Speaking of the Olympics, perhaps they should have an anthem competition?

http://www.grantland.com/story/_/id/822 ... -olympics/

My favorite quote, concerning the Montenegro national anthem:  "How does a nation of 632,000 people — roughly a quarter the size of the borough of Queens — produce an anthem that … I mean, if a mountain range woke up one day, unfolded itself into a race of giant stone men, and marched off to war, each step crushing houses and splintering the Earth's crust, this is what they would sing while they marched. Are you planning to kill Superman? THIS IS YOUR LAIR MUSIC."

All,

On some of the threads discussing the early history of the game, there has been mention of the links between D&D and the game Diplomacy.  Although some may dispute whether it was intended as such, Diplomacy was one of the first board games played as a role playing game.  It really took off as the game became played through the mail and hobby zines in the 1960s, and made the transition to e-mail twenty years ago.  There are extensive online resources for Diplomacy.  See http://www.diplom.org/, http://www.diplomacyworld.net/, and http://www.diplomacy-archive.com/home.htm.  Playing Diplomacy online by e-mail is one of my other hobbies.  This is normally done online through an adjudication program and messaging service called a Judge.  See http://usak.asciiking.com/index.html.

I propose a Diplomacy game for interested Acaeum members.  I offer my services as GM.  We will need seven players who will commit to finishing the game until one person wins or all surviving players agree to a draw.  Moves are generally due every three days.  If often takes three months to play a game to conclusion.  You will be able to communicate and negotiate moves during the interim between move deadlines.  If you will be unavailable during that time, you can schedule absences, when deadlines are not allowed.  Since all of the players will be from the Acaeum, real e-mail addresses of the players will be known and communication outside the Judge will be allowed.  In Diplomacy Judge parlance, this will be a Standard, White Partial Press game for novice players.  I will set up the game and will assist players in getting registered with the appropriate Judge and learning the commands and I will post summaries of the game on the Acaeum, if Foul agrees.  

If you are interested, please reply to this or send me a PM.  If you are an experienced judge player, let me know.  If you don't want to play but just want to watch the game, I will provide instructions to observe.  Observers are welcome and encouraged to comment on the game within the game mechanism.  

Yours,

LB

It looks like Ebay has been tweaking their pages and some settings lately and I ran into an issue.  Trying to purchase a couple of Buy-It-Now items formerly had a Commit to Buy function.  Now the user is sent straight to Checkout.  During Checkout, the Request Total From Seller option appears to have disappeared.  These together did not allow me to request a combined shipping invoice from the seller.  A call to Ebay customer service was (unsurprisingly) not helpful.

Anyone else run into any Ebay weirdness lately?

Kingofpain89 wrote:  Pain in the ass.

Lol, well you are the king of pain

bing.com/videos/watch/video/insane-moto ... arelated_0

Insanity takes on many forms.

Gnat the Beggar wrote:bing.com/videos/watch/video/insane-moto ... arelated_0

Insanity takes on many forms.

Awesome video, that guy has some serious balls.  Kept thinking the vid would end with a POV closeup of the back of a Russian bus.

Nicola Adams - is a boxing Terminator!!!!!!  Woooo!!!!    

Hey everyone,

I am not sure if anyone else had read this article from Wired yet.

http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2012/08/ ... cking/all/

Best regards,
Ronald

Versimilitude wrote:Hi,

just in from athletics!

What an 800m!

And Bolt showboats again!

Cheers,
KAL

I have to say I was a sceptic a bit at the start of all this, but it is totally brilliant. And the atmosphere in the city is great. And I haven't even been to the Olympic park yet (friends who have are raving about it). The sun is shining, the tourists are out and about - and the medals are coming in