The Old Hack

Maybe, but do these government-approved officials have the ability to have fighter jets do aerobatics in celebration of your marriage? I don't think so!

Pffft to either kind. If you need a fancy-schmancy formal acknowledgment of your marriage, just ask the captain of the USS George Washington. If you command a nuclear powered strike carrier, you can darn near unleash the wrath of the Gods anyway.

Meh. We could have seen it easily if we had just bothered. It's just a jump to the left, and then a step to the right...

While I largely agree with that, I also agree with Scotty that college student Pandora looks quite appealing. Mind you, what I really love about the strip is her line of "Whoops! I already decided for me!" Somehow it just strikes me as hilarious.

Errr... the idea of promising the masses bread and circuses was already found in Rome well before the birth of Christ. And probably in parts of Greece, too. And in many other places if you count such instances as promising a starving people better living if they'll just help you toss the old chieftain out on his ear and put you in his place. Then there's any workplace where there is jostling for position amongst the employees. My own conviction is that as soon as you have three or more people in the same place, politics appear. This is probably an exaggeration but the word itself is based on the greek Polis, or city. Possibly a good definition is that as soon as you have a decent size population that can support a city, politics rear their head. Even kings at times have to placate their people if they get hungry enough, after all. Or that guy who sees a golden opportunity to replace you may appear...

Well, it's easy for you. You don't keep it inside you, you have it conveniently to hand in a jar.

I was indeed being ironic. It is not an uncommon fan event to accuse material older than that they are fans of of ripping off the work of their idol. Also, it is worth remembering that when Sir Terry created the Discworld, he was basing his first book solidly on satire of previous popular work.

Kind of reminds me of when some Rowling fans shredded Sir Terry Pratchett for Unseen University, which he had clearly ripped off from Hogwarts.

Admittedly that is a big and noteworthy difference. Now, if only Parliament could manage that...

So, kinda like the Danish Parliament.

I understand your viewpoint and to a large part I agree with it. I think it is just a little harder for me right now because I am in the middle of it. In a year or so I may feel like that again.

So? The absence of "any" in this case implies "all."

You are not alone in that attitude. And to be fair, I think you have a point. But I still think the result is entertaining so I like the rifftrax anyway. I guess I am not averse to the occasional low blow when it comes to commentary.

Allow me to quote you a quote: This was in response to someone who effectively said, "I can't see why I have to kill her just because she tried to kill me." So yes, I am serious. You posited a pure 'kill or be killed' mentality, disallowing flight, counterintimidation and submission as options. And did so with a, "if any ancestors in your entire family tree did not have the 'kill or be killed' mindset, you would not exist" argument. That is all.

LMAO. This reminds me of an incident that once occurred with my friend Liz who is also Canadian. One of the sweetest and gentlest people I have ever known, I once happened to be present when another friend of mine asked her, "So do you speak English with a British or an American accent?" And I swear to God, she bent her head back, looked down her nose at him and in a very offended tone told him, "I speak English with a Canadian accent, thank you." She is normally so mild-mannered that seeing her offended was actually scary. I actually cringed at her tone of voice.

Well, they are kind of odd because they are very deliberately made to be bad. I personally don't care much for the sheer stupidity level either, but the rifftrax version made by the MST3K crew is really quite entertaining.

Fight, run away, posture, submission. This is a pattern that repeats intraspecies in many different animals. Wolves being an obvious example as well as any of the primates. Often it will never even come to a fight as both parties will puff up threateningly and one then either displays submission or flees. Mind you, this is usually only seen within the same species and is probably an evolved response to aid species survival.

That's really rude, you know. I have it on good authority that nine out of ten elder gods consider her one of the hottest eldritch horrors around.

Good Lord, the TRS-80s! I remember these. I once had a Tandy Whiz Kids comic advertising the darn things. (I wonder if my iPad Air 2 stands up to that Cray XMP?) I still want Ashley to reappear as the topic in her own thread, so now I wonder if she likes computers and if she has an iPad. I think she at least may have a smartphone, but whether it is an iPhone, who knows.

I'm not sure how worried Pandora is at the thought of losing her license to serve alcohol. I'm actually not even sure she has one.

Too bad. I shall resolve this by means of simple logic. Let us posit this 'killing gene' exists -- a tall order, but I shall let you have that much. Some combination of genes makes it easy for a human to kill other humans. Or alternately, some form of training exists that allow humans to overcome their reluctance to kill. We shall label this condition A. Next, we have the absence of this attitude or conditioning. These humans can still kill but only do so accidentally or in utter extremis; otherwise they are too restrained to actively seek the death of fellow humans. First, let us posit a humanity in which the existence of A is ubiquitous and omnipresent -- this is the state you insist on. From there, there is a sliding scale going from large majorities possessing A existing towards the opposite end where it is either rare or nonexistent. Let us ignore the sliding scale and look at the murderous monsters inhabiting a planet where only A exists. Every time they enter conflict, they are satisfied only with the death of their opponent. Evolutionarily speaking, how well does this hypothetical species do? I shall present the following hypothesis: not very well. This species would self-destruct in an orgy of violence very, very quickly. If we go downwards on the sliding scale, it does better, of course. But as soon as we do, I am allowed ancestors that do not end all their conflicts with killing, and your original position falls apart. The End.

Codswallop. Your original argument was that it couldn't be done. I showed that it could be, and was. Also, I posit that where the Vikings were met with answer from professional militia, they either learned to attack easier targets or switched to trade... and historically, they did both.

Hm. Apparently Immortals have different rules than the Egyptian Gods did. I understand mummification was invented after Osiris TPed the then reigning Pharaoh as a prank.

To be fair, in Methuselah's Children one of the main reasons Lazarus Long started to feel worn down by his centuries wasn't because he had gotten bored with life but because of the constant and repeated injury of outliving the people he loved. This, at least, is what I see as a main danger of near immortality -- once you have lost someone close to yourself again and again and again, you start to grow wary of getting that close to people. Maybe it is because I've just lost a close friend of my own. But it seems to me a more likely factor than mere boredom.

So what sort of processor does Ashley have, and does she have USB 3 ports?