FMBI

What's Aceflyer thinking about? Spoiler! --Click here to view--http://a259.ac-images.myspacecdn.com/images01/27/l_b29610b04b217b82da70273c67e4adfa.gif - Fin

The thing is, though, the game has a slowly calcifying population base. I remember several years ago when I started this game, we'd see a constant stream of new players in all the big zones - and back then, we had serious small zones, too. Nowadays, probably 60% of the people in MG, HZ, and DSB are pure vets, Chaos only booms when special events lure vets in, EG's down slightly, TW's about 150 below what it used to be, and all the small-to-mid zones are gone - Halo, DS, Battlefield, Anything Goes, MK, Redstar, etc, etc. Now, that isn't to say a recovery isn't impossible - Infantry went from 6-feet-under to alive-and-well within a few months last year. However, while Infantry's got a small and incompetent moderating team, they do have developer support, they frequently rotate zones (a similar situation used to exist in SS, when the big zones would cycle off players to the small ones over time), and, most importantly, they made Infantry free after years of p2p-induced stupor. There's no similar incentive that SS zone owners or netops can provide to lure in more population, because SS is already free, it's already nearly at the limits of its development potential, and pretty much all non-!@#$%^&*S innovation has ground to a halt - along with the cause of ASSS advancement itself (I remember a few years ago when everyone was going to be ASSS within the next year, look where that got to..) People keep misreading this as just another population decline, when something fundamental is really changing this time. SS has been declining steadily, if slowly, for years and years, and, unlike in the past, there is absolutely no way to attract fresh blood. I'm sick of people saying "Kids these days need their 3d graphics and 1800x1500 resolutions," but I can't argue with them. There is no reason to play an ancient game, filled with abusive, rude, and very "colorful" players, when you can log on to CounterStrike or Battlefield 2 and get some satisfying high-resolution kills.

And I thought X had mood swings, sheesh. Well, guys, on the Funny Emails subject, check this page out (I got linked to it by a !@#$%^&*gy mailing list I can't get rid of, but it's good for laughs). After I read it, I managed to stop laughing long enough to do a quick wikipedia search, and found out that: "An April 2008 USGS report estimated the amount of technically recoverable oil in the Bakken Formation at 3.0 to 4.3 billion barrels, with a mean of 3.65 billion." In other words, you might only be able to get .66% of the total reserves out, and oil prices might be falling, but you'll still make a 75-fold profit!

Well, I use the tried and true "Get it over with" technique - have since I was about 13. Just jerk off in the bathroom or shower shortly before you go out - you might still get an erection, but it'll be smaller and much easier to get rid of. Just thinking about something else for a few seconds is enough to start causing the little guy to droop. Obviously, if you get erections no matter what you're doing, it'll be harder to prevent than if you specifically target arousing situations, like being at a pool party or whatever, but at least you'll have some protection. Either that or get yourself a pair of loose shorts with a belt, and stuff a little cotton in your underwear or something?

Swooning. The relentless attention they give to an individual cause they got ASSS.You answered your own question..."cause they got ASSS"... you, good sir, win the internets. you sure doQUOTE PYRAMID LOLCAKE? Why did I quote this again? ok, lets goOH GOD HOW I DO THIS I AM NOT GOOD WITH COMPUTEROH GOD HOW I DO THIS I AM NOT GOOD WITH COMPUTERalot of quotes :SyupIsn't there a cap soon?i think its 50 nested quotesWe're pretty far off fifty.. :/IT'S DANGEROUS TO GO ALONETAKE THIS I <3 BOOBShttp://75.126.76.149/lolcats/uploads/funnypicturesloudcatpickupline_copy6.jpghttp://icanhascheezburger.files.wordpress.com/2008/08/funny-pictures-cat-plays-well-with-others.jpghttp://75.126.76.149/lolcats/uploads/funnypictureskittensmarshmallowspooprainbows_copy1.jpgSTOP !@#$%^&*ING WRECKING THIS QUOTE TRAIN WITH DUMB!@#$%^&* !@#$%^&*http://991.com/newgallery/Scatman-John-DJ-Sampler-190362.jpg ADDED AUDRY TO THE QUOTE TRAINI have no funny pictures failureThis thread makes my computer go slow.not our problem!@#$%^&*Well, at least now we know how X got almost 2000 posts, right?i wonder how close we are to the limitNot close enough obviously.HOW MUCH MORE OF THIS MUST GO ON?! my mouse scrolling finger is tired T_Thttp://fieldguide.tripod.com/birdlabels/yuengling_eagle.jpgThis all started because we like ASSS. Just goes to show you how much damage the sexualization of culture does to the level of intelligent discourse. Oh, and at a glance, it looks like 34 to me. Make that 35. !@#$%^&*ing tripod gay !@#$%^&*. ITS YUENGLING.too bad you cant post any...sigh now for this: http://i57.photobucket.com/albums/g231/adresaklumea/funny%20pictures/big-condom.jpg I don't know how well bubbles work as contraceptives, but here goes *unzips pants**Giant condom image*EDITED Someone needs to shoot attraction. Jesus..ATTRACTION, STOP !@#$%^&*ING RUINING IT. GTFO ahh a superquote, the true sign of a spam thread... Indeed 45.. OH GOD, MAKE IT STOP!!

6'2" 155 7.5 If I floss, will I be more beautiful? I want girls to like me.

K, generally when I'm replying to specifics I just stick it in the message, but your evil way of posting will make that harder to do. -readies return key of death- @ Veg - I do have founding for my statements, but I'm not surprised you couldn't find it. As I recall, a few months back I made a post quoting McCain's positions from his web site, and you accused me of making it all up.

Swooning. The relentless attention they give to an individual cause they got ASSS.You answered your own question..."cause they got ASSS"... you, good sir, win the internets. you sure doQUOTE PYRAMID LOLCAKE? Why did I quote this again? ok, lets goOH GOD HOW I DO THIS I AM NOT GOOD WITH COMPUTEROH GOD HOW I DO THIS I AM NOT GOOD WITH COMPUTERalot of quotes :SyupIsn't there a cap soon?i think its 50 nested quotesWe're pretty far off fifty.. :/IT'S DANGEROUS TO GO ALONETAKE THIS I <3 BOOBShttp://75.126.76.149/lolcats/uploads/funnypicturesloudcatpickupline_copy6.jpghttp://icanhascheezburger.files.wordpress.com/2008/08/funny-pictures-cat-plays-well-with-others.jpghttp://75.126.76.149/lolcats/uploads/funnypictureskittensmarshmallowspooprainbows_copy1.jpgSTOP !@#$%^&*ING WRECKING THIS QUOTE TRAIN WITH DUMB!@#$%^&* !@#$%^&*http://991.com/newgallery/Scatman-John-DJ-Sampler-190362.jpg ADDED AUDRY TO THE QUOTE TRAINI have no funny pictures failureThis thread makes my computer go slow.not our problem!@#$%^&*Well, at least now we know how X got almost 2000 posts, right?i wonder how close we are to the limitNot close enough obviously.HOW MUCH MORE OF THIS MUST GO ON?! my mouse scrolling finger is tired T_T http://fieldguide.tripod.com/birdlabels/yuengling_eagle.jpg This all started because we like ASSS. Just goes to show you how much damage the sexualization of culture does to the level of intelligent discourse. Oh, and at a glance, it looks like 34 to me. Make that 35.

Swooning. The relentless attention they give to an individual cause they got ASSS.You answered your own question..."cause they got ASSS"... you, good sir, win the internets. you sure doQUOTE PYRAMID LOLCAKE? Why did I quote this again? ok, lets goOH GOD HOW I DO THIS I AM NOT GOOD WITH COMPUTEROH GOD HOW I DO THIS I AM NOT GOOD WITH COMPUTERalot of quotes :SyupIsn't there a cap soon?i think its 50 nested quotesWe're pretty far off fifty.. :/IT'S DANGEROUS TO GO ALONETAKE THIS I <3 BOOBShttp://75.126.76.149/lolcats/uploads/funnypicturesloudcatpickupline_copy6.jpghttp://icanhascheezburger.files.wordpress.com/2008/08/funny-pictures-cat-plays-well-with-others.jpghttp://75.126.76.149/lolcats/uploads/funnypictureskittensmarshmallowspooprainbows_copy1.jpgSTOP !@#$%^&*ING WRECKING THIS QUOTE TRAIN WITH DUMB!@#$%^&* !@#$%^&*http://991.com/newgallery/Scatman-John-DJ-Sampler-190362.jpg ADDED AUDRY TO THE QUOTE TRAINI have no funny pictures failureThis thread makes my computer go slow.not our problem !@#$%^&* Well, at least now we know how X got almost 2000 posts, right?

So Audrey, did you get enough points to do whatever you were planning to do?

Hoch, interesting post. IMO, you're forgetting that McCain has changed in this race, and he's unlikely to change back when it's over. The same man that used to back bipartisan programs and became famous for his serious distrust of the religious right (no small feat in the Mega-Church southwest) is now "Bush with environmentally friendly policies!", except that he's actually putting more effort than Bush into attracting the fundies, since they don't trust him like they trusted the good ole Texan in '00. Also, the "guilty by !@#$%^&*ocation" theory is far more believable nowadays, because the House, Senate, and high-ranking Judiciary have essentially closed ranks and vowed to go with the party line no matter what. I can't tell you how many times I've turned on C-SPAN and seen "200 Democrats Y, 190 Republicans N, 45 NV" or similar. Now, I personally tend to dislike "Jump-Out Numbers" like McCain's 95% voting record, but in this case, I think there's something to it. He's not really promising any substantive changes from Bush's policies - in fact, in Bush's final year, he looks more Bushy than Bush himself. We don't need an Andropov here, we need a Gorbachev (though preferably one that doesn't cause the country to implode) - and I don't see how someone who likes Real ID, likes the Iraq war, threatens Russia, talks nonstop about his questionable military record, plans more tax cuts for the top 1% but virtually no one else, wants to essentially break the UN and replace it with a morphed NATO/SEATO/VPR* "league of democracies," and has stated he dislikes the draft even though his military plans require it to reinstated can seriously be considered any different from the same militaristic, "managed democracy" leader we've got in office right now. Bush started the policies, and, as far as I can see, McCain's planning to finish them. Is it really suggestive of a "narrow focus" to look at a candidate honestly, instead of conveniently ignoring his behavior over the past several years? *VPR meaning, of course, Various Puppet Regimes - in other words, any country that follows America's lead often enough to be declared democratic, regardless of how many death squads, warlords, or corrupt officials there are running around.

That's where String Theory comes into play. And no, I'm not talking about the pearl necklace kind of strings.

Was the double-R intended to be a slur or something? If so, I'm not following.. In any case, who you're planning to vote for depends on your perspective. I don't think there's a single person out there who seriously believes John McCain has real policies at this point (The "Realistic Change" label has sort of worn off now that he's lying nonstop and nearly all of his policies have proven to be farcical.) For that reason, no matter how much you dislike Obama as a "liberal,"* in his current Bill Clinton-esque, centrist, incarnation, he's a respectable and moderate politician - unlike McCain, who blows more hot air than a Pittsburgh steel mill. However, if you're really, really pissed off at the country, then voting McCain and letting his stupidity do its work (by potentially getting us into, at my count, any one of 6+ wars, by further damaging the economy, and by sounding the death knell for ever paying off the deficit**) becomes a rather attractive option in terms of saying "I told you so." Additionally, as many have pointed out, no matter who the next president is, they're screwed - the question is who the guilt will lie with. The republican, who has nearly identical policies to the same ones that are !@#$%^&*ing us right now, or the democrat, who would try to change things, get stonewalled, and then run out of time? In the long run, an Obama win could make us worse off by setting the stage for a future, and potentially even more deadly republican presidency in 2012 which, by that time, would seriously be willing to consider nuclear war with Russia or other currently unimaginable possibilities. So, I guess what I'm trying to say, is.. If you give a !@#$%^&* about the country, vote Obama and then stick with him when the Bush chickens come home to roost. If you're just too mad to care anymore, then go McCain and get the shock therapy over with before it's too late. *Which some on both left and right argue he never was, despite the massively skewed "liberal rankings" studies - those things are laughably flawed, so much so that self-proclaimed socialists end up in the middle of the pack. **Which, while a notion highly popular among libertarians (who demand lower taxes as soon as revenues level off with higher tax rates, thus preventing a surplus from ac!@#$%^&*ulating) would mean that Bush's 40% dollar depreciation would look like a walk in the park by the time McCain's presidency was over.

I thought your !@#$%^&* was for McCain. I can't believe that you're willing to vote for that guy but you aren't willing to have sex with him.

Swooning. The relentless attention they give to an individual cause they got ASSS. You answered your own question..."cause they got ASSS"... you, good sir, win the internets. you sure do QUOTE PYRAMID LOLCAKE? Why did I quote this again? ok, lets go OH GOD HOW I DO THIS I AM NOT GOOD WITH COMPUTER OH GOD HOW I DO THIS I AM NOT GOOD WITH COMPUTER alot of quotes :S yup Isn't there a cap soon?

!@#$%^&* off, !@#$%^&*shlupper.

Ace - stop using the gay font. Also - One of Russia's main motivations for using this situation was the Kosovo issue. You can't dismiss it because it's "irrelevant" when it was a major influence in provoking the decision to react in the first place.

No, it won't happen in the UK because white birthrates are going up, you have a large racist voting bloc, and England has always been highly skeptical of the EU and any kind of integration, which will put the brakes on immigration sometime in the future. However, in the US, it's pretty much a foregone conclusion, because nobody here has an interest in shutting the borders down. The lefties want to keep them open on vastly exaggerated humanitarian grounds, while the righties want them open so they can keep cheap labor and racism alive. I don't really think this will have a huge effect on the country, although it will add to the shift in a liberal direction, as the majority of the immigrants coming in are from very disadvantaged backgrounds, and the idea that someone with a bad education and hard life can "make it on their own" isn't as attractive to them, even if they are willing to work hard, because they want to see at least some results. They've already seen what happened to the Koreans, after all.

Not true. A handful of corporations (often the same corporations that lobby the heaviest) have near-complete control of the news*, so whatever they choose to give airtime to will become a political issue. Witness offshore drilling - regardless of its long-term merits (and they are few indeed, unless the fields are nationalized), more than half of all Americans believed it would have an immediate effect on prices. If you can have that many people believing something so obviously wrong, simply because it's a "populist issue" the media wants to throw around, then distracting people by pointing out the "book smart elitists" (as Ail would put it) at the expense of the debate about the billionaire corporations in question should be no problem at all. As, indeed, it has proven to be - I talk to people on SS who are actually cheering for these companies. I read an interesting analysis of this situation once - basically, the major news networks can heavily influence public opinion, which is then used as an excuse by politicians to enact stupid policies, which are then justified by flawed studies bankrolled by various lobbyists and corporations. So ultimately, the public debates are where this kind of thing is decided. If you lose that link in the chain, then the entire stupid-mob scenario would be much harder to put into play. *While international news is much better in this respect, the vast majority of Americans are perfectly happy to flip on ABC, CBS, NBC, or Fox for half an hour each evening and believe whatever they hear. That's not going to change for quite a few years, either.

It derails it, because 90% of the "debates" you see on TV consist of everyone trying to stuff as many sound bites in as possible, and end up with the last word. If you can jam something like that in the debate, then your opponent has to react to that, he can't carry on with a serious discussion, or else he'll look "stupid." I agree about them not taxing anyone. But it's still quite galling when you hear people bragging about how they'll end the "death tax" that affects almost no one, or drop corporate tax rates to "encourage American ingenuity," and then you watch their polling numbers go up. It's beyond bizarre.

Why does everyone keep mentioning Harold and Kumar? It wasn't that funny. -_-

Except no one holds corporations responsible, because every time they try to, someone pipes up about Harvard and derails the discussion.

Crappy artwork. Subtlety is the soul of humor, so when violating that principle, make sure ya get it perfect.