at seventeen years old.  My anticipation for The Phantom Menace was almost sickening.  I don't think I had ever had that much trouble waiting for a film before that point and I seriously doubt I'll ever get that kind of rush-downstairs-and-tear-open-Christmas-presents feeling from a film premiere ever again.  It wasn't what I'd hoped for.  We all know in retrospect that The Phantom Menace was a pretty abominable case of filmmaking and stands as one of the most controverial sequels ever made.  I refused to acknowlege that at the time in spite of my unease (your gut can never be fooled).  It was Star Wars - how could I possibly bring myself to be hostile to it?  I would be taught how over the next decade.

There's an old saying that "absence makes the heart grow fonder".  I prefer the cynical brevity of "familiarity breeds contempt".  Either way, it's human nature to overwhelm ourselves with anything we find pleasurable.  In spite of our acute ability to reason, we're not so different from goldfish in that respect, which is pretty depressing.  Just like eating an entire package of Oreos in one sitting, there are unfortunate consequences for that impulse.  Music gets overplayed, TV dramas get reduced to car chases to fill time, and films lose the novelty that makes them special in the first place.  As I'd mentioned before, I loved how Star Wars represented something unique in film history.  A written list of ways in which those movies changed films and pop culture at large would be lengthy, no one can deny that.  What bothers me and has eaten away at my fondness for the franchise is that its runaway success makes it harder to see Star Wars as a story beloved to millions and easier to see as a brand no different from Apple or Reebok.  Overexposure has taken the novelty away.  I never thought I'd see the day when Darth Vader would become more irritatingly ubiquitous than Elmo.  References to The Empire Strikes Back once felt unexpected, clever, and reminded us of a film we all seem to cherish.  We're no longer geeks in on a joke, but an exploitable audience being pandered to.  Now every time I see comic personality repeat material from A New Hope, it feels like a speech at a political rally.  No new taxes.  Take our country back.  Our children are the future.  Use the force, Luke.  We brought this on ourselves.

It may sound odd that the film I'm most excited for this year is Spectre.  You would think, after all of my arguments above, I'd have no interest in the twenty-fourth(!) James Bond film.  On the contrary, Bond is something I look forward to because, while he's a pop culture icon as well, he comes along every three or four years or so and reminds of why he matters to us - nothing more and nothing less.  He doesn't fill toy aisles, cover lunchboxes, inspire parodies, adorn clothing, decorate wrapping paper, and spawn television series the way Jedi do.  Bond was always about serial entertainment for profit and there was always a sense that he'd be back.  Hell, the credits of the classic movies always told us so.  Star Wars was timeless and perfect as a trilogy and seemed to embody what one could create if quality, and not quantity, was the passion.  A mere three films had more impact on pop culture than a half century of comic books.  I always found that notion fascinating and that's probably what makes it so easy to idealize some escapist fantasy films.

The Force Awakens is launching this Christmas season.  That's all good and well for those who care.  It'll make many people happy and make a ton of money.  For some very vocal people, it's almost a spiritual experience.  For me, it's like another season of Dancing with the Stars.  I once again am unnerved by the ravenous enthusiasm for the Star Wars series and feel like everyone but me is part of 'Star Wars culture'.  I once again am on the outside looking in. 

The circle is now complete.

There's been a bit of a drought lately of really great games to play with a room full of friends.  I haven't had the urge to buy a new Wii U game since Super Smash Bros Wii U, so Mario Party 10's launch was something I've been waiting for.  The Wii U has had a hard time justifying its design structure from its launch.  With a bulky mainstay controller that is essential to system operation, yet an afterthought for most games, it's had a hard time finding a niche.  Nintendoland, the first pack-in game, while a great tech demo for launch, couldn't quite convince the average consumer that the Wii U was a console that they couldn't live without.  I had always believed that a new Mario Party game was as inevitable as a new James Bond film, and when the time came, it would really dazzle and shame the naysayers.  It has arrived and, sadly, is merely limping along rather than strutting proudly.

I guess when a game series hits its tenth title, the magic tends to wane a la Final Fantasy.  With a variety of options for gameplay gimmicks to influence multiplayer mayhem, the Wii U seemed like the perfect opportunity to revive the series rather than simply continue it.  Sadly, this is not the case.  I'll be clear - I've not played the series since MP4 on the Gamecube, so I may not be the best judge of the series' progression.  All the same, I quit caring because the same old formula had gotten stale and nothing of value seemed to replace what had once been so euphoric.  If you've adored the series up to this point, feel free to take my opinions with a grain of salt, but Mario Party is showing its age.

One of the cardinal complaints of the series from the very beginning (aside from friction-based appendage mangling injuries) is that victory is based so obscenely upon luck.  The board game aspect of the earlier titles left you at the mercy of the dice.  What kept fans coming back was that intense competitive factor, that minigame performance could rescue you.  Mario Party had always featured a board game structure to the gameplay, but the minigames were the entire point.  In the same way that old Nickelodeon game shows were all about the mess rather than the quiz questions, Mario Party was all about the mayhem of turning the game to your advantage through deceit and underhandedness.  Those days are gone.  Mario Party 10 treats minigames like an afterthought.  The best parts of the series have been jettisoned to make room for everything players always hated.  The sadistic thrills of triple-teaming someone in Grab Bag or the humor of listening to a profane rant against how stupid or unfair Slot Car Derby is are both gone.  What started off as a really great way to cherish friendship (or end it)  has turned into an interactive Candyland.  The argument that Nintendo makes games for all ages fails miserably here.  The core gameplay of Mario Party 10 is shallow and unsatisfying. 

Luckily, there's an aspect to this title that is still worthwhile and that is 'Bowser Party'.  If you've seen any commercials, then you've already heard that the player with the huge gamepad can play as Bowser against the other four players.  This lives up to the hype in pretty much every way.  Bowser Party is basically a game mode made entirely out of screwing over your friends in the name of victory.  The goal of the typical four player group is simply to reach the end of a minefield of a game board of horrible traps and pitfalls while being pursued by a fifth player hellbent on their destruction.  The four of them all add their dice rolls together to put distance between themselves and their pursuer, who gets four dice.  Whenever that fifth player catches up with the group, everyone plays a Bowser event, which heavily favors their enemy.  Victory requires not only skill at survival, but minipulation of game mechanics and psychological warfare.  It's obvious that this was the spark of genius at the center of this game's development.

The final game mode is Amiibo Party.  Amiibo party is a tacked-on gamemode that sucks which exists only to sell Amiibos.  It no doubt took precious development time away from the better features of this game resulting in such a lackluster overall title and the management staff who so cynically banked on its ability to sell Skylanders ripoffs need to be beaten with rusty rods of rebar until they repent for their crimes. 

In all seriousness, though, a real selling point of the game was horribly mishandled here.  Imagine having a basic Mario Party-styled game mode where everything was just as it was when all was fresh and new in 1998, but with HD graphics and 17 years of great ideas supporting it - Mario Party as you always remembered it.  Now imagine shoehorning in Amiibos into every aspect of this game mode to justify their existence.  You'll need to touch your figure to the gamepad constantly to activate the most mundane of commands, from starting turns to rolling the dice.  If you need to take a leak when its not your turn, you'll be left wondering if you need your Amiibo for that.  Ergonomics and functionality are important in the world of consumer electronics - someone please tell Nintendo that.

In closing, Mario Party is actually less worthwhile than Nintendoland for multiplayer fun and isn't worth consideration until it reaches the same $20 price tag, even with the bonus features added on.  I certainly don't recommend buying Amiibos for this thing.  The one saving grace is that the Amiibos of any characters here who also make appearances in Super Smash Bros will be interchangeable between the two games.  If someone really wants to justify their purchase of a new Gold Mario Amiibo, they could always just train it to beat the living hell out of them in what is a far superior game in regards to both content and quality. 

Mario Party 10 is a tragic waste of potential and a Grade C game at best.

Get well soon.  Nobody else appreciates the art of the witch farm like we do.

What about the number of gnomes purchased?  The people demand to know!

There's a more entertaining way to get your info.

http://www.l4d.com/comic/comic.php

This has been in my mind since I woke up this past morning.  After singing some Christmas carols in their traditional German format tonight, as is the tradition around here, it really got me thinking about how I should spread this story around for contemplation (a sort of Christmas miracle) - The Christmas Truce of 1914.  Simultaneously heartwarming and heartbreaking, it's one of those impressive moments of human decency that put into perspective the horrors of combat and how the era in which even war could be conducted with a sense of dignity and chivalry is truly long dead.  There's a romantic sense among some historians that Christmas of 1914 marked the end of an era and that the modern concept of merciless warfare took root afterwards.  In any case, it's reason enough to give a thought and a prayer to all of those soldiers spending their Christmas far from home this holiday season and to remember those lost a century ago in the 'war to end all wars'.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christmas_truce

I used to keep a tank of seven piranhas as pets.  I named the first and largest one after Vlad the Impaler for lack of a better name.  I just wanted something generically bloodthirsty and fearsome, but couldn't think of anything clever.  The thing I think is funny is that it was just sort of a placeholder until I came up with something better.  Not only did this unoriginal name stick, it settled in so well that I adopted it myself in 2001.