seamus2389

The stars my destination by Alfred Bester would be my favorite read of the year - that book has a dark insane intensity built into it to it that I have never come across before. Runners up include Moby Dick, the Handmaid's tale, Octivia Bulter, Ursula Le Guin and Iris Murdoch. Non- fiction - a two volume history of the fall of the western roman empire and the attempts by Charles the great and others to forge a new one by Peter Heathers and Red Sun - Travels in Naxalite country all which is the history of the Naxalite movement in India.

The game where you won by getting a couple of agenda cards from a run reminds me of two games I have played in the last couple days - in one I flatlined when I used Maker's eye and hit 2 snares and in the other I won after two uses of Maker's eye in a couple of turns netting me 4 agenda cards. After hearing this episode I think I will try out the other runner decks. Been sticking with Shaper just cause it was the one I started with on OCTGN.

OCTGN really is a bastard to figure out especially when you are like me and also have little idea of how to play the game. People have been willing to help me play though which is nice. I find the hardest part is remembering the list of things you need to do/click when starting a run

I use the av club reviews to figure stuff like that out. Right now I am watching Babylon 5 and Deep space nine and reading the opening paragraph of the episode is generally enough for me to know if it is and episode I should watch. Tv review sites/podcasts in general I find give me a good idea of when to start and stop shows as long as I am not trying to be fully up to date with the show

Camouflaj radio is by a studio developing a game. Every month they talk about the progress they made, future plans, what went right/wrong along with games they are playing and interesting stuff they came across related to their game

The newest episode of In Our Time is on the Book of Common Prayer brought in by Crammer. Elaborates on the fact that back then during the service as a lay person you would have no idea what is being said which is why they ran the bell at communion cause otherwise people wouldn't know what part of the mass they are in.

I am with Rob in wanting a game where you are Michael Collins in charge of the IRA or some other situation where independence was dependent on a combination of violent and non-violent means. You could do a 2 player game with Collins, De Valera and the English government as a non playable entity and somehow leading to the civil war once the English leave Ireland. A similar game could involve China under Japanese occupation with the nationalists and communists.

I started watching Farscape for the first time, currently on season 2 and really enjoying. That show is not afraid to go really weird and Areyn Sun growth as a character is really interesting to watch. Also Ben Crowder plays crazy really well

For people who have played the game who did ye feel about the torture stuff cause after seeing my brother play it I won't be playing this game unless there is a way to skip that mission.

Atlas : Archaeology of an imaginary. One of the most interesting and imaginative books I have read. I reminds me of Invisible cities and some of Burgres stuff - like the story about the map of the empire but in this case it is centered on the particular city of Victoria/Hong Kong. Here are 2 good reviews of it

I cannot get over how different Chinese Lol seems to Chinese DOTA. OMG are the most aggressive ganking team I have even seen Also it's interesting to watch how different regions have different styles - Jungle Yorick( China)Annie (Korea) in particular. The only thing from China the rest of the world picked up on was 3 man tower attacks which Riot nerfed although that doesn't seemed to have stopped OMG. I do agree that Fnatic seem to be the most consistent EU team. They are like Na'vi in that while they mighnt't win everything they won't be too far off on the international scene. Lemondogs on the other hand just don't seem to be able to get it together. I do think that if Fnatic and Gambit were up against OMG and SK1 they might'nt have made it out of the group which is looking to be really exciting.

The topic of bluffing and local multiplayer brings back memories of playing 64 games with my 2 brothers when we were young. We used to play alot of Jet force Gemini multiplayer and in one match we all played as the dog character cause the dog would float in water which there was alot in the map. My brothers decided to gang up on me and at one stage I snuck up behind them and started shooting one of them. Cause all our screens showed dog characters floating down a tunnel my brother didn't know what was going on and one of them started shooting the one I was shooting thinking it was me WQe used to play Conkers bad fur day multi and one of the modes was playing as cave men trying to steal eggs from dinosaurs. The game allowed friendly fire so occasionally we would headshot each other in such a way that it was credible that the other person was hit by accident. Eventually this led to a death for a death rule - whether the death was deliberate or not the person killed got a free kill. While there were fewer friendly fire incidents we started losing few matches in endless cycle of revenge killing cause one of us would refuse to be killed for killing the other. Thinking back on it we created a lot of house rules for playing multiplayer games especially for maps were we would have our own area that you were given time at the start to set up a defense for before going after each other. I do wonder is there still alot of that going on but you generally don't see it cause it amoung friends on a custom map. PS - in the original company of heroes bluffing grenade throws was an occasionally tactic and in COH2 I have seen players charge conscripts at vehicles to force them back to avoid being hit with anti-vehicles grenade the conscripts do no possess.

I had the same reaction. The more I thought about it the more I felt it was old white guy ranting about society is going to hell, kinda like Ray Bradbury with Farheniet sans shitting on tv for taking attention away from books. Like Brave New World the more I thought about those books the more problems I had with them. I feel they are a really good example of an idea book with dubious characters and plotting. I do like how Asimov acknowledges the fact that accurately predicting the future is impossible which is why safeguards were put in place to keep it on the "correct course".

Do many people here play both Lol and DOTA2? I play more Lol for the simple reasons that it has shorter waiting times and I am used to playing it solo where DOTA2 is more a game I play with friends.

I should look into a breeding program for my heirs. I should also pay more attention to my vassals, I tend to ignore them unless I get the dangerous faction warning then it's all gifts, titles and spymasters trying to get dirt on the leaders. I went back to save I made before I handed out the titles cause I figured if It all went pear shaped I didn't want to start again as the Byzantines.

Is it a bad idea as an emperor to give away all of your kingdoms to vassals? I tried it with my current Byzantine game and it ended with 6 of the 10 kingdoms declaring a war of indepence with the HRE joining in to dethrone me for a cousin. In my previous game as Sweden I kept all of them bar Norway and Lithuania cause they were the weakest. My idea was always it's better if they are all dukes cause then if one rebels the other dukes in the kingdom won't necessarily join. In my Sweden campaign I ended up taking them Norway after the king joined a rebellion but I am wondering is it a good system that I am making a balls of. Also playing as Byzantine is interesting cause Constantinople seems to work differently from other cities. In a previous rebellion an army was sieging it and I got a message say the people of the city have formed an army which gave me an extra 40,000 men and when the HRE took the city I got a -100% warscore and lost the empire.

The magazine is pretty good as well and doesn't cost too much especially if like me Ancient Warfare is one of your favourite periods of military history. I think they also have one on Medevial history

We still learn of the life of Ragnar the Gardener in Irish history although recent research have uncovered the more unsavory aspects of his work to unite the nation. He is seen as our equivalent of Alfred the great for his role in turning our country from a collection of petty kingdoms to one united under a single king. One of Joyce's unfinished works was a play about Ragnar's life and how it foreshadowed the rise and fall of the Irish Empire and birth of the Irish republic. Ragnar and Sean remain popular Irish names to this day, Ragnardottsir not so much. Do ye try and have as many counties under your personal control as possible or do you give all but one away. I do the latter and it hasn't gone wrong so far especially with the inclusion of independent retinues ? Same with Kingdoms when your emperor - I try and keep all Kingdoms with my ruler cause I don't want vassals to be able to call upon multiple duchies as kings when they decide to rebel and if they do become king I transfer vassalage's away from them. PS - I am also loving the Thumbs butchering of Irish place names, long may it continue

I think of the reason that they aren't so recognized is that their influence was through pulp magazines which didn't have a long shelf life and wasn't the stuff you see being reviewed in the new yorker. In Lovecraft's case his didn't really become well known till his stuff was reprinted. The other thing is that within their respective genres they are well known and anytime you come across a forum thread talking about the genres and their histories you'll find people arguing over the good and bad of their influence on the genre. Also you should check out Arthur Machen who was an huge influence on Lovecraft which is very clearly seen if you read the Great God Pan. Lord Dunsay is another guy for the 19th century whose influence you can clearly see.

He does the same with start of the first book and end of the last one as well. The those have a rare skill for breaking your heart which is on display in the four books I mentioned above. I agree that the ICE aren't generally as good. I have read up to Blood and Bone and of the five so far the Crimson guard is the only one I would put on par with the main series (Stonewielder possibly upon re-read). Also Tor.com have had a weekly re-read of the entire series going since the summer of 2010 and they are currently on Toll the hounds (they are also including some of the ICE books) which is word reading if you want to spend times thinking about the series http://www.tor.com/features/series/malazan-reread-of-the-fallen This guy does a decent job of summing up what I like about the series http://nethspace.blogspot.ie/2011/04/review-malazan-book-of-fallen-by-steven.html Also in an episode of Quarter to Three I am pretty sure Bruce Garick talked about how he would love to play an game set in the Malazan world which I would love to play as well. Finally one thing no one mentions enough when talking about this series is that there is a great sense of humour running throughout the series

I started on the second book after picking it up in the library years ago and was sucked in from there. Deadhouse gates, Memories of Ice (book 3) and Toll the Hounds (book 8) are my favourite. Not sure about the final book cause I have only read it once while I think I have read the other three between 2-4 times.

I played through the first time as the Swedish which is like playing as the Denmark except you will have a civil war involving you pagan brother or uncle at the start to deal with people you get down to business of conquering pagan and engaging in numerous war with Denmark over the Baltic pagan states Ended up Emperor of Scandinavia (in part by putting my son on the throne of Denmark), King of France and Jerusalem (Crusades) and with a random scattering of land in Germany, Italy and England. Best part of the game was holding unto Finland against the Golden Horde (thanks in part to having just installing my son as the king of Denmark meaning he sent troops). It involved the Horde running up and down Finland taking castles and starving cause it was an army of 60-80,000. I landed troops on the opposite side of Finland taking back the castles so that my warscore didn't drop too low and avoided battle by loading them onto ships when the Mongols got too close and dropping at the other end of Finland where they just marched from. When their army dropped low enough from starvation I beat in battle, disbanded my (greatly reduced) vassals, raised Holy order and mercenary troops (paid in part by gold from the Pope for fighting pagans) to deal with the next Mongol army. Rinse and repeat for a few years (with the Horde having to deal with an Crusade lead by France to retake Hungary) had me secure a white peace and keeping Finland and when my king died and his son inherited Sweden I ended up taking about half of Poland from the Golden Horde over a couple of wars I am currently playing as the Byzantines from the time of the Alexiad where they have lost about half of their land. I currently have all of the Balkans, North Africa from Tunisia to Egypt, southern Italy and most of the land surrounding the black sea with the Mongols due to arrive in the next 25 years. I took the land surrounding the black sea cause I plan to repeat my Swedish plan and stalling them invasion by running troops up and down the coast while their armies starve except this time I am building up a massive war chest since I won't have any holy order troops or money from the Pope Best part of the game so far was my Emperor daughter's becoming Queen of Hungary and killing her son so that she also inherited the Byzantine empire. Best part was she joined the plot to kill him. I have been dealing with a decent few rebellions in Hungary cause it turns out she is fond of castration and blinding people which doesn't make for peaceful vassals. I tried playing as Ireland but after Sweden it was too easy and I have already created the Celtic empire in the Viking invasion expansion pack for the original medieval : total war.

Teams ranking are all over the place in both the NA and EU LCS so far. EG and SK are bottom table in EU, last season winners (Fnatic, TSM) are mid table with even wins and losses. Also there is a load of rosters changes going on and so far it seems to be working for the teams doing them in EU, not sure about NA cause dont' watch it as much

Please add me to the guild http://steamcommunity.com/id/seamus2389